At Sojourn Wellness Group, we truly operate from a team perspective and are often able to coordinate services to accommodate the entire family.
Tara has worked at Sojourn Wellness Group as a psychologist, supervisor, and case manager for 15 years. Tara is a dedicated psychologist and also enjoys teaching. She has instructed courses at Grant MacEwan University and the University of Alberta.
Tara is a certified Emotionally Focused Therapist and Supervisor. She is highly trained in EMDR, and the Circle of Security. Tara is an attachment focused therapist. Tara also touches on meaning focused and narrative approaches to therapy.
Tara’s goal is that clients will gain more awareness of their emotions and learn skills to build supportive relationships. She supports clients to facilitate the sharing and processing of emotions, and she is good at balancing the needs between partners in couples counselling, as well as helping to restore balance in families. Clients feel cared for and safe with Tara, regardless of age or gender, whether they are in family therapy, couple’s therapy, individual therapy, or supervision.
Tara enjoys spending her free time with her husband, and her two small children Elyana and Caedmon.
Marriage and Premarital Counselling
Tara has been in a supervisory role for over 10 years at Sojourn Wellness Group. Since 2015 Tara has been recognized by the College of Alberta Psychologists as meeting the criteria to be a supervisor for provisional psychologists. Tara loves to work alongside of her supervisees as they work toward their supervision goals.
Emotionally Focused Supervision is a special passion of Tara, not only is she a certified EFT supervisor, but she deeply enjoys the process of working with individuals as they specialize their therapy orientation. Tara is currently working on being certified as a Circle of Security Supervisor as well.
“Working towards being an emotionally focused supervisor is one of the richest experiences I have had. I deeply enjoy the experience of knitting EFT into my supervision, watching my supervisees grow and gain such a life transforming model. If you are interested in EFT I hope you will consider joining this amazing emotion movement, and please do reach out… I’d love to be a part of your journey.”
“We are all people like everyone else, sometimes we are good and sometimes we are bad. When we get stuck in negative thoughts or feelings about ourselves or other people we can ask for help to relearn that we are all people like everyone else…”
Ellis’ clients find him genuine, empathetic, personable, and a good listener. He is great with parents, adolescents, children, preschoolers, and adults.
Ellis has a history of working in a wide range of environments, including outreach programs, preschool, elementary and secondary schools, universities, and hospitals/community clinics. He also has experience consulting and collaborating with multidisciplinary teams, including social workers, psychiatrists, psychologists, occupational therapists, speech and language pathologists, nurses, school administrators, and teachers. Ellis helps clients discover, nurture and sustain solutions and adaptive thoughts and behaviors to manage their challenges.
Ellis has a diverse educational background that includes studies in school and clinical psychology, education, and ecological sciences. Ellis’ current graduate research with the University of Alberta is focused on bullying intervention in Alberta schools. This variety of knowledge allows Ellis to help clients to explore their situations from multiple perspectives and gain additional resources and hope. Ellis is married, and has a daughter. He enjoys strength training, trail and track running, photography, and technology.
All life is linked together in such a way that no part of the chain is unimportant. Frequently, upon the action of some of these minute beings depends
Karen has a varied educational background, including nursing, counselling and educational/developmental psychology. Karen has worked in health care, women’s health and mental health for over 20 years, with specialization in children’s mental health. Working with young children and their families, Karen has practiced as both a Psychologist and a nurse. Karen has also worked with women and children in crisis programs, supporting their health and mental health functioning.
Karen is compassionate about her work, and she aims for clients to feel supported and understood by her. Her warmth, care and insight help clients to sort through their presenting difficulties. Clients find themselves motivated and with direction. Karen enjoys coming along side of women and helping them in a safe professional environment.
Karen is married with two young adult children.
When we are no longer able to change a situation – we are challenged to change ourselves~ Viktor Frankl
Kim is an enthusiastic psychologist who provides clients with a safe, positive therapeutic experience. Kim works together with clients to create an environment in which individuals are empowered to achieve their goals and address challenging issues they may be facing.
