Program

Registration open from 7:30am - 4:30pm

Dr. Wanda Thomas Bernard

With over 50 years’ experience as a Social Worker in Nova Scotia, Senator Bernard will present on the persistent systemic barriers impacting the lives and mental health of African Nova Scotians. She will guide participants through meaningful self-reflection about their own counselling practice and bias. Through her own experience as a practicing frontline social worker, a federal policy maker and an African Nova Scotian, Senator Bernard prompts practitioners to consider the strengths and challenges of the community and inspires individual action and systemic change.

Bio

Senator Wanda Thomas Bernard is the first African Nova Scotian woman to be appointed to the Senate of Canada, representing the province of Nova Scotia. Senator Bernard is a proud resident of East Preston, where she lives with her daughter Candace, son-in-law David and grandsons Damon and Gavin. Senator Bernard champions issues impacting African Canadians and people living with disabilities. She is particularly invested in human rights, employment equity, and mental health. Through her involvement in community projects, her social work career, her time with Dalhousie School of Social Work, and now her work in the Senate, Senator Bernard has maintained a deep dedication to social justice and racial justice. Senator Bernard advocates for reparations for the historical and continued anti-Black racism impacting the lives of African Canadians.

Speakers: Toupey Luft, Marie Damgaard 

While counsellor educators and supervisors often describe their roles as rewarding, they also face significant demands and ethical responsibilities, leaving them vulnerable to compassion fatigue, burnout, and reduced compassion satisfaction. These risks are heightened by large caseloads, administrative pressures, and the emotional intensity of gatekeeping. The workshop will examine factors that contribute to compassion fatigue and explore strategies to enhance wellness and compassion satisfaction. Attention will be given to recognizing early warning signs of compassion fatigue, and to developing proactive practices that sustain vitality. Findings from a recent study with clinical supervisors revealed two central sources of fatigue; structural constraints within institutions, and challenges in providing feedback to trainees. At the same time, supervisors found meaning in mentoring, sharing wisdom, and recalling their own early career struggles—factors that enhanced compassion satisfaction.

Building on these findings, the workshop will have participants consider and implement strategies such as boundary-setting and embodied practices to regulate stress, restore balance, and sustain resilience in supervisory and educational roles.

Speaker: Patricia Morgan

“I believe that this neglected, wounded, inner child of the past is the major source of human misery.” - John Bradshaw

Your Inner Child symbolizes your emotional, creative, and unconscious self. From childhood, this part adapted to caregivers’ behaviours, shaping patterns that may foster self-love and safety—or trigger shame, anger, anxiety, or depression.

Through Inner Child and Parts Work, we can gently uncover clients’ unconscious patterns, thank them for their past service, and invite healthier ways of functioning. In this interactive workshop, you’ll be guided to connect with your Inner Child from your Best Wise Self and welcome the parts of your inner world with curiosity, care and compassion. 
We will: 
1.        Discover the Inner Child and the parts that interact with it.
2.        Be given simple strategies to reset old patterns.
3.        Experience a “love-in” that embraces all your parts.
4.        Explore ways to help your clients put their best selves as the guide to their experience.

Speakers: Jen Davies, Teresa Francis, Judith MacKinnon

Career and Work are consistent topics related to clients' distress: lacking work or career direction, navigating work relationships and conflicts, feeling overworked or underutilized, dealing with harassment or discrimination, and more. 

During this half-day session, facilitators will lead learners through the Career Counselling Guidelines (2023), using the lenses of a range of settings where psychotherapists and counsellors work, including private practice, public schools, and post-secondary education. Iinstructional methods will include facilitator-led demonstrations, case study analysis, and small-group role-playing. 

The development of these guidelines was sponsored by the CCPA, and they aim to provide clear and practical guidelines for the integration of work-related contexts into general counselling and psychotherapy practice.

Learning Outcomes: 
* Develop confidence in hosting career and work-related conversations with clients
* Identify and apply the how-to strategies embedded in the Career Counselling Guidelines
* Gain awareness of resources related to skills development in career counselling theories and methods

Speaker: Brenda Besjarlais

This session/workshop will provide an opportunity to reflect on Indigenous perspective of the whole person. What does Spirit mean from Indigenous world view. How can we implement this perspective into practice when working with Indigenous people who follow the Indigenous way of knowing? What does connect to your own spirit mean? This workshop will provide an opportunity to interact and ask questions about this topic. Enhance your skills when working with Indigenous people, and may experience this perspective for yourself as a participant.

Speakers: Eileen Bona, Susan McIntosh

This will be a joint session on animal assisted therapy. Featuring a session on Working with Animals in Professional Practice - Trainings, Ethics, Welfare. How do you become qualified? This session will speak to all the parts necessary for safe and ethical practice in animal assisted therapy. It will outline what to look for in training programs to ensure  best practice and to fulfill your scope of practice as a CCC working with animals as a therapeutic medium. It will introduce a new resource that details the pieces that are important to know and learn as a new AAT practitioner.

The second half will focus on A horse is so much more than a mirror: Applying insights from neuroscience, experience, and the wisdom of nature to enhance safety and effectiveness in equine and animal assisted approaches. As animal-assisted approaches continue to grow in popularity, important questions arise:

•        Are these practices ethical, effective and physically and emotionally safe for all involved - including the animals?
•        Are they evidence based, or shaped by assumptions and mis-information?

