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Dr. Jennifer Fernie, C.Psych.

Dr. Fernie provides psychotherapy and psycho-diagnostic assessments for adult clients. She obtained her Doctorate in Clinical Psychology from the University of Edinburgh in 2015. From 2015 to July 2021, she worked for the National Health Service (NHS) in Scotland as an autonomous Clinical Psychologist within the Adult Mental Health (ages 18 to 65) service. She then moved to Ontario and completed her registration transfer while working under supervised practice at Gilmour Psychological Services®.


Dr. Fernie has worked extensively with childhood trauma and personality difficulties. Dr. Fernie has also worked with people who needed treatment overcoming single incident traumas, interpersonal difficulties, mood disorders (including anxiety and depression), obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), self-esteem, stress and other major mental health issues. She is experienced in assessing and developing individualized treatment plans collaboratively with clients. Her therapy choices are client dependent and she uses an integrated approach.


During her Doctorate, Dr. Fernie trained in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT). At the same time, she undertook training in Mentalization Based Therapy (MBT) with the Anna Freud Centre in London and has been a certified MBT practitioner since 2015. Further, Dr. Fernie has trained in Eye Movement Desensitisation & Reprocessing (EMDR) and Prolonged Exposure, both of which are used to treat Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Along with these modalities she also has experience in Compassion Focused Therapy, Mindfulness and Psychodynamic Psychotherapy.


Before her Clinical Doctorate Dr. Fernie studied at the University of Ottawa earning a B.Sc. in Psychology in 2002. She then completed a Masters (MA) in Psychology at Concordia University in 2005. Dr. Fernie then travelled to the UK where she completed a research Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology in 2009 from the University of Nottingham (UK). She worked as a Post-Doctorate Research Fellow at the University of Aberdeen before training as a clinician. 


Dr. Fernie is a registered member of the College of Psychologists of Ontario (CPO). She also maintains memberships with EMDR Canada, the EMDR International Association, the Ottawa Academy of Psychologists (OAP) and the Ontario Psychological Association (OPA). Dr. Fernie is also working with MBT Canada to provide supervision to those working to become MBT-certified therapists. In order to stay current with the developments and best practice in the field of clinical psychology Dr. Fernie regularly attends educational workshops and seