About Alana

I am a registered psychotherapist who is a level 3 trained internal family systems therapist and level 2 certified clinical trauma professional. I am based in Toronto and Pickering, Ontario and I work with adults by phone, video or in person. In addition to my mental health work, I volunteered at a local non-profit mental health organization on the front lines and on the board. For several years, I provided Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training and training in Suicide Alertness for Everyone. More recently, I have volunteered as a pancreatic cancer peer support volunteer with Wellspring Cancer Support Foundation. I also have a son in university who I adore.

For years, I practised as a lawyer at top tier law firms in Toronto, Ontario and London, England and in legal departments at financial institutions in London, England and New York, New York. In 2010, so that I could do more of what I loved in my day-to-day life, I began a series of changes that led to a shift from practising law to practising psychotherapy.

I earned a master of education in counselling psychology and a bachelor of arts degree at the University of Toronto as well as a bachelor of laws at Osgoode Hall Law School at York University. I also engage in ongoing professional development.

I completed post-graduate training in narrative therapy at The Hincks-Dellcrest Centre/Gail Appel Institute, suicide intervention and suicide alertness at LivingWorks Education and cybercounselling at the University of Toronto and Worldwide Therapy Online Inc., internal family systems skills and competencies with Derek Scott, IFS-informed EMDR (eye movement desensitization and reprocessing) with Bruce Hersey, IFS Levels 1, 2 and 3 with IFS Institute, Intimacy from the Inside Out with Toni-Herbine Blank, somatic IFS training with Susan McConnell, IFS in addictive processes with Cece Sykes, EMDR basic training approved by EMDR International Association, attachment-focussed EMDR with Laurel Parnell, Philip Manfield’s memory reconsolidation, the flash technique and EMDR, clinical applications of the polyvagal theory with Stephen Porges, PhD: trauma, attachment, self-regulation and emotions, polyvagal theory informed trauma assessment and interventions: an autonomic roadmap to safety, connection and healing with Deborah Dana, foundations of somatic therapy for trauma and somatic therapy to tame the survival response and heal implicit trauma memories with Abi Blakeslee, complex PTSD clinical workshop: a comprehensive approach to accurately assess and effectively treat clients with chronic, repeated and/or developmental trauma with Arielle Schwartz and embodying emotions with Raja Selvam. It is clear that I have a learning part! 

I offer an internal family systems-informed, compassionate, client-centred and empowering approach. If you have ever seen or heard of Inside Out or The Flight Attendant or if you have ever felt an inner conflict, you may already be familiar with the idea that each person has a lot of parts and sometimes those parts do not see eye to eye on how to help or what to do - but they all want to help in their own way. Internal family systems therapy helps you listen to the various parts of you that have something to say about whatever is going on within you and then move forward, somehow, in a way that can feel right to you. Collaborative curiosity will be vital and will allow us, together, to consider how your behaviours, emotions and thoughts connect so you make more space for your own Self in your own life. This will mean exploring skills you want to grow or skills you lost touch with. We will consider what life might look like if the problem that brought you to therapy were gone. Of course, we will also talk about where you want to go and how you might get there. And, when it makes sense, we may bring in another approach such as flash technique, somatic therapy or mindfulness, from time to time. 

“We can always take a different path, retrace our steps, go back, repeat a track, or stay on the same road for some time. At the beginning of the journey we are not sure where it will end, nor what will be discovered.” – Alice Morgan

Now and together, we can help you learn how to: (a) make space for you in your own life; (b) be your first but not only resource; (c) understand and help different parts of you - the guards, the wounded ones, the rescuers, the playful ones and more; (d) help you build capacity for relationships within you and with people around you; (e) see you are more than the parts of you that are shamed or shaming you or _____________ (fill in the blank!); (f) help you find new choices as you feel your compassion, connection, calm, curiosity, confidence, courage, creativity and clarity; and/or (g) unburden yourself.