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3-Day Becoming Method® Intensive Training
RN-Psychotherapist Program
🕒 6–8 Months
On-line + Live 3-Day Intensive
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🕒 6–8 Months
On-line + Live 3-Day Intensive
For Registered Nurses including NPs, CNSs & PSWs
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A faculty body grounded in clinical integrity, cultural humility, and responsibility for how trauma recovery is taught and held.
Teaching as stewardship. Healing as responsibility.
Becoming Institute governs the conditions of teaching by defining the frame, boundaries, method, and accountability under which trauma recovery education is delivered.
So students are held with clarity, consistency, and care—while practitioners learn within a standard they can stand behind.
Faculty at the Becoming Institute are selected not only for clinical expertise, but for their capacity to steward trauma recovery as a relational, ethical, and system-aware practice. Within a clearly governed institutional framework, faculty are responsible for how knowledge is translated and embodied—in the classroom, in clinical reasoning, and in the systems learners will enter. Stewardship, in this context, requires discernment and cultural humility, alongside the capacity to model integrity in work that carries real-world impact.
The Becoming Institute teaches trauma recovery through a structured, principle-driven pedagogy that integrates clinical reasoning, reflective practice, and system awareness. Learning is designed to move beyond technique acquisition toward disciplined understanding—how, when, and under what conditions trauma-informed interventions are appropriate.
Instruction is sequenced to ensure conceptual clarity before application, and application before integration. Faculty are responsible for maintaining coherence across theory, practice, and ethical accountability, so learners develop sound judgment rather than rote competence.
This approach ensures that trauma recovery education is not only effective in the classroom, but reliable in the complex clinical, organizational, and public systems where graduates will practice.
Our faculty approach their work as stewards of trauma recovery education, exercising sound judgment, holding appropriate limits, and carrying learning forward with care.
Faculty at the Becoming Institute are entrusted with teaching trauma recovery within a clearly defined institutional and ethical framework—one that protects learners, clients, and the integrity of the work.
Our instructors come from diverse professional disciplines and practice environments. What unites them is demonstrated capacity to teach with sound judgment, hold appropriate limits, and translate trauma recovery knowledge into practice that is clinically responsible and system-ready.
The faculty profiles below reflect this responsibility in action—showing not only areas of specialization, but the standards of care, discernment, and accountability that shape how trauma recovery is taught and held at the Institute.
Sophia Ali is a systems leader and social work educator whose work sits at the intersection of community health, psychotherapy, and regulatory leadership. She brings deep experience in advancing interprofessional collaboration, culturally responsive governance, and equity-centred policy within complex health systems.
Currently Executive Director of the Manitoba Alliance of Health Regulatory Colleges, Sophia has held senior roles across community health, clinical practice, and systems leadership. Her teaching and consulting integrate trauma-informed care, ethical decision-making, and organizational design grounded in lived realities.
Sophia teaches across post-secondary institutions and serves on national and regional boards focused on equity, mental health, and governance. Her work reflects a steady commitment to systems change that strengthens practitioner capacity while safeguarding human dignity.
Dr. Afsheen Anwar is a Clinical and Counselling Psychologist whose work integrates evidence-based practice with cultural, relational, and faith-informed understanding. With over two decades of clinical experience, she brings a steady, attuned presence to both therapeutic work and teaching.
Her practice spans individual, couple, family, and group contexts, drawing on cognitive behavioural, emotion-focused, mindfulness-based, and systemic approaches. Dr. Anwar’s work is grounded in a deep respect for worldview, culture, and meaning-making, including the thoughtful integration of spiritual and faith perspectives when clinically appropriate.
In addition to clinical practice, Dr. Anwar teaches and consults across academic and professional settings. Her work reflects a commitment to helping practitioners hold complexity with clarity, compassion, and ethical responsibility.
Jenn Cardoso is a Registered Psychotherapist and somatic practitioner whose work centers on embodiment, relational awareness, and trauma-responsive healing. Her teaching is grounded in the understanding that the body holds essential knowledge—and that learning must attend to both physiological and relational experience.
With training in counselling psychology, somatic approaches, and trauma-informed movement, Jenn supports practitioners in developing presence, attunement, and nervous-system literacy. Her work emphasizes how safety, connection, and meaning are cultivated through embodied practice rather than technique alone.
As faculty, Jenn brings a steady, grounded presence to learning spaces, modeling how somatic awareness and relational integrity inform ethical trauma recovery practice. Her teaching reflects a commitment to holding complexity with care, clarity, and respect for lived experience.
Jacklyn Chung is a Registered Psychotherapist and educator whose work is grounded in culturally responsive, feminist, and relational approaches to trauma-informed care. She brings experience across clinical, educational, and organizational contexts, with a consistent focus on how identity, power, and lived experience shape healing.
With advanced training in education and counselling psychology, Jacklyn’s practice integrates trauma-informed, culturally sensitive, and relational frameworks. Her work attends to anxiety, depression, trauma, identity, grief, and relational distress, with particular attention to how individuals locate meaning, agency, and values within their lived realities.
