Founder & Registered Provisional Psychologist (Alberta) and Canadian Certified Counsellor (Outside of AB)

Teela is a Registered Provisional Psychologist through the College of Alberta Psychologists. Teela received her Doctorate (Psy.D) and completed her doctoral research at California Southern University. Her research consisted of a qualitative study utilizing semi-structured interviews with therapists' experiences supporting birth trauma, the fawn trauma response and mistreatment by providers. It is currently in the process of publication.

She is also excited to share that as of January 2026, she will be offering therapy online across Canada as a Canadian Certified Counsellor! When booking with Teela, if you are in Alberta, you will be billed as a Registered Provisional Psychologist. When you book with Teela outside of Alberta, in Canada, you will be billed as a Canadian Certified Counsellor.

Teela has been a therapist since 2005, supporting those with sexual assault, domestic violence, tragic losses and addiction concerns before becoming a registered provisional psychologist in 2021. For the last five years, Teela has specialized in birth trauma and identifies as a birth trauma survivor by way of an excessive postpartum hemorrhage that threatened her life, with another one to follow at six weeks postpartum due to a retained placenta.

Teela works from a trauma-informed lens and believes in client-centered therapy. She walks alongside her clients, and her approach aims to empower them while providing a warm, safe, and compassionate space. Teela has also acquired her Perinatal Mental Health training through Postpartum Support International and the Postpartum Stress Centre. She has also sought out additional training on fertility struggles, endometriosis, PCOS, pregnancy and infant loss.

Her primary modality is Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR); she is also trained in Advanced EMDR, which allows her to offer the Recent Events Protocol, Group EMDR, and Couples EMDR. She also completed additional EMDR training on Fertility and on Integrating Somatic Approaches in Trauma work.

However, she shares that her heart will always be with Narrative Therapy, which views “the problem is the problem, the person is not the problem.” The social justice lens that often appears in Teela's work is Narrative Therapy. Her other primary modality is Compassion-Focused Therapy, which she believes is central to working with trauma.

Teela is an international conference speaker and has offered workshops to providers in-person and online on incorporating trauma-informed care into their roles and systems. She is also a published author of chapters on birth trauma from “The Pain Mothers Must Never Expose” and “Gone Feral: The Undoing of Normative Feminity.”

Teela is also a Trauma-Informed Care Consultant, leading the way internationally in how we deliver trauma-informed care and in challenging what it has become and the direction it needs to go. She offers training, workshops, and presentations on this around the globe, and you can read testimonials from medical professionals who have attended them about how she uses a practical framework with innovative concepts and connections to drive home how we can change systems and improve care.

Teela offers support to those struggling with fertility, IUD trauma, pregnancy and infant loss, paternal mental health, endometriosis, PCOS, and perinatal mood and anxiety disorders. She also feels passionately about “helping the helper” and loves supporting nurses and doulas in managing the stress and demands for their lives. She offers individual therapy in person and online support for all of Alberta as well as professional consultation across the world.

You can follow her @theteaonbirthtrauma, where she has worked hard to build a safe community for over 45,000 birth trauma survivors.