BIOGRAPHY:
Dr Susan Gamache is a Registered Psychologist, Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist (AAMFT) and mediator in private practice in Vancouver. She is also an educator, writer, media consultant, Collaborative Family Law Divorce Coach, Child Specialist and Trainer. Susan has worked with individuals, couples, and families in general practice for 18 years. And has now extended her practice in Conflict Resolution to professional team building both within and outside the CP community.
Susan is a senior practitioner and trainer in Collaborative Practice and the original Mental Health co-chair of the Vancouver Collaborative Separation and Divorce Group. She has been working in Collaborative Practice since 1999, and has provided training since 2001. Susan has spoken extensively to groups and at conferences about Collaborative Practice, has written articles on it, and has been a passionate advocate about the strengths that an interdisciplinary collaborative group can offer separating couples.
Together with Nancy Cameron QC, she was course co-ordinator for the award winning Collaborative divorce training offered through British Columbia Continuing Legal Education, which won the international ACLEA award for Best Program of the year. They have co-taught 3 full term, Interdisciplinary Collaborative Practice courses in the Faculty of Law at the University of British Columbia. They have also conducted over 20 trainings in Interdisciplinary Collaborative Practice in Canada, the US and Europe.
Susan has also provided training with several other Collaborative Lawyers in the Canada, US and Europe, many times as the lead trainer, as well as has designed CP trainings to address specific needs of the local practice community, including focused work on the diversity of the practices of mental health professionals within the CP community and their working relationships with the Collaborative Lawyers. Susan has presented at networking forums for the International Academy of Collaborative Practice (IACP) in Vancouver, Boston, Atlanta and San Diego, Minneapolis as well as the First and Second European Conferences on Collaborative Practice in Vienna (2007) and Ireland (2008). Susan served a 3-year term on the board of the IACP (2004 – 2006).
Dr Gamache draws from a wide range of educational and therapeutic approaches, both individual and systemic, utilizing physical, emotional, cognitive, social and spiritual aspects of clients’ experience. Susan practices EFT, a take-home technique that can quickly relieve intense emotional states. She also incorporates approaches from the executive coaching domain.
In addition, she has worked on issues of marital transitions by doing research on family issues through divorce and remarriage, providing workshops for professionals and for the public, and writing numerous articles on divorce and remarriage. Susan has also worked with media such as television and radio to provide good information to the public in these areas. She is past faculty member with the Stepfamily Association of America Training Institute.
Most recently Dr Gamache has begun to consider how the co-therapy model of Divorce Coaching can influence the field of Couple therapy, providing not only a new approach for separating couples, but how this approach can be brought to couples to help them avoid separation.
Finally, Susan has extended her conflict resolution and group skills to professional relationships themselves. On the belief that the final frontier of CP is actually working within our professional relationships, Dr Gamache has now extended her conflict resolution skills to support CP teams and practice groups. She applies organizational development tools to this process to help professional teams and practice groups both within and outside the CP community, to spend less time struggling with each other and more time getting the job done (and enjoying each other). |
