Our Core Principles
The name of Healing Paths Psychology evolved from an understanding that there are many paths to healing. Counselling is one such path with many paths diverging from its centre. Despite the many branches there are core principles shared by all.
Safety
Healing requires a space where you can experience feelings of safety. Safety is defined by you the client and there are different levels of feeling safe. By engaging in trauma-informed practices it is our goal to create a safe enough space for healing to occur.
Holistic Approach
We are all part of a web of family, community, cultural, spiritual/religious and societal systems that reach from the past and into the present. We need to understand how this can heal or hinder us. This principle also requires a willingness to work with other professionals from diverse areas of interests.
Our Self - The 8 Cs of IFS
As therapists we seek to bring our best Self to each session. Based on the principles of Internal Family Systems (IFS) our best Self will demonstrate compassion, curiosity, calm, clarity, courage, connectedness, confidence and creativity. By doing so we provide an invitation for our client's to do the same. This is where healing happens.
Ms. Katharine Heimbigner-Tenor
Registered Provisional Psychologist (#P7737)
Couples Counselling, Free Consultation, Individual Counselling / Psychology, Mental Health Workshops, Psychological Assessment, Safe and Sound Protocol (SSP)
Areas of Interest
Hello! I am Katharine. Are long term difficulties due to complex and traumatic experiences (often going back to childhood) continuing to make life challenging for you? Do you have an unspoken or unexplored grief that accompanies these experiences? Is your current relationship struggling? To add to this complexity are you neurodiverse (eg., ADHD, autism, gifted) or suspect you are? If you answered yes to one or more of these questions you are like many of my clients. I offer therapy for adults and couples and formal adult psychoeducational, neurodiversity and trauma assessments.
Approach to therapy
My approach to therapy is collaborative, person-centered, neurodiversity-affirming, trauma-informed and strengths-based. I seek to view each person and couple holistically (considering your biological-psychological-social-spiritual self) and work with you to discover your goals.
I typically works with clients using a parts approach (e.g. internal family systems), narrative therapy, mindfulness and meditation, dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT), cognitive behavioral therapy and Gottman’s Couples Therapy. So I am integrate a variety of approaches to find what works best for you! Additionally, with training in spirituality, I understands the supportive or traumatic role that spirituality and / or religion may play in your healing. As such I can incorporate this understanding into therapy if desired.
Couples
Couples that I work with bring their individual challenges plus communication challenges and sometimes a history of infidelity. When working with couples I primarily uses the Gottman Couples Therapy approach as I have completed Level 2 training in this approach.
A Life Time of Experience
With 30 years of marriage, adult children, and aging parents, I also appreciates the influence that past and present families have on our wellbeing.
I considers it an honour and privilege to accompany clients through the therapy journey.
Let's Start Your Journey Together
We're here to listen, always
Land Acknowledgement
Healing Paths Psychology is physically located on the land known as Mohkinstsis where the Bow River meets the Elbow River. This is the land in which we are all a part of Treaty 7. This is the traditional territory of the Niitsitapi or Blackfoot people: the Siksika, the Piikani, and the Kainai. As well as the land of the Tsuutina and the Stony Nakoda people which include the Chinkik, the Bearspaw and the Wesley First Nations. The City of Calgary is also home of the Metis Nation of Alberta.
As owner and operate of Healing Paths Psychology, Katharine would also like to acknowledge more broady what many Indigenous Peoples call Turtle Island. Like many settlers, Katharine's ancestors have lived and benefited from coast to coast since first arriving hundreds of years ago. Her ancestors arrived seeking safety and new beginnings in a place people had gathered for time immemorial. Her ancestors failed to respect that history, its People or the commitments made. History cannot be changed but it can be acknowledged, learned from and form a basis for finding a new and good path forward. For all who read this, you are invited to join Katharine in discovering and walking that path together and when we become lost and the path is obscured that we commit to finding that path again and again together.
