Team

Sandra Collins, Registered Psychologist

Sandra has worked in a range of mental health services since the early 1990's. She graduated from the University of Calgary with her Ph.D. in Applied Psychology 1998. She then joined Athabasca University and lead the development of a distance graduate program in counselling, which has become one of the largest in Canada. She continues to work as an Associate Professor and the Director of the Graduate Centre for Applied Psychology at Athabasca University. She is co-editor / co-author of the book Culture-infused Counselling: Celebrating the Canadian Mosaic and focuses her writing and research in the areas of counsellor education, multicultural counselling, social justice, counselling women, program planning and evaluation, career development, and distance education.

Sandra brings her experience as a psychologist and educator, as well as her personal journey of learning to embrace her own chronic health challenges and finding ways to promote healing through both psychological and alternative health practices. She recognizes the connection between mind and body and the importance of bringing balance to all areas of one's life to promote overall well-being. She believes that personal counselling may compliment and enhance the success of other health promotion activities.

Sandra offers an opportunity for clients to explore their potential and to promote their overall well-being by examining the links between mental and physical health, increasing their ability to set and meet health related goals, clearing the way for growth and healing by addressing unresolved personal or interpersonal issues, tapping into their intuition, and capitalizing on their personal strengths and resources. She approaches counselling from a collaborative model, actively engaging clients in defining their own therapeutic goals and in negotiating appropriate strategies to reach those goals.