Our Team
Training Organizers
Roxie Van Aller, MA, SEP, RCC-ACS
Training Organizer
Roxie brings 20 plus years’ experience to her role as Executive Director, and counsellor to Connect Counselling. Roxie is a Registered Clinical Counsellor, and an approved clinical supervisor with BCACC. She has a master’s degree in Counselling Psychology. Roxie uses her training in Self-Regulation to support clients in healing from trauma and a Gottman approach to her work with couples. Roxie is registered to provide counselling through the Crime Victim Assistance Program (CVAP) and ICBC.
Kim Wardman, MACP, RCC, SEP
Training Organizer
Kim is a Registered Clinical Counsellor. She is trained in Somatic Experiencing®, as well as Cognitive Behaviour Therapy, and Dialectical Behavioural Therapy. She works with individuals who may be stuck in the fight, flight and freeze response due to trauma and helps resolve this response so that individuals can experience resilience mentally, emotionally and physiologically. She utilizes Somatic Experiencing® in her practice most, to bring vitality back to individuals who are struggling with anything that is causing them to not feel like they are living life to the fullest. Her current practice is at Connect Counselling & Therapy Society.
Faculty
Dea Parsanishi, MEd, CCC
As a body psychotherapist who has worked with traumatized humans for 30 years and as a human impacted by trauma, I am passionate about teaching and learning how humans heal from trauma.
I live on the west coast of Vancouver Island where I work as a trauma therapist. Prior to that, I worked on the front lines with traumatized children, youth and adults.
A large portion of my clinical practice is with complex trauma, early developmental trauma, attachment and intergenerational trauma.
Currently, I teach SE™ in Canada, the US and Japan.
As the child of Japanese-Canadian and white-Canadian parents, I have lived and worked across culture all my life. As well, I have been blessed to work in a number of First Nations communities and was taught how communities survive multi-generational trauma, the importance of spirituality in healing, and the overlap between SE™ and some traditional ways of healing. These personal experiences inform my understanding of culture, race, racism and marginalization and impact how I support healing within these experiences.
I work from a body-oriented perspective, incorporating SE™, movement, touch and touch awareness in my practice. I am available for faculty consults and the occasional in-person personal session.
Also, vital parts of my life include my family, playing in the ocean and the rainforest and dancing with others.
Linda Stelte, MEd, CCC
Linda has been teaching SE™ internationally for the past 5 years, and within Canada for the past 8 years.
Her teaching of SE™ is informed in part by her 20 years in the human service profession where she has had the opportunity to apply Somatic Experiencing® in a variety of diverse settings and with people of various ages.
Linda has co-developed and implemented a trauma informed treatment unit for children and youth at a residential treatment center. In addition, Linda has had and continues to have the rich experience of working in a small First Nation community on Canada’s west coast. She also has a small private practice in her hometown of St.Albert, Alberta, Canada.
Linda has an interest in the impact of generational trauma, early trauma, attachment and how SE supports the healing of these experiences
Berns Galloway, MEd, CCC
From the academic perspective, Berns graduated from the University of Victoria with a Masters in Education in 1995. He received his SEP designation in 2003, and was appointed faculty with the Somatic Experiencing Institute in 2008.
From the experiential perspective, Berns has been working with people since 1980 when he started working with elementary school kids. While working in the public school systems, he challenged himself and kids to become more than they imaged by engaging in performance and theatrical endeavours. Here Berns directed, coached and encouraged others to go beyond what was possible. His own personal growth lead him to challenge his own limitations which lead to a career change from education to counselling/mental health/therapy – working with groups, couples and individuals.
From a personal perspective, Berns has been exploring identity and how that impacts our experiences. As a white cis-gender gay male, Berns is becoming more familiar with the privileges and limitations these identities have had over his life time. He is interested in how identity impacts our experience.
Berns brings his academic, experiential and personal perspectives to the SE trainings, facilitating a bottom-up inside-out process for leaning and discovery, in service of becoming an effective somatic oriented practitioner.