About Me

I graduated from McGill University, Faculty of Law and completed the bar exams in Ontario in the early 80s. After a 2-year stint at the Université de Moncton Law School in the Legal Translation and Legal Terminology Centre where I gained near-native fluency in French, I returned to Ontario and began practicing as a Family Law lawyer in Toronto.  After a few years and some gut-wrenching soul-searching, I realized that I would never be happy or relaxed in my professional life as a lawyer. And so, I began an earnest search for something more aligned with my nature and values.

I knew that I wanted to help people.  I wanted a way to use my mind and the analytical skills I learned as a lawyer in combination with my heart, intuition and deep-seated understanding of emotional and mental suffering.

After many twists, turns, false starts and some extraordinary serendipity, I landed on Counselling Psychology and I have never looked back.

I gradually withdrew from the practice of law and used the French-English translation skills I’d acquired as a bridge to a new career. An auspicious meeting led me to a team of brilliant Clinical Psychologists and their colleagues who were offering an intensive 3-year Psychotherapy Training Program. I signed up. I learned sound psychological principles infused with the spiritual ideas of love and forgiveness.  These teachers and mentors guided and challenged me to the mastery I needed to become a skilled Psychotherapist. Through this training, I achieved a Master's level designation as a Clinical Member of the Ontario Society of Psychotherapists, as it was then known.

A lifelong dream drew me to Cape Cod, MA in the late 90s. I co-founded a small consulting firm, The Consillium Group, and offered personal, professional, and organizational development services. I also became a Court Investigator for the Family Court system. I interviewed the parties and other stakeholders in child custody disputes and delivered my findings and recommendations to the presiding Judge.

In the early 2000s, I returned to Toronto and began working in the Problem Gambling Service at the prestigious Centre for Addiction and Mental Health.  I was the go-to therapist for problem gamblers driven by concurrent mental health issues and complex issues to resolve. I also became a Tele-counsellor for the Employee Assistance Program at  Morneau Shepell/Lifeworks (now Telus Health), a role I occupied for almost 20 years.

In 2009, I moved to New Brunswick for a quieter lifestyle and to be closer to my aging parents. I continued my Tele-counselling work and landed a gig as a Trainer/Facilitator on a joint project between Morneau Shepell and the Atlantic Lottery Corporation facilitating training sessions on Responsible Gambling Practices. I also began facilitating training sessions and workshops on wellness and mental health issues in the Organizational Health sector. And thus began my love for and foray into teaching and public speaking.

In the summer of 2018, I launched a Lecture and Q&A Series called Cultivate Peace of Mind: Untangle the Knots, Clear the Way. More about the series and the topics covered in the Events section of my website. I will continue to offer lectures and workshops on these and other topics in the months to come.

I am presently a member of the Canadian Professional Counsellors Association (CPCA) and hold the designation of Registered Professional Counsellor (RPC) and Master Practitioner of Counselling Psychology (MPCP). I work primarily with adults on a wide variety of issues, both deeply personal and workplace-related. Please see the Services section of my website for more information.

I became a therapist in large part to heal myself.

My parents were Holocaust survivors and frankly, I don’t remember not knowing about the Holocaust. I don’t remember not knowing that something horrible had happened to my parents and extended family. I had almost none. It was all very scary and confusing. My mother would occasionally speak of her experience in blurts and snippets. It was atrocious to listen to and impossible to comprehend. As a young child with no context, I felt very unsafe, anxious, and insecure. Looming constantly in the background was the fear of some terrible disaster striking at any moment out of nowhere. This fear haunted me well into my adulthood.

The family pain – unsung grief, unbearable loss, unspeakable violence – was shrouded in secrecy. The insanity and atrocities of the Holocaust were barely acknowledged, let alone discussed in the public domain in the early to mid-60s. Psychiatry was in its infancy; shame and stigma clung to the mere mention of mental illness.

Sulamit and Joseph’s Wedding
December 12, 1948

My mother and father, each in their fashion, suffered from what we now recognize as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. When my mother’s PTSD began to show up, no one knew what to do. Standard treatment at the time was drug cocktails, often with severe side effects, long hospitalizations away from family and sometimes brutal invasive interventions notwithstanding the profound misgivings of family members. Talk therapy was unheard of.

It was impossible to live in these circumstances without essentially inhaling and absorbing the trauma and, to some degree, making it my own.

There was no one to talk to about my pain and fear. Besides, what right did I have to complain about anything at all given what my parents had gone through??

On the outside, I was very privileged. I was highly functional and excelled in school. I had lots of friends, and I was involved in many extra-curricular activities.

On the inside, I was an anxious wreck – insecure, afraid, lonely, and ashamed. I worried constantly, longed for and envied what I perceived as ‘normal’ families and plotted my escape from the small town I was raised in into the anonymity of the big city.

In my late 20s, while I was studying for my Bar Exams and suffering from overwhelm and lethargy, I had my first introduction to therapy. The floodgates in my heart opened wide. For the first time in my life, I told the truth about my fear and pain and allowed someone to bear witness to my anguish. I began to experience relief from the pain and confusion and the freedom of clarity and peace of mind. My healing began at that moment and has continued ever since in a lifetime process. And so has my commitment to helping others do the same.