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As an Oncologist with additional trainings in spirituality, shamanic traditions, and narrative forms, I help you make sense of your diagnosis within the larger frame of your life, facilitating decisions and approaches which align with your values and truths.
What is spiritual oncology?
I am a medical oncologist (cancer specialist physician) with over 25 years of clinical experience, mostly with BC Cancer in Victoria, BC.
Over the course of my career, I have come to understand that we humans live and also suffer on multiple levels and that the physical aspects of suffering, with which Western medicine primarily concerns itself, are not always the most important in the experience of illness. Over the years, I have pursued various trainings, learning about other aspects of suffering and health, including psychological, emotional, social and spiritual. These non-physical and highly individual domains often receive less attention in “mainstream” health care settings, which may contribute to a “gap” in care, in which certain aspects of our vitality are neglected in conventional approaches to cancer care. To address this gap, I am offering a non-traditional, private pay oncology service to BC residents with a cancer diagnosis.
This practice, which I call Spiritual Oncology, aims to offer space and scope for the more nuanced conversations and negotiations that arise in the face of a cancer diagnosis. Such a diagnosis often calls for us to rethink our lives, re-appraise our values, re-imagine our dreams and aspirations and renegotiate our relationships with self and with others. In Spiritual Oncology, we explore these aspects of Being and seek to develop narratives and experiences which are large enough to encompass all that you are experiencing, including not just the cancer diagnosis and its implications, but all of your Self, Capacity and Relationships. Essentially, we work together to bring you a sense of vitality, choice, agency and spaciousness in your life. We explore the Whole.
To this sacred work, I bring my lived experience, more than 30 years of practice in Western medicine, a commitment to interfaith chaplaincy ("walking with"), several years of training and practice in Medical Qi Gong (the energetic and shamanic aspects of Chinese medicine) and trainings in and exposure to various other healing and narrative traditions. [See more in “About”]
Over the course of my career, I have come to understand that we humans live and also suffer on multiple levels and that the physical aspects of suffering, with which Western medicine primarily concerns itself, are not always the most important in the experience of illness. Over the years, I have pursued various trainings, learning about other aspects of suffering and health, including psychological, emotional, social and spiritual. These non-physical and highly individual domains often receive less attention in “mainstream” health care settings, which may contribute to a “gap” in care, in which certain aspects of our vitality are neglected in conventional approaches to cancer care. To address this gap, I am offering a non-traditional, private pay oncology service to BC residents with a cancer diagnosis.
This practice, which I call Spiritual Oncology, aims to offer space and scope for the more nuanced conversations and negotiations that arise in the face of a cancer diagnosis. Such a diagnosis often calls for us to rethink our lives, re-appraise our values, re-imagine our dreams and aspirations and renegotiate our relationships with self and with others. In Spiritual Oncology, we explore these aspects of Being and seek to develop narratives and experiences which are large enough to encompass all that you are experiencing, including not just the cancer diagnosis and its implications, but all of your Self, Capacity and Relationships. Essentially, we work together to bring you a sense of vitality, choice, agency and spaciousness in your life. We explore the Whole.
To this sacred work, I bring my lived experience, more than 30 years of practice in Western medicine, a commitment to interfaith chaplaincy ("walking with"), several years of training and practice in Medical Qi Gong (the energetic and shamanic aspects of Chinese medicine) and trainings in and exposure to various other healing and narrative traditions. [See more in “About”]
What does a Spiritual Oncology appointment look like?The initial appointment is a consultation, where I review the documentation you have provided and we begin our conversation around your understandings and experiences. At that initial appointment and subsequently, I will use a variety of approaches, drawn from my trainings and experience, to help explore your situation and facilitate more ease. We will jointly determine which approaches are likely to be most effective at any given time.
Without some space, we cannot move, as there’s nowhere to move to, no space to move into. This fundamental truth applies equally to physical and non-physical realms. Where space exists, but is limited, we struggle to move in an intentional and directed fashion, including in response to a cancer diagnosis. In my work with you, we explore the space you’re in and seek more space on multiple levels, to help clarify the decision points as they arise and to re-claim a sense of agency, direction, choice and purpose in your life. My main approaches are relational, narrative, spiritual and energetic. My guiding principles are Love, Respect, Kindness and Humility. |
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