Stephanie Bozzer

CHILDREN

Stephanie is only one of two Certified Play Therapists in the Greater Edmonton Area. She has presented on train the therapist workshops, on radio and on television regarding her work with children and play therapy. Stephanie is comfortable working with children on a 1:1 basis. She also honours the critical relationship between children and their primary caregiver(s) (i.e. parent, grandparent, foster/adoptive parent, extended family member…) by regularly works with both the parent and child together in session. After all, the parent-child relationship is the singular most important bond in any persons life. Her skills in helping children and their parents learn to mutually listen, problem solve together, and overcome life’s daily and unexpected challenges is key to lifelong mental health. Stephanie has helped children deal with trauma (i.e. accident, medial illness/injury, abuse, neglect), school performance, peer interactions, behavioural issues, emotional difficulties, and parent-child relationship challenges.

TEENS

Stephanie’s truly enjoys working with teenage clients. Her clients often comment that ‘she gets it’. They feel that Stephanie is able to ‘speak my language’. Stephanie’s approach of mixing talk therapy, with hands on experiential work (i.e. music therapy, art therapy, clay therapy…) allows her to connect with teen clients in a way that many other clinicians can not. Her background in working with complex individuals means that she is comfortable working with teens who are facing multiple mental health, social, and historical challenges. She is calm in the face of anger outbursts, comforting when the tears come, and plain speaking. This style helps teens to trust her, and so be able to engage in work they might not feel ‘safe’ to do other places. Stephanie’s therapy work with teens is recognized in the community, and other therapists will refer clients to her on a regular basis.

ADULTS

Stephanie’s background in adult client work is primarily with individuals with complex issues. An individual is considered to have complex issues when they are are struggling with more than one diffiulty at a time. For example, Stephanie has significant experience helping client’s overcome current or historical abuse (i.e. physical, sexual and/or emotional) while they are dealing with active addictions (i.e. drugs, alcohol, internet, gambling, gaming…). Other complex clients may be individuals who are try to handle mood swings (depression, anxiety, bi-polar..), while also facing housing concerns, food scarcity, or current domestic abuse.

Stephanie is well established as an expert in assisting clients work through grief and loss, to overcome general anxiety, performance or social anxiety, anger challenges, and to effectively deal with historical or current bullying. Stephanie has assisted many clients in recovering from low self-esteem, workplace difficulties and feeling overwhelmed by stress. She is familiar with, and can assist in addressing the common ‘side effects’ of anxiety or trauma, such as sleeping difficulties, hypervigalence, ‘run away brain’, attention and focus difficulties.

Stephanie also works with adults struggling with how to care for ageing and potentially mentally or physically unwell parents. She can relate to the difficulties of raising ones own children, working, maintaining a household while providing increasing levels of assistance and support to much loved elders.

Stephanie routinely works with Treaty clients and Residential School Survivors and their descendants. She has worked with WCB clients, individuals on workplace disability, and those on insurance claims.

HIGH PERFORMANCE | SPORTS PSYCHOLOGY - CHILDREN / TEENS

Having competed on the World Championship stage in the Japanese sports of Kendo and Iadio, and now as a Sensi within the Edmonton community, Stephanie is uniquely positioned to help children and teens struggling with high performance challenges. She has a real world understanding of the commitment and sacrifice for the entire family that goes into high performance sports. Stephanie brings the ability to not only help the athlete achieve the mental confidence, resilience, and focus they need, but also to work with the various family members (i.e. parents, siblings, extended family…) who can be impacted in many ways by lifestyle demands brought on with high performance sports.

COMPLEX (MULTI-DIGANOSIS)

Stephanie has many years of experience helping clients to overcome obstacles created by complex special needs. Clients with complex special needs often have multiple diagnosis both physical and/or mental illness, and may be living in a home with others who struggle with similar challenges. For example, a complex client may have challenges with addiction and a mental health issue (i.e. depression / anxiety), they may be dealing with repeated trauma exposures over their lifetime and current emotional volatility. A complex client could be a caregiver to an older parent struggling with dementia, while the client is also trying to raise young children and deal with workplace stress.

THERAPEUTIC TRAINING

In addition to her training in Cognitive Behavioural therapy, Narrative therapy, and Motivational Interviewing, many of Stephanie’s’ teen and adult clients also benefit from hypnotherapy. She also holds a Certificate in Clinical Hypnotherapy and is a member of the Canadian Federation of Clinical Hypnosis - Alberta Society. Stephanie uses Clinical hypnotherapy to address issues of weight loss, smoking, phobia, pain management and improving sports performance.

She is an approved provider for First Nations and Residential School survivors. She is also certified to perform home assessments for families looking to adopt.

She is a Certified Play Therapist and a Registered Expressive Arts Therapist. Stephanie is a member in good standing with the Canadian Association for Child and Play Therapy and the United States Association for Play Therapy. Stephanie finds the creative aspects of play, expressive arts, writing, music and sand tray work very effective in helping the people she works with solve their challenges.

PROFESSIONAL BACKGROUND

Stephanie is a Registered Social Worker with the Alberta College of Social Workers and she has the Clinical designation. She is also on the Approved Clinical Social Worker Supervisor list to provide supervision to Social Workers who are applying to be on the Clinical Social Work registry. She has a Masters degree in Social Work from the University of Manitoba and Bachelor degrees in Social Work and Arts (majoring in Psychology) from the University of British Columbia.

Stephanie has worked in various Alberta Health treatment programs as a therapist. She has treated clients through various Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO's) as a front line therapist, team lead, and mental health program manager. In addition, Stephanie has taught various mental health and therapy classes to university students.

Stephanie offers in-Person and Video Therapy from our Sherwood Park office