Building trust in therapeutic relationships: using curiosity and exploration to support wellness

Myrlie Marcelin is a social worker, couple and family therapist and psychotherapist. Myrlie approaches counselling with an anti-oppressive and collaborative lens that recognizes the place of structural oppression in mental health challenges. Myrlie hopes her career will allow her to uplift BIPOC & LGBTQ+ communities by advocating for people whose voices have traditionally been ignored and overlooked, and also by showing clients that BIPOC mental health professionals exist and are working to reduce harm for the populations that they serve. 

Myrlie’s experience includes telephone counsellor, helpline listener, and individual, couple, and family therapy within private practice and university settings. Throughout her career, she hopes to be able to continue offering quality counselling to marginalized populations and ethnic communities. Working with a systemic and attachment-focused framework, she has supported clients with depression, anxiety disorders, interpersonal difficulties, emotional dysregulation, conjugal violence, and complex trauma. As a private practice clinician, Myrlie works towards empowering, supporting and critically exploring individuals, couples and families in a therapeutic capacity.

Gabriela Gomez is a healing practitioner, researcher and facilitator who holds a Master’s in Educational Psychology and is a certified Somatic Experiencing Practitioner. Her training has unfolded largely in community settings that center youth, emerging adults, LGBTQIA+ and BIPOC communities. She runs her own practice as a somatic counselor and consultant, providing individual counseling as well as research and facilitation services to a variety of community and educational institutions. She has particular expertise in the immigrant experience, harm reduction, intergenerational and developmental trauma, burnout, gender identity development and diverse sexuality. She is consistently amazed and inspired by the wisdom and intelligence of the body and nervous system, and deeply honoured to guide clients and communities in accessing their innate capacities to heal, regenerate and thrive. Find her at Gabrielagomez.ca.