Lesley Swartz
Registered Psychotherapist, Clinical Supervisor
Lesley Swartz, Registered Psychotherapist, M.Ed. E.X.A.T. has been core teaching faculty at The CREATE institute since 2007 and is a Coordinator/Clinical Supervisor of The CREATE Clinic. She is a registered psychotherapist, clinical supervisor, expressive arts therapist, group facilitator, teacher, and consultant. She holds an undergraduate degree from Dalhousie University in International Development Studies and a Masters of Education from the Ontario Institute of Studies in Education (OISE/UT) where she focused on holistic and aesthetic education and creative community development. Lesley graduated from The CREATE Institute with a diploma in Expressive Arts Therapy, she trained for five years in Gestalt Psychotherapy at the Gestalt Institute of Toronto, and has a diploma in Developmental Somatic Psychotherapy from The Center for Somatic Studies in New York, NY.
Lesley has worked psychotherapeutically using the arts for over eighteen years in diverse communities such as Parkdale Activity Recreation Centre, Access Alliance Multicultural Health Center, The Family Enhancement Centre, and Homewood Health in Toronto. She also has a private psychotherapy practice in downtown Toronto where she provides both trauma informed clinical supervision and therapy to/with adult individuals, couples and families using an embodied, somatic, relational, arts based approach.
Credentials: Credentials: RP.(CRPO), Clinical Supervisor, M.Ed., E.X.A.T., Gestalt Therapist
Additional Training:
Areas of expertise:
As a therapist, Lesley works with adults and couples who are curious about life changes/transitions, creative blocks, abandonment, grief and loss, relationships and family dynamics, conflict navigation, dependency/co-dependency/independence, parental challenges, aging, body image, trauma wounds, depression/anxiety, attachment formations, existential inquiry, exploration of past, present and future life stories. In sessions, she attends to what is required and emergent in the moment, allowing those whom she is working with to imagine, explore and integrate new possibilities for change.
Lesley received supervisory training at The Gestalt Institute of Toronto in 2007 which focused on a relational, field oriented, somatic, here-and-now approach and she has been supervising ever since that time. She is actively part of a peer supervision consult group and attends clinical supervision herself to have ongoing clinical mentorship, support, and guidance in her supervisory and therapeutic work.
She has mainly worked as a supervisor with therapists and student therapists who lean into expressive arts, gestalt, relational, and/or somatically informed modalities. Her supervisory sessions are meant to support her supervisees with all the multilayers of their work as a therapist, and the supervisory space is one that is relational, collaborative, creative, resource based and exploratory.
Arts practice: Collage, Movement, Poetry, Multimodal
She spends creative time exploring the world with her friends and family and expanding her range of play through nature and art modalities that inspire her in the moment such as painting, collage, pottery, movement, and poetry.
Lesley has worked psychotherapeutically using the arts for over eighteen years in diverse communities such as Parkdale Activity Recreation Centre, Access Alliance Multicultural Health Center, The Family Enhancement Centre, and Homewood Health in Toronto. She also has a private psychotherapy practice in downtown Toronto where she provides both trauma informed clinical supervision and therapy to/with adult individuals, couples and families using an embodied, somatic, relational, arts based approach.
Credentials: Credentials: RP.(CRPO), Clinical Supervisor, M.Ed., E.X.A.T., Gestalt Therapist
Additional Training:
- Three Year CREATE Institute Diploma in Expressive Arts Therapy – The Create Institute
- Five Year Gestalt Psychotherapy training - Gestalt Institute of Toronto
- Development Somatic Movement Psychotherapy training -Center of Somatic Studies
- EFT Externship Couples training - ICEEFT
- Supervision Training - The Gestalt Institute of Toronto
- Morning Altars Teacher Training – Nature, Creativity, Ritual Healing Modality
- Internal Family Systems Model Foundations – Online Circle
- Course work in Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy – Center for Mindfulness Studies
- Integrative Somatic Trauma Therapy – The Embody Lab
- Core Somatic Practices – Hakomi Education Network
- Suicide Prevention Trainings – Canadian Mental Health Association Toronto
- Anti-Oppression Trainings – Toronto Hostel
- Anti-Racism Courses – Salem Debs
- CRPO (College of Registered Psychotherapists of Ontario #002666)
- OEATA (Ontario Expressive Arts Therapy Association)
- IEATA (International Expressive Arts Therapy Association)
- CAPT (Canadian Association for Psychodynamic Therapy)
Areas of expertise:
As a therapist, Lesley works with adults and couples who are curious about life changes/transitions, creative blocks, abandonment, grief and loss, relationships and family dynamics, conflict navigation, dependency/co-dependency/independence, parental challenges, aging, body image, trauma wounds, depression/anxiety, attachment formations, existential inquiry, exploration of past, present and future life stories. In sessions, she attends to what is required and emergent in the moment, allowing those whom she is working with to imagine, explore and integrate new possibilities for change.
Lesley received supervisory training at The Gestalt Institute of Toronto in 2007 which focused on a relational, field oriented, somatic, here-and-now approach and she has been supervising ever since that time. She is actively part of a peer supervision consult group and attends clinical supervision herself to have ongoing clinical mentorship, support, and guidance in her supervisory and therapeutic work.
She has mainly worked as a supervisor with therapists and student therapists who lean into expressive arts, gestalt, relational, and/or somatically informed modalities. Her supervisory sessions are meant to support her supervisees with all the multilayers of their work as a therapist, and the supervisory space is one that is relational, collaborative, creative, resource based and exploratory.
Arts practice: Collage, Movement, Poetry, Multimodal
She spends creative time exploring the world with her friends and family and expanding her range of play through nature and art modalities that inspire her in the moment such as painting, collage, pottery, movement, and poetry.
Location: Downtown Toronto (West)
Contact:
Contact:
- Email: [email protected]
- Tel: 416-536-3773
- Availability: Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays from 11am- 5 pm