Welcome. I am a psychoanalyst, clinical psychologist and author. After over forty-five years of professional practice, I am currently semi-retired and maintain a small private practice in downtown Toronto. My work as a clinical is based on the belief that we are all affected by unconscious processes of which we are not fully aware. My thinking has been largely influenced and informed by the teachings of Freud and Lacan. This means that I focus my attention on language and a particular way of listening to what is said in the therapeutic context of each session. My work also assumes an ethical approach that focuses on the singularity of each case.
My early beginnings began in child and adolescent psychology and shifted after ten years to work with adults. I have maintained a specialization in bereavement and psychosocial oncology due to my thirty-year involvement with Wellspring, a cancer centre providing psychosocial services to cancer patients and their families.
Over the past number of years, I have become increasingly interested in interdisciplinary work between psychoanalysis and the arts, as I feel there is much to be gained by a cross-fertilization of ideas. One of my particular interests is the way in which the psychoanalytic act intersects with that of the creative act. To this end, I have been working more specifically with emerging musicians on the intersection of music and mental health and offering presentations on this and related topics.
Throughout my years as a practicing clinician, I have also sustained a writing practice. Aside from numerous articles and presentations in my professional field, I am also a published book author. My most recent book Cello Notes: Music and the Urgency of Time (August 2024) is a memoir about my musical journey after taking up the cello in later life. My other books include The Power of Names: Uncovering the Mystery of What We are Called (Rowman & Littlefield, 2016) and The Sacred Body: A Therapist’s Journey, a memoir about my work with cancer patients, published by Stoddart in 2002.
With the deepening of my musical journey, my involvement with music-related activities has also expanded. I have become an ambassador for Concerts in Care, an organization that brings concerts and musical programs to senior residences across the province of Ontario. As well, I have been appointed Chair of the Board of Directors of The Hammer Band, an organization providing musical education to over a thousand children in underserviced areas in the greater metropolitan Toronto area.
I received my doctoral degree in Psychology from the University of Toronto (OISE) and completed my analytic formation in Lacanian psychoanalysis at Après-Coup Psychoanalytic Association in New York City. Today, I would say, in addition to my academic credentials and expertise, I am an aspiring cellist taking lessons and playing in an amateur string orchestra.
Photo credit: Pierre Gautreau