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Childhood Trauma Therapy Specialists
Upon researching the backgrounds of each, we have determined that Saunia Ahmad, Anna Baranowsky, Lisa Bradford, Lana Depatie, and A.E. Pacheco are all highly-regarded therapists currently practicing in Toronto, Ontario whose work encompasses childhood trauma and depression. Below is an overview of each.
DR. SAUNIA AHMAD
- Dr. Saunia Ahmad specializes in a range of problem areas that include several types of childhood trauma and abuse as well as depression.
- She currently operates out of the Toronto Psychology Clinic, sits on the editorial board of the Journal of Marital and Family Therapy and conducts peer-review for that journal, Psycho-Oncology, and the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships.
- Dr. Ahmad received her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology at York University in Toronto and has worked at several clinics and hospitals in the Toronto area.
- She has published in several academic journals, including the Journal of Behavioral Medicine and the Journal of Marital and Family Therapy and was a contributing author to two books.
- Her primary academic focuses are coping with breast cancer and dealing with cultural issues within the family.
- Her academic papers are frequently cited by other scholars and she has been invited to speak at no less than ten national conferences since 2005.
- Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
- Emotion Focused Therapy (EFT)
- Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
- Mindfulness
- Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
- Family systems theory
- Contemporary psychodynamic
- Social constructivist and Narrative approaches
DR. ANNA BARANOWSKY
- Dr. Anna Baranowsky is the CEO of the Traumatology Institute in Toronto but also continues to work with trauma survivors and their families and friends.
- She is also a board member of the Academy of Traumatology.
- She is also a Board Certified Expert under the American Academy of Experts in Traumatic Stress "and is recognized by The National Center for Crisis Management."
- Dr. Baranowsky has authored numerous academic papers, one of which has been cited over two hundred times since publication in 1998, as well as the best-selling book, "Trauma Practice: Tools for Stabilization & Recovery" (2010, 2nd Ed., Baranowsky, Gentry and Schultz) and the audio series "Recovery Now TRAUMA."
DR. LISA BRADFORD
- Dr. Lisa Bradford, the founder of Dr. Lisa Bradford and Associates, has 15 years of clinical experience helping "people work through and resolve a wide variety of presenting problems and symptoms," including trauma and depression.
- She earned her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology and Neuroscience from Queen's University.
- She is proficient in several theoretical approaches to therapy, including "cognitive-behavioural, dialectical behavioural, psychodynamic, emotion-focused, mindfulness, and interpersonal therapy," and draws on the Gottman Method when working with couples.
- Dr. Bradford has notably advocated for using psychotherapy to treat depression rather than a selective serotonin-reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) antidepressant.
- She is the author of several papers published in journals such as Psychopharmacology and Clinical Electroencephalography, as well as an upcoming book, "Schizophrenia: Misunderstood and Mistreated."
DR. LANA DEPATIE
- Dr. Lana Depatie earned a Ph.D. in Psychology from McGill University and received her predoctoral training at Douglas Hospital, the Allan Memorial Institute, and the Montreal Children's Hospital.
- Today, Dr. Depatie works with both children and adults to overcome childhood trauma and the resulting depression.
- She has authored or co-authored several papers, including, "The association between adverse childhood experiences and adult traumatic brain injury/concussion: a scoping review," in 2018.
- She is a board member of the Boost Child & Youth Advocacy Center and was a speaker at the 24th Annual Meeting of the Canadian College of Neuropsychopharmacology and the 66th Annual Meeting of the Society of Biological Psychiatry.
DR. A.E. PACHECO
- Dr. Angel Enrique Pacheco, whose primary expertise is Humanistic Behavioral Clinical Psychology, is the founder of Dr. A. E. Pacheco & Associates.
- Originally from the Dominican Republic, he earned his Ph.D. from the California School of Professional Psychology in 1976.
- Dr. Pacheco was a founding member of the Bi-cultural Association of Spanish-Speaking Therapists and Advocates and served as an area coordinator for the International Council of Psychologists.
- He received both a Benito Juarez/Fulbright-Hays Fellowship and a fellowship from the Organization of American States.
- His specialties are "behavior therapy, behavioral medicine, and executive health and coaching," to treat an enormous range of problem areas, including childhood trauma and depression.
- He continues to conduct research and frequently publishes in academic journals. He also contributed a chapter to the book, "International Psychology: Views from Around the World."
RESEARCH STRATEGY
Both Psychology Today and the Ontario Psychological Association keep listings of psychologists and therapists which are searchable by city, issues treated, and so forth, making it the natural place to start. However, there are some weaknesses in both lists, at least from the perspective of the project criteria.
First, while entries frequently note when a particular therapist is not currently accepting patients, we found no instances where the entry specifically states that they currently have open slots in their schedule. We attempted to compensate for this by pulling the website for each therapist or practice to see whether it offered any clarification. While this helped us to eliminate several candidates, there remains the small possibility that a given therapist's schedule is full but that they have not yet updated their website to say so.
Second, neither site rates the therapists who advertise on its board, though Psychology Today does verify that their professionals have valid licenses in their fields and are "not subject to any license strictures preventing practice" and we presume a similar vetting process for the OPA. Lacking the ability to survey the psychiatric community to determine how well-respected each therapist is, we used Google's Scholar database to locate published academics and Google's books database to locate other published works. We also conducted a general sweep for the name of each to find awards, conference activity, and other details to substantiate their reputations.