Kim works with individuals, families, couples, teens and children (including infants and preschoolers). She is great at helping parents to strengthen their parenting skills and strives to work with each family in their unique situation.
Kim has experience and is eager to help individuals cope and heal from difficult experiences, traumas and abuse.
“If you just set people in motion, they’ll heal themselves.” ~ Gabrielle Roth
Alexza is enthusiastic, warm, empathetic and a caring listener. She is excellent with families, helping to restore communication when misunderstandings have occurred. Children, teens, and adults feel safe working on very difficult issues with the support of Alexza, as well, adults will feel confident in Alexza’s skill set and therapeutic judgement. Alexza supports clients to find solutions and alternative behaviours, thoughts, and emotional experiences.
Alexza previously worked at CASA where she gained experience with families, children, infants, and parents. Alexza continues to consult and work with noted infant psychiatrists to support families.
Alexza is married with two school-age children.
“I believe people are unique with unique concerns and this informs my approach to people. Each individual’s life experiences influence how we see and interpret the world.”
Megan adopts a strengths-based approach to actively empower clients to work towards their goals, learning to use their assets to catalyze positive change in areas of challenge. Megan’s therapeutic work is grounded in cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT); however, she believes that all interventions should be tailored to respect the unique needs of each client. Megan has also begun training in Emotion Focused Therapy.
Megan has a range of experience working with children, adolescents and adults in a variety of contexts, including individual and group-based therapy at CASA, Child, Adolescent and Family Services; individual and group-based intervention for students attending Edmonton Public mental health schools; individual therapy for in-need children enrolled in the Boston public and private school systems; social skills intervention to support children and adolescents to successfully navigate the intricacies of social communication; individual therapy in private practice at Sojourn Psychology. She also has experience consulting and collaborating with a multidisciplinary team, including social workers, psychiatrists, psychologists, nurses and teachers.
In Megan’s spare-time, she enjoys keeping active and spending time with family and friends. She is also in the process of completing her Doctorate in Psychology.
How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve their world – Anne Frank
Karl believes that good counselling helps individuals, couples and families move from a sense of feeling stuck and having limited choice to feeling free to create new ways of relating to self and others. Clients find Karl to be knowledgeable and well equipped to support their counselling needs.
Karl has a diverse educational background that includes: psychology, social work, and philosophy/theology. With this knowledge Karl helps clients to explore their situations from multiple perspectives and gain additional resources and hope.
Karl not only works with adults, but also with children and teens. Prior to practicing at Sojourn Wellness, Karl worked for Alberta Health Services and CASA as a mental health therapist for infants, children and adolescents. He also has worked as a family therapist and school social worker. Karl continues to do some contract work with CASA.
Karl is married and has two children. He enjoys rock climbing and yoga, and is striving to move beyond tolerating running.
The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change. – Carl Rogers
As a therapist, Amy aims to provide a safe and welcoming environment where clients can share their experiences, thoughts and emotions. Her clients appreciate her ability to be genuine, compassionate and non-judgmental in the therapeutic relationship. Amy works primarily from a person-centered and emotionally focused perspective. Her goal is to collaborate with and empower clients to discover their inner strengths in moving towards personal growth.
Amy is enthusiastic about the opportunity to work with individuals and couples facing a variety of challenges. Prior to her work at Sojourn, Amy provided crisis intervention at the Edmonton Distress Line as well as individual and group therapy at Momentum Walk-In Counselling.
Outside of therapy, Amy enjoys an active lifestyle, photography and spending time with friends and family.
Angela is a registered psychologist, with a master of counselling degree from Athabasca University. She has worked with families and individuals in a variety of settings, including community mental health clinics, secondary care programs, and residential programs.
Angela works from a client-centered approach where she strives to support clients as they discover their own sense of self. She believes that each client is the expert on their own lives, and she values the individuality of each person she encounters. She has an open and direct style that makes it easy for clients to connect with her. Angela is passionate about developing a strong practice, and is dedicated to the profession of psychology.
Family is important to Angela and she loves spending time with her husband, her daughter, and her extended family. Her favorite pass-time is playing board games.