As faculty, Jacklyn supports emerging practitioners in developing ethical awareness, relational discernment, and cultural humility. Her teaching emphasizes accountability to context, respect for complexity, and the responsibility inherent in holding others’ stories within therapeutic and learning spaces.
Jamieson Eakin is a Registered Psychotherapist and educator whose work integrates narrative, somatic, and creative approaches to trauma-informed care. Their practice is grounded in an understanding of identity, meaning-making, and the role of creativity in psychological healing.
Drawing on narrative therapy, internal family systems–informed thinking, and somatic strategies, Jamieson supports practitioners in working thoughtfully with trauma, identity, and relational complexity. Their approach attends to how stories are shaped by culture, power, and lived experience, and how therapeutic work can support agency, coherence, and self-efficacy.
As faculty, Jamieson brings an interdisciplinary lens to teaching, emphasizing cultural humility, accessibility, and ethical presence. Their work reflects a commitment to holding difference with care and to supporting trauma recovery as both a personal and collective process.
Cassandra Francis is a Registered Psychotherapist whose clinical work integrates mental health, physical well-being, and relational healing. Her entry into psychotherapy emerged through her early work as a Physiotherapist Assistant at Sunnybrook Hospital, where she developed a grounded understanding of how trauma, stress, and emotional suffering are held in the body. She brings over a decade of experience supporting individuals, couples, and groups navigating trauma, grief and loss, identity exploration, mood concerns, and life transitions.
Cassandra’s practice is informed by Emotion-Focused Therapy, Attachment Theory, and Narrative approaches, applied within a trauma-informed, culturally responsive, and anti-oppressive framework. As Clinical Director of One Peace Therapy, she contributes to the development of interdisciplinary care models that integrate psychotherapy with broader wellness supports. Her work attends carefully to how emotional regulation, cultural context, and lived experience shape both suffering and recovery.
As faculty, Cassandra supports practitioners in developing clinical presence, ethical judgment, and responsiveness to complexity. Her teaching emphasizes discernment—knowing how to work relationally and responsibly across diverse client contexts—while maintaining respect for scope, limits, and professional accountability. She brings a steady, systems-aware perspective to trauma recovery education, grounded in practice that is both humane and clinically sound.
Chantal Gray is a Registered Social Worker and clinical leader whose work centers on trauma-informed, culturally responsive care across the lifespan. She brings extensive experience supporting children, families, and communities through intergenerational trauma, life transitions, and systemic stressors.
As Co-Founder and Clinical Director of Winrose Oasis Counselling Services, Chantal has led the development of holistic, community-anchored clinical programs grounded in safety, cultural humility, and relational care. Her practice integrates evidence-based approaches—including trauma counselling, play-based interventions, and EMDR—within a framework that honours family systems and cultural context.
As faculty, Chantal supports emerging practitioners in developing clinical discernment, ethical responsibility, and relational steadiness when working with complex family and community dynamics. Her teaching reflects a commitment to mentoring practitioners who can hold trauma with gentleness, clarity, and accountability across generations.
Ruth Bingham is a Registered Social Worker whose work integrates intergenerational trauma recovery with faith-informed and culturally responsive practice. She brings extensive experience supporting individuals, families, and communities in navigating trauma, life transitions, and questions of meaning and identity.
As Co-Founder of Winrose Oasis Counselling Services, Ruth has helped develop clinical services grounded in dignity, relational care, and ethical integration of spirituality within mental health practice. Her work draws on established clinical approaches alongside faith-integrated frameworks, attending carefully to how belief, culture, and personal values shape healing.
As faculty, Ruth supports practitioners in developing discernment around spiritually integrated care—emphasizing responsibility, cultural humility, and respect for diverse worldviews. Her teaching reflects a commitment to helping practitioners hold faith, meaning, and emotional suffering with integrity, clarity, and professional accountability.
Founder, Becoming Institute
Developer & Steward, The Becoming Method®
Dr. Joan Samuels-Dennis is the founder of the Becoming Institute and the developer of The Becoming Method®, a trauma recovery framework grounded in truth-telling, conscious forgiveness, and relational reconciliation. She holds responsibility for the ethical integrity, clinical coherence, and ongoing evolution of the method across educational, clinical, and systems contexts.
With more than two decades of experience spanning nursing, psychotherapy, public health, and education, Dr. Joan’s work focuses on building trauma recovery capacity within individuals, institutions, and communities. Her approach integrates clinical practice, systems thinking, and intergenerational understanding, positioning trauma recovery as both a personal and collective responsibility.
As Method Steward, Dr. Joan provides oversight of curriculum design, faculty formation, and standards of practice, ensuring that the Becoming Method® is taught with rigor, accountability, and respect for the complexity of human healing. Her role is not instructional alone, but custodial—holding the work in alignment with its philosophical foundations, clinical ethics, and public-interest mandate.
If our approach to teaching, stewardship, and trauma recovery resonates with you, we invite you to stay connected to the work of the Becoming Institute.
We share reflections, educational resources, and program updates that support thoughtful practice, systems-aware learning, and the continued development of trauma recovery capacity across health, mental health, and community contexts.
Connection at the Becoming Institute is about alignment, discernment, and staying in conversation as the field evolves.
Get the guide to explore certification pathways, part-time workshops and learning outcomes.