Drawing on a wide body of research including from attachment theory, ethology, equine and human neuroscience, and from over 25 years of hands-on experience, this session offers a comprehensive look at the foundations of best practice in animal-assisted work. We will evaluate popular claims in the field to navigate the complex terrain between anthropomorphism and anthropodenial.

Participants will explore practical considerations to enhance the physical and emotional safety, efficacy, and relational integrity of including animals in their work—for clients, practitioners, and animal partners alike.

While the primary focus is on working with equines, the principles discussed are widely applicable across multiple species and modalities.

Whether you’re seeking to make informed referrals, develop or expand your own practice, or explore training and certification pathways, this session will help you recognize what truly distinguishes ethical and evidence-informed animal-assisted interventions.

Speakers: Stephanie Tramontozzi, Korrenne Jensen, Dr. Janet Payne, Maria Cristina Snook

Speaker: Dr. Sarah Springer

The Professional is Personal: Cultivating Courageous Connections in Service of Wellness for All will offer participants with an opportunity to engage with Dr. Brené Brown’s Daring Greatly™ Curriculum. This presentation will include a workbook and themes associated with wholehearted school counselor practice, shame-resilience strategies, boundary setting, wellness practices, self-compassion, operationalizing trust, and cultivating empathic relationships.  Participants will have opportunities to learn tools that can help them and their students to show up authentically in relationships and deepen their own awareness.  

Lunch Included

Speaker: Anne Klein

This advanced-level seminar is for experienced practitioners seeking new ways to address treatment-resistant personality structures such as narcissism and passive dependency. Advanced Integrative Therapy (AIT) integrates psychodynamic, Jungian/transpersonal, and energy psychology into a modern approach for transforming entrenched adaptations.

Central to AIT is the 3-Step Transformation, which targets the initiating trauma (the presenting issue), the originating trauma (the early wounding that sets the pattern), and the connecting trauma (the link that sustains defences and symptoms). Resolving these layers enables rigid structures to become more flexible, creating space for authentic connections and greater flexibility. This reframes personality pathology not as a fixed deficit, but as a trauma-driven adaptation that can be healed through precise somatic and energy-based interventions.

Participants will learn how to conceptualize narcissistic and passive-dependent patterns through the AIT framework, observe a live demonstration, and practice guided elements of the method. Attendees will leave with a clinically sophisticated, practical tool for working with complex presentations-an intervention that expands therapeutic possibilities and offers hope for lasting transformation.

Speaker: Daniel Blondin

Comment un travailleur harcelé par un supérieur peut-il le faire cesser d’exercer ses conduites néfastes tout en préservant son emploi ? Les résultats d’une recherche en théorisation ancrée montrent que des travailleurs harcelés sont parvenus à faire cesser les conduites préjudiciables qu’ils subissaient de leur supérieur tout en préservant leur emploi. Les résultats sont obtenus chez des sujets démontrant d’une manière préalable une capacité de résilience. De ces résultats découle un processus dit de discréditation sociale qui permet à des employés victimisés de contrer efficacement les conduites de harcèlement provenant d’un supérieur immédiat, et ce, tout en préservant leur autonomie professionnelle et leur capacité de réciprocité sociale en milieu de travail. L'exposé de cette présentation discute ces résultats d’une manière systémique et organisatinnelles. La question qui sera au centre de l'exposé est : Comment ces stratégies adaptatives résilientes sont-elles parvenues à faire cesser le harcèlement d’un supérieur, et ce, tout en permettant à des travailleurs harcelés par un supérieur de préserver leur emploi? 

Speaker: Roma Kozinska

As students navigate an increasingly complex and rapidly evolving world of work, traditional career counselling models often fall short in equipping them with the adaptive thinking and resilience required for long-term success. This session introduces a dual-layered framework that blends AI- driven career exploration tools with Growth Mindset training, reshaping how students perceive their potential and navigate future career paths.

At the heart of this approach is the belief that students must not only understand what career paths are available but also believe in their ability to grow into them. AI-driven tools can provide students with personalized career suggestions based on their interests, strengths, competencies and emerging labour-market trends.

This session will explore:

• How AI platforms can personalize career guidance by analyzing students’ competencies, learning styles, and aspirations.
• Practical methods for embedding Growth Mindset interventions (e.g., reflective journaling, failure reappraisal, growth-focused goal setting) into career education.
• Case examples demonstrating how integrating mindset development with AI guidance improves students’ confidence, adaptability, and decision-making.

Speakers: Hailea Williams

In this session, Hailea Williams shares insights from her thesis, Developing Through Connection: Counselling Experiences and Relational Identity of Canadian Polyamorous Clients, alongside their work developing and co-facilitating Constellations, an 8-week closed mental health group for consensually non-monogamous (CNM) individuals. Two streams of the group were offered: one for 2SLGBTQQIA+ participants and one open to all CNM clients. This presentation explores therapeutic applications of both the research and the support group, with opportunities for attendees to engage in scenario-based discussions and apply their learning to counselling practice.

Speakers: Dr. Michael Sorsdahl , Dr. Roberta Borgen, Dr. Bill Borgen

Ethics is the cornerstone of professional counselling and psychotherapy. Although codes of ethics and standards of practice provide essential guidance, they are only the starting point. True ethical competence develops through applying these principles in complex, real-world situations where answers are not always clear. This interactive workshop emphasizes the practical application of ethical decision-making. Through group discussion and case vignettes drawn from Ethics in a Canadian Counselling and Psychotherapy Context, participants will actively engage with ethical frameworks, test their reasoning, and explore multiple perspectives. The session, led by the textbook’s three editors, invites both new and experienced practitioners to deepen their confidence in navigating dilemmas, building practical skills that extend beyond theory. Participants will leave with an enhanced ability to integrate ethical codes and decision-making models into their daily work, supporting thoughtful, responsive, and ethical practice in a changing professional landscape.

Speakers: Bailey Carter, Lorelei Dietz, Rachel Norris, Yasmin Kawar

This presentation will provide attendees with introductory information on the four primary Creative Arts Therapies modalities, with an experiential of the modalities in a group setting. The associations and governing bodies of music, drama, art, and dance & movement therapies will be introduced, as well as an overview of what types of clients could benefit most from each modality. A brief quizlet will guide attendees in choosing their own Creative Arts Therapy adventure. Attendees will then be grouped based on quiz results to engage in intervention examples from either art therapy, music therapy, drama therapy, or dance & movement therapy. A discussion will follow with opportunities for participants to share reflections from their experiences and how they may perceive each modality benefiting certain types of clients. 

Speaker: Dr. Sarah Springer

The Professional is Personal: Cultivating Courageous Connections in Service of Wellness for All will offer participants with an opportunity to engage with Dr. Brené Brown’s Daring Greatly™ Curriculum. This presentation will include a workbook and themes associated with wholehearted school counselor practice, shame-resilience strategies, boundary setting, wellness practices, self-compassion, operationalizing trust, and cultivating empathic relationships.  Participants will have opportunities to learn tools that can help them and their students to show up authentically in relationships and deepen their own awareness.

Speakers: Dr. Brenda Haggett, Marina Kelton

This workshop will explore what it means to be a TI Supervisor. We will introduce the principles and practices of TI care and expand on how they support clinicians working with clients who have a trauma history. We will define trauma and explore the impact of working with indirect trauma on the counsellor. We will introduce the audience to methods and strategies on how to transform their supervisory work to include trauma-informed care as foundational to effective supervisory practice. We will briefly explore the pathway for supervisees and organizations to become trauma-informed. We will also explore how the CCPA Code of Ethics and Standards of Practice can be engaged to support a trauma-informed supervisory relationship. This includes how to incorporate the TI principles into the supervisor’s disclosure statement. We will explore some assessments to support the counsellor’s capacity and competence to practice their work with clients through a TI lens. To give this work some context, we will provide some clinical case vignettes that highlight opportunities to incorporate TI practices. To make this practical, we will utilize case vignettes in breakout groups, applying the knowledge gained in the presentation. We will engage in Q&A and provide resources for self-directed learning.

Speaker: Judy Gillis

Dementia is a cruel disease that takes our loved ones "a piece at a time." In this session, Judy will describe the needs of people diagnosed with dementia (of any kind), as well as the needs of the people who care for them, especially the family. This presentation is an adaptation of one given at the Alzheimer's Society conference on September 16, 2025, and aired on local cable TV in January 2026. Judy talks about the realities of losing autonomy, ability, and memory for the person with dementia, as well as the most common emotions of those who are primary caregivers and family members. She takes these realities and weaves them into helpful strategies to guide practitioners as they help those who are living through this process, with a goal of finding grace and joy in the journey.

Speaker: Tim Brodie

Gremlin-Taming® is a simple yet profound method for recognizing and quieting the inner voice of self-doubt, criticism, and sabotage. In this interactive workshop, participants will explore three core elements of the model: the role of pleasure in restoring balance, the Whole Person Diagram as a tool for perspective, and a guided meditation designed to reconnect with the Authentic Self.

Grounded in decades of clinical practice and brought forward by Rick Carson’s seminal work Taming Your Gremlin, this session translates timeless principles into tools that counsellors can immediately use in their own practice and in their personal lives. Participants will gain practical skills for helping clients separate from unhelpful mental chatter, rediscover joy, and make choices aligned with their values.

The approach has been successfully shared with military, police, and community groups facing high-stress environments, and its relevance continues to grow in a counselling landscape marked by burnout, moral injury, and disconnection. Whether you are new to Gremlin-Taming® or revisiting it with fresh eyes, this workshop offers an engaging, hands-on introduction to a model that helps restore clarity, connection, and resilience.

Speaker: Jason Jones, Danielle Whalen 

Counselling adolescents between the ages of 12 and 25 is a unique and wonderful opportunity.  It comes with specific challenges that do not always present when working with adults.  Some common topics to navigate include mandated clients, resistance, trust and safety, cognitive capacity, self-awareness, parent navigation, advocacy, confidentiality, ethics, and multiple relationships.

This session looks to share and discuss lived experiences and best practices gained from Jason Jones as he has worked with this population for over 15 years in multiple capacities.  Jason has worked in various settings with adolescents ranging from residential, education, and vocational capacities.  He is now the Learning and Training Manager at Atlantic Wellness supervising 9 practicum intern students as they complete their Masters Degree in Counselling Psychology.  

Atlantic Wellness is a not-for-profit organization in New Brunswick offering free counselling to adolescents between the ages of 12 and 25.  They have been working with this population for 15 years and they are well-established as a leader in youth mental health in the Province of New Brunswick.  Atlantic Wellness delivered over 5000 of direct individual counselling hours to adolescents last year.

Speaker: Kristen Klassen

LEGO® bricks are a staple in many child and play therapists’ offices. However, although many clinicians see the value of using a tool that children naturally gravitate to and engage with, they struggle to integrate LEGO® in a therapeutically valuable way. The available literature to date is of limited benefit; most approaches are prescriptive and directive (such as LEGO-based clubs, which focus on the “rules” of social relationships) and do not necessarily align with the practitioner’s goals, natural approach, or theoretical orientation. 

This presentation will provide the theoretical foundations for using LEGO® as a projective and expressive technique, and discuss some of the practical aspects of the approach, including how it varies based on the age and diversity of the participants. Hopefully, this presentation will help to operationalize the counsellor's thinking, decision-making, and actions in creating the therapeutic process and space across groups, couples, individuals, and those with various social-emotional needs. 

Speakers: Meredith Henry, Dani Kerr

Meredith Henry:

The 3 A’s to Change: A Practical Framework for Connection and Growth in Counselling

Therapists often feel pressure to “do more” — more techniques, more certifications, more interventions — yet real change emerges when we understand where clients are in the process. This session introduces the 3 A’s to Change: Awareness, Acceptance, and Action, a flexible, integrative framework that helps therapists strengthen their presence, build therapeutic confidence, and support authentic client growth. Through discussion, reflection, and practical examples across modalities, participants will leave with tools to identify where clients are stuck and foster meaningful, sustainable change.

Dani Kerr:

Challenging the Narrative: An Emerging AuDHD Therapist’s Ethical Perspective on Cancellation Fees

Emerging therapists are often told they need cancellation policies to protect their income and model professionalism. As emerging therapists, we are often assumed to be navigating imposter syndrome, still learning our value, and struggling to set firm boundaries. But what if the absence of cancellation fees isn’t about inexperience at all? Led by an emerging AuDHD therapist, and grounded in existential, relational, and process-oriented frameworks, participants will be guided to unpack the tension between protecting therapist livelihood and protecting the alliance. This session invites both emerging and seasoned therapists alike to reconsider narratives around cancellation fees. Rather than prescribing the “right” policy, it will offer a fresh perspective and reflective space to examine ethical principles, risks, and relational impacts embedded in these policies that implicitly shape the therapeutic alliance, perception of authenticity, and relational safety. Participants will leave with a deeper understanding of considerations when crafting cancellation policies and gain greater confidence in designing policies that reflect their own clinical values that support both therapist sustainability and relational trust.

Speakers: Michele Maurer and Jillian Bagan

Beyond Words brings together two presentations that position art and play as responses to moments where typical approaches to care have been insufficient. Both presentations ask a shared question: how do we provide and ask for care when words come up short? Applicable to diverse practice settings, discover how, through creative expression, individuals are invited to explore and communicate experiences that are difficult to put into words. Learn more about how art and play support greater access to care, understanding, and connection.

Jillian's Session: RISE: Exploring Experiences of Gender-Based Violence with 2S/LGBTQIA+ Communities through Art

Reach Into Self Expression (RISE) is part of a research project led in collaboration with the Community-Based Research Centre (CBRC) and Health Initiative for Men (HIM), focused on understanding 2S/LGBTQIA+ people’s experiences with gender-based violence (GBV) and related services. While these communities face higher risks of GBV, their unique experiences and barriers to support remain under-explored. This project centres survivors’ voices through art-based exploration, highlighting their experiences, needs, and hopes for change.

In this session, findings from the art-based research will be shared, offering insights into how GBV is understood and experienced within 2S/LGBTQIA+ communities. This creative process invites dialogue, connection, and consideration of how art can serve as a tool for resilience and collective understanding.This presentation is informed by the collaborative efforts of non-presenting co-authors: Jaylene McRae, 2S Research Coordinator, CBRC; Evan Matchett-Wong, Program Director, HIM; Mattie Walker, Postdoctoral Fellow, CBRC/UofVic/UNBC; and Nathan Lachowsky, Research Director, CBRC/UofVic/UNBC.

Michele's Session: Couples Who Play Together Stay Together

What does play have to do with couples? The short answer is more than what most people would ever have imagined. A longer answer  has to do with play being discovered as sharing the attributes of rest. And REST is the answer to most everything that ails us, including stress, wounds, alarm, frustration, oppositionality, and even immaturity. Playfulness is even a primary indicator of emotional health and well-being. Based on the work of Dr. Gordon Neufeld, and the emerging science of play, Michele will elaborate on the ways play supports couples to engage each other, hold onto each other, and bridge troubled waters, particularly when words fail to do so. To lose our playfulness with each other can be devastating for a couple. On the other hand, there is a growing body of evidence that would suggest that couples who play together are more likely to stay together. Come find out why.

Participants will be introduced to new findings on the properties and importance of true play for couples, inviting play with couples, how play takes care of typical emotions in couples and how play helps sustain couple relationships through troubling times.

Joel Dickinson

Abstract

Before my interview for a tenure-track position, two mentors offered well-intentioned advice: don’t come out, and if you mention your child, reassure them you aren’t planning to have more. Within minutes of the interview beginning, I was asked what my husband did for a living. When I replied that my wife was a teacher, there was an uncomfortable silence. Despite that moment—and perhaps because of what followed—I was offered the position.

That early experience marked the beginning of a career in which my identity could never be separated from my leadership. As a lesbian married to a Black woman with a disability, and as the parent of a Black son, my presence in academic spaces has often come with an unspoken “equity tax.” Yet those same lived experiences have profoundly shaped how I understand power, belonging, and responsibility—and ultimately how I lead.

In this keynote, I explore how navigating intersecting identities has informed my research on stereotypes and implicit bias, and how scholarship and lived experience continually inform one another. Drawing on both, I will illustrate how bias shows up in everyday decisions, governance structures, and workplace cultures—often unintentionally, but with real consequences.

I conclude by offering practical strategies for recognizing and responding to implicit bias when it occurs, repairing harm when mistakes are made, and intentionally building more inclusive and humane workplaces. This talk is both a personal narrative and a call to action: to move beyond awareness toward leadership that is grounded in empathy, accountability, and equity.

Bio

Dr. Joël Dickinson was appointed President and Vice-Chancellor of Mount Saint Vincent University (MSVU) on July 1, 2022. Before joining MSVU, Dr. Dickinson was Dean of the Faculty of Arts at Laurentian University and also held the positions of Acting Associate Vice-President of Teaching and Learning (2020-2021), and Chair of the university’s Department of Psychology.

Throughout her career, she has been focused on the impacts of decisions on students, as well as meaningful collaboration with faculty and staff colleagues. Across the many professional and volunteer roles she has held, she models inclusive leadership and a steadfast commitment to removing barriers to full participation in the university community by all. Dr. Dickinson has fostered meaningful truth and reconciliation efforts at MSVU, and furthered the university’s commitment to equity, diversity, inclusion, and accessibility.

Dr. Dickinson has taught at the University of New Brunswick and Mount Allison University. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and PhD in Psychology from the University of New Brunswick.

She is a full professor of Psychology with a research focus in cognitive processing during schema violations. Before making the transition to administration, she enjoyed a successful teaching and research career, winning the Laurentian University Teaching Excellence award in 2016. She was also the Principal Investigator of the Cognitive Health Research Laboratory, a CFI funded lab.

Dr. Dickinson is an active community volunteer and has worked with many non-profit organizations and advisory boards. She is currently a member of the boards of Research Nova Scotia and 211 Nova Scotia, a member of the Nova Scotia Advisory Council on the Status of Women, chair of Universities Canada’s Governance Committee, and co-chair of the Canada Research Chair’s Advisory Committee on Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Policy. Dr. Dickinson is active on Instagram – her handle is @PresD_MSVU.

Florence K

English summary

In this French-language keynote, Florence K shares reflections on mental health through the lens of creativity and lived experience, highlighting the value of dialogue, destigmatization, and access to psychological care.

Biographie

Artiste, animatrice à la radio de la CBC et Radio-Canada, et candidate au doctorat en psychologie à l’UQÀM (Psy.D/PhD)

Florence K est une musicienne et écrivaine passionnée, forte de plus de vingt ans d’expérience en tant que pianiste et chanteuse. Elle a reçu de nombreuses distinctions, dont deux Prix Félix (ADISQ) et plusieurs nominations aux Prix Juno, reconnaissant son talent exceptionnel à travers ses dix albums. En 2015, son poignant mémoire Buena Vida, qui raconte son parcours à travers la dépression, est devenu un best-seller, soulignant la nécessité cruciale d’ouvrir le dialogue sur la santé mentale. Ce livre a été suivi de Nueva Vida : Danser avec le trouble bipolaire (Libre Expression, 2021), enrichissant davantage le discours sur le bien-être mental.

Actuellement, Florence K est candidate au doctorat en psychologie clinique à l’UQÀM, où elle explore les liens complexes entre l’humeur, la créativité et le bien-être chez les artistes de la scène. En plus de ses recherches, elle est chargée de cours en psychopathologie à l’Université Téluq. Tout au long de son parcours académique, Florence a reçu de nombreuses distinctions, dont le Prix de la diplômée honoraire de l’Université TÉLUQ, un prix similaire du Département de communication de l’Université de Montréal et une bourse de recherche du Fonds de recherche du Québec. Elle a également obtenu des bourses de persévérance et d’engagement de l’Université de Montréal, ainsi qu’une bourse d’excellence des Fonds de l’Université du Québec. Plus récemment, elle a été honorée par le Prix Nouvelle génération de chercheurs de l’ACFAS et une bourse de recherche du Conseil de recherches en sciences humaines du Canada.

Engagée dans la déstigmatisation de la santé mentale et l’amélioration de l’accès aux soins psychologiques, Florence est une conférencière très demandée dans les secteurs communautaire, éducatif, corporatif et de la santé. Elle anime également l’émission hebdomadaire C’est Formidable! sur CBC Radio et CBC Music, ainsi qu’un segment hebdomadaire en psychologie dans Dessine-moi un matin sur Ici Radio-Canada Première. Son dernier album, Brésil mon amour, rend hommage au célèbre compositeur brésilien Antônio Carlos Jobim.

Speaker: Julie Desjardins

Nature offers a profound, yet often underestimated, path to healing. In this interactive session, Julie Desjardins delves into the Healing Powers of Nature for Mental Health, exploring the powerful Mind-Body-Nature connection. Backed by compelling research, she will highlight the specific psychological benefits of engaging with the natural world, showing how nature can act as a powerful "co-therapist" in our lives. You will discover practical and accessible ways to integrate nature into your daily routine.

The session isn't just a lecture; it's an experience. You’ll be guided through visualization activities, participate in reflection prompts, and learn to mindfully immerse yourself in nature. Leave with a deeper understanding of nature's therapeutic potential and concrete tools for your own mental well-being.

Speakers: Jacob Launder, Tricia Berry

This joint session on supporting our students will first feature Bridging Leadership and Wellness: Uniting Teams for Student Success School leaders and wellness professionals often share the same goals—supporting students’ growth and well-being—yet operate in silos that create confusion, duplication, or missed opportunities. This interactive session tells the story of how we transformed a middle school by building intentional bridges between administrators, counselors, social workers, and wellness teams.

Participants will explore practical structures such as joint leadership-wellness meetings, role clarity protocols, and collaborative data review systems that shifted our culture from fragmented support to a unified vision. The results included reduced discipline referrals, improved attendance, and stronger connections between staff and students.

You will leave with concrete tools: meeting templates, roadmap samples, and communication strategies that can be adapted to your context immediately. Whether you are a counselor, administrator, or mental health professional, you will learn how to align leadership and wellness teams to create a school environment where students feel safe, supported, and ready to thrive.

The second half will feature Hopeful Transitions: Supporting Student Well-Being and Future Readiness Through a Multi-Tiered System of  Support As students approach the critical transition from middle and high school to post-secondary life, they face unique academic, social, and emotional challenges. Hopeful Transitions is a multi-tiered system of support designed to strengthen mental health outcomes while equipping learners with the tools and confidence needed to thrive beyond graduation. Grounded in both school-based counselling practice and recent OECD research, this framework not only addresses immediate well-being but also demonstrates the potential to improve long-term life and career outcomes.

In this session, participants will:

Explore the structure and implementation of Hopeful Transitions in secondary school settings.

Learn how tiered supports can be leveraged to foster resilience, self-efficacy, and positive mental health during key transitional periods.

Connect current counselling practices with international evidence highlighting the impact of early interventions on lifelong success.

This session will offer practical strategies and a hopeful lens for school counsellors, mental health professionals, and educators who are working to support youth as they prepare for life’s next chapter.

Speakers: Anastasiia Puzyrina, Jacqueline Flowers

This joint session on rebuilding connection will first feature "Rebuilding Emotional Bonds: Conflict Transformation for Deeper Intimacy" Conflict is often viewed as a sign of relational breakdown, yet it can become a powerful entry point to deeper intimacy. This interactive session invites counsellors, psychotherapists, and educators to explore conflict as a transformational process rather than a problem to eliminate. Drawing on attachment theory and Emotionally Focused Therapy principles, trauma-informed and body-oriented practices, and multicultural insights from post-Soviet and Canadian contexts, we will examine how unresolved tension can be reframed into opportunities for emotional growth. Participants will learn evidence-based strategies for identifying underlying needs, shifting rigid narratives, and fostering non-verbal connections between partners. Through brief demonstrations, case examples, and guided discussion, we will explore techniques that integrate cognitive-behavioural, interpersonal, and somatic approaches to help couples rebuild trust and closeness. By the end of this session, attendees will be able to recognize conflict as a developmental stage of relational growth, apply culturally sensitive, body-informed interventions to de-escalate tension, and facilitate deeper emotional balance and resilience in relationships. 

The second half of this session will feature The Neurobiology of Relational Homeostasis: An Integrated Framework for Attachment and Conflict Resolution This session presents an advanced synthesis of Polyvagal Theory, Somatic Experiencing (SE), and Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) to address the neurobiological underpinnings of interpersonal conflict. Moving beyond cognitive-behavioral models, we examine attachment not merely as a psychological construct, but as a biological imperative regulated by the autonomic nervous system.

Attendees will explore how neuroception—the subconscious monitoring of environmental safety—triggers instantaneous shifts across the Polyvagal hierarchy, often manifesting as relational "protest" or "withdrawal" behaviors. We will analyze the reciprocal nature of co-dysregulation and the physiological mechanisms required to re-establish a ventral vagal state of social engagement.

Core Learning Objectives:

Mapping the Autonomic Landscape: Identify the neurobiological markers of sympathetic mobilization and dorsal vagal immobilization within the attachment dyad.

Somatic Stabilization: Integrate SE-informed techniques of titration and interoceptive tracking to expand the "window of tolerance" during high-arousal conflicts.

Neural Re-patterning: Utilize EFT-based interventions to transition from reactive defensive postures to primary emotional vulnerability, fostering the development of earned security.

This condensed 30 min masterclass offers a sophisticated toolkit for practitioners seeking to bridge the gap between neurophysiology and relational repair.

Speakers: Furkhan Dandia, Sara Louie Tehrani

In this join session on integrating spirituality into mental health will first feature The Practical Role of Spirituality in Mental Health Spirituality is increasingly recognized as a protective factor in mental health, offering resilience, meaning, and emotional grounding. Yet, many practitioners hesitate to integrate spirituality into therapy for fear of overstepping boundaries or lacking a practical framework. This workshop provides a hands-on approach to addressing spirituality in counselling and psychotherapy.

Grounded in both research evidence and clinical experience, participants will explore practical methods for engaging clients in spiritual dialogue without imposing their own beliefs. Key areas include conducting spiritual assessments, integrating mindfulness and prayer practices into sessions, addressing existential struggles, and supporting clients in finding meaning during crises. Special attention will be given to ethical considerations and how to honour diverse traditions while fostering inclusivity.

By the end, attendees will leave with concrete strategies and tools they can apply immediately in practice—helping clients harness spirituality as a source of strength, healing, and resilience in their mental health journey. 

The second half of the session will feature Beyond the Individual: Integrating Spirituality and Community into Counselling Spirituality and community are powerful yet often underutilized resources in counselling. While practice frequently emphasizes the individual, many clients also seek deeper forms of connection—to values, relationships, and purpose. This session presents a framework for integrating spirituality and community into counselling to enhance resilience, empowerment, and meaning.

Drawing on research in spiritually integrated psychotherapy, community psychology, and empowerment theory, the presentation highlights how values and meaning can serve as therapeutic anchors. The Bahá’í concept of the “twofold moral purpose” (personal growth and contribution to society) will be shared as one example of a universal framework linking individual development with collective well-being.

Case illustrations and practical strategies—such as values clarification, meaning-making practices, and community-oriented goals—will demonstrate accessible ways to enrich therapy. Participants will leave with tools for integrating spirituality and community into their work in culturally sensitive, inclusive ways, fostering empowerment and healing that extend beyond the individual.

Speaker: Tanya Surette

A feminist approach to supervision is an embodied way of being rather than a prescriptive list of processes or interventions. There are contradictions, however, to practicing as a feminist supervisor in the navigation of the at times conflicting needs of supervisee learning and empowerment, client care, and evaluative requirements. This presentation will provide a brief history of feminist approaches to counselling and supervision, and the different iterations and expansiveness of a feminist approach through the evolving phases of feminism. It will offer exploration into some guiding worldviews and priorities of feminist supervisors. It will also take a critical lens and explore the challenges of applying a feminist consciousness to supervision processes, as well as the power and strength in meeting supervisees steeped in curiosity, respect, and humility. The presentation will take up the application of a feminist approach to supervision expanding from pre-service, internship, candidacy, and beyond. Specific considerations to developmental needs of supervisees at various points in the supervisory process will be discussed and specific processes that can be drawn upon to centre an intentional and consistent feminist framework throughout the supervision lifespan. 

Speakers: Corrine Hendricken-Eldershaw, Linda Storm, Veronica Lofreeda

Private practice is never static—it evolves with changing regulations, client needs, and professional realities. This session invites practitioners to step into a conversation about the current state of private practice in Canada. Together, we will explore key shifts shaping the field, signals that point to emerging trends, and the surprises that challenge us to adapt in new ways.
Designed as both an update and an interactive dialogue, the session offers space for members to share insights, strengthen community, and leave with a clearer sense of direction. Whether you are newly in private practice or an established clinician, this is an opportunity to stay informed, connected, and ready for what lies ahead.

Speaker: Dr. Michael Sorsdahl

Publishing in professional journals can feel opaque and intimidating, yet it is a vital way to contribute to the advancement of counselling and psychotherapy in Canada. This interactive session introduces participants to the Canadian Journal of Counselling and Psychotherapy (CJCP);its role in the profession, its evolving vision, and how it is working to strengthen accessibility, timeliness, and scholarly impact.

Participants will gain a clear understanding of how manuscripts move through the CJCP review process, what editors and reviewers are looking for, and how to prepare a submission that is aligned with the journal’s standards and priorities. Practical guidance will be provided on common pitfalls, responding to reviewer feedback, and navigating revision decisions.

In addition to supporting prospective authors, this session will highlight meaningful ways to engage with the journal beyond submission. Participants will learn how to become peer reviewers, why this role is essential to maintaining scholarly integrity, and how reviewing can strengthen one’s own academic and professional development.

Whether you are a graduate student, practitioner, educator, or experienced author, this session will demystify the publication process and invite you into the CJCP community as both a contributor and collaborator.

Presenter:

Dr. Michael Sorsdahl is Editor-in-Chief of the Canadian Journal of Counselling and Psychotherapy, a registered psychologist, and counsellor educator. His work focuses on ethics, professional practice, and advancing accessible, practice-informed scholarship in counselling and psychotherapy.

Lunch Included

Speaker: Dr. Katayoon Osati

This advanced, experiential workshop teaches clinicians practical EFT interventions for couples at high risk of separation or divorce. Participants will learn to rapidly assess attachment injuries and separation risk, apply targeted EFT enactments and repair sequences, integrate trauma-informed stabilization, and ethically navigate separation or safety discussions. Using live demonstrations, role-plays, and structured debriefs, attendees will gain hands-on skills to manage high-intensity couple sessions and leave with practical tools, assessment checklists, and implementation strategies for their clinical practice.

Speakers: Blair Abbass, Jenny Kierstead

Healing through Mindfulness, Movement & Cognitive Therapy. Join Jenny Kierstead, somatic therapist, yoga teacher trainer, and educator, together with Blair Abbass, educator and counselling therapist with Nova Scotia’s new Mood and Anxiety initiative. Together, Jenny and Blair have designed a self-paced program and live workshop to provide practical, evidence-based tools that support health and healing. This is a sample of the material used in both our private practice and the Mood and Anxiety Disorder Therapy Program through the NS Government. In this workshop, participants will:

Learn the foundations of mindfulness, cognitive therapy, and gentle movement for healing and regulation. 

Explore accessible practices to manage thoughts, emotions, and body tension.

Receive a recorded practice to deepen integration at home or in professional settings. 

Whether you attend for personal growth or to enrich your professional work, this workshop offers a clear path toward balance, resilience, and wellbeing. Please wear comfortable clothing. 

Explore the self-paced program anytime here: A New Path Forward: https://yogainschools.ca/a-new-path-forward-mindfulness.

Speaker: Maram Khalif

Informed consent is a foundational ethic, yet its standard one-time model is ill-suited for therapy’s dynamic process. This session reveals how this static approach creates power imbalances where client dissent is mislabeled as “resistance,” leading to unmet repair and potential harm.

We introduce a bold framework to modernize practice: Dynamic Consent and Dissent Protocols. This provides the structure to balance validation with necessary, ethical collaboration. Crucially, this practice requires a foundation of mandatory communal supervision—the system that supports clinicians to navigate the complex ruptures that dissent unveils.

Learn practical language to empower clients to voice an “informed no” and transform ruptures into collaboration. Leave with actionable tools to transform your therapeutic alliances and prioritize genuine client autonomy.

Speakers: Elly Desson, Rebekkah Williams

In this joint session on understanding sexual trauma across contexts, it will first feature A Silent Trauma: Understanding and Addressing Sibling Sexual Abuse in Clinical Practice Sibling sexual abuse (SSA) is a silent but prevalent trauma that remains under-recognized and poorly understood. Practitioners often struggle to distinguish a child's developmentally typical sexual exploration from harmful behavior, which can delay intervention and intensify impacts on survivors and families. This session offers a concise, practice-oriented overview of SSA, grounded in current research and informed by clinical and lived perspectives. 

Participants will learn to identify indicators differentiating normative from harmful behaviors using a developmental continuum, and gain tools for assessment, safety planning, and disclosure support. The session also examines family dynamics where SSA has occurred, with attention to how minimization, secrecy, and stigma shape survivor experience and the therapeutic process. 

The presentation emphasizes phase-oriented, trauma-informed approaches for working with adult survivors, children, and families. Practical strategies, case vignettes, and psychoeducational tools will equip clinicians to intervene more effectively and compassionately. Attendees will leave with greater awareness, actionable frameworks, and language they can bring into practice to better support survivors and foster resilience within families and communities. 

The second half of the session will feature No Reflection: Externalized Self-Image in Survivors of Image-Based Sexual Exploitation - Impacts and Therapeutic Considerations The rise of technology-facilitated sexual exploitation has created a devastating unique situation for survivors: the externalization of their image through sexual photos or videos that are shared on-going in perpetuity, without consent. 

For victims of sexual exploitation involving forced image-based abuse, recording and distribution, the knowledge that recordings of their abuse exist “out in the world” beyond their control adds an extra layer of trauma to the sexual abuse itself. 

The digital recordings create a unique cycle of trauma in which survivors live with the knowledge that images of their sexual abuse, even as a child, will forever remain online for anyone to see. 

Because these images can be downloaded, traded, and redistributed, victims are subjected to continuous exploitation – a form of perpetual abuse wherein one’s victimization is renewed with each viewing - even at the intervention and policing level - along with the the knowledge that they are continuing to be commodified.

I examine how having one’s abuse recorded and distributed affects survivors’ self-image.  How being commodified, with or without compensation, impacts sense of self and psychological well-being. I will discuss therapeutic approaches, best practices, via interactive understanding.

Speakers: Yelena Birk, Ahlam Rahal, Marine Decaillet, Pavna Sodhi

Shannon Webb-Campbell

Have you ever whispered a prayer? Have you sat down with a cup of tea and journaled? Have you handwritten a letter to your younger self, or someone else? Have you expressed gratitude through language, or jotted down affirmations? These are forms of poetic medicine.

Poems are potent elixirs to help us feel, connect, remember and revision our individual and collective place in the world. Poetry is a natural medicine. As a queer Mi’kmaw poet who has experienced multi-generational trauma, grief, displacement and violence, poetry is a place of belonging. As the author of four books of poetry, including Re: Wild Her (Book*hug 2025), Lunar Tides (2022), I Am a Body of Land, edited by Lee Maracle (2019) and Still No Word (2015), recipient of Egale Canada’s OUT in Print Award, I have carved out a space for healing and revisioning through poetry.

Poems are beacons that can help guide us to experience the world new and familiar ways. As a natural medicinal strategy for wellbeing and mental health, poetry can help mental health professionals and their patients through poetic possibilities. Poetry saves lives. It is a pathway that roots in the body, connects the heart and sparks the mind to ignite our spirit. Poetry is a space where we can carve out a place where we belong on the page and in the world.

Bio

Dr. Shannon Webb-Campbell is of Mi’kmaq and settler heritage. She is a member of Flat Bay First Nation in Newfoundland and Labrador. Her previous books include Lunar Tides, I Am a Body of Land, and Still No Word, which received Egale Canada’s Out in Print Award. Her book, Re: Wild Her, is a form of Indigenous resurgence and pleasure through “poem spells” and offers a different prism with which to rewild ourselves.

Shannon holds a PhD from the University of New Brunswick in English-Creative Writing and is the editor of Muskrat Magazine. She is an Associate Professor in the Department of English at Lakehead University Orillia campus.