There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside of you. — Maya Angelou
Stephanie provides psychological services from a client-centred, strength-based, and emotionally-focused approach. She encourages and empowers clients, believing that each person has a unique set of strengths and resources.
Stephanie utilizes emotionally focused therapy often, as well as cognitive behavioral therapy, narrative therapy, and solution focused therapy.
Core to Stephanie’s work is the belief that collaboration, respect, openness, and a trusting relationship are the keys to facilitating meaningful and lasting change. She is personable and strives to connect with her clients to facilitate comfort, safety, and readiness to explore whatever it is that brought them to therapy.
Stephanie has a wide range of experience. She has worked with children, adolescents, adults, and families in a variety of contexts, including individual and group settings. Stephanie has facilitated workshops on various crisis related topics such as suicide and domestic violence, as well as workshops focused on effective parenting strategies, and childhood mental health. She also has experience consulting within multidisciplinary settings, working with social workers, psychiatrists, psychologists, nurses and teachers. Stephanie also works as a Mental Health Consultant at CASA Child, Adolescent, and Family Mental Health services, providing consultative services to professionals and therapists in northeast Alberta.
When Stephanie has some spare time, she fills it with her family, close friends, Zumba, and music.
Providing care for: Men, Women, Teens, Children, Couples and Families.
“The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.” Carl Rogers
Clients find Lisa genuine and caring. She loves helping people reach their goals and make positive changes. She believes that everyone deserves to live an authentic and fulfilling life. Lisa has experience working with a variety of clients, including those with intellectual disabilities, autism and Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder. For several years Lisa has worked as a psychologist with Alberta Health Services, in the mental health hospital.
Outside of work Lisa enjoys traveling and spending time with family and friends.
Treatment Focus:
From the moment of birth, each of us embarks upon our own unique life journey. Inevitably, life presents bumps, roadblocks and detours. Loretta’s nonjudgmental, compassionate and skilled approach helps clients navigate these challenges by empowering them to build and use resiliency skills and to make thoughtful choices rather than simply reacting to events in their lives. It is Loretta’s privilege to meet with clients exactly where they are in their lives in order to support them in discovering paths to how they want to be.
Developing healthy Interpersonal relationships has been a primary focus for Loretta throughout her 30 + years of clinical work. As such, she looks at the various “interpersonal systems” that impact and are impacted by her clients. She enjoys working with individuals, couples and families. Loretta has honed her therapeutic skills by providing clinical direction and services to residential treatment settings and to mental health clinics. Currently, she is counselling students at a post-secondary institute. Committed to best practice and evidence-based therapies, she engages in numerous continuous education opportunities.
“’Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” – Viktor E. Frankl
Vanessa believes that each one of us holds the potential to cope with life’s challenges; however, sometimes we need help discovering our inner strengths and resiliency. With her help, you can gain unique insight and learn effective strategies to increase your feelings of self-worth and attain a meaningful life.
Vanessa provides a safe space for individuals to explore their emotions and work through their issues at a pace that they are comfortable with. She works from a person-centered approach, allowing people to feel heard, understood, and validated. Depending on your goals, she may also integrate aspects of Mindfulness, Cognitive Behavioural (CBT), Emotionally Focused (EFT), Dialectical Behaviour (DBT), or Solution-Focused Therapy. Her overall approach is grounded in mutual trust, non-judgment, respect for diversity, and acceptance of each person’s experiences.
Prior to her role at Sojourn, Vanessa has worked in an intensive outpatient clinic providing individual and group therapy to people struggling with mental health, addictions, and trauma. She also has experience working with children and families at CASA, Child, Adolescent, and Family Services, and The Family Centre
In her spare time, Vanessa enjoys traveling, exploring nature, and spending time with family, friends, and her dogs, Muffin and Bronx.
Member of the following professional associations:
Psychologists’ Association of Alberta (PAA)
College of Alberta Psychologists (CAP)
The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. – Lao Tzu
Want to find out which therapist is the best fit for you? Help us get to know you by filling out this confidential form and we will contact you with our recommendation.
At Sojourn Wellness Group, we truly operate from a team perspective and are often able to coordinate services to accommodate the entire family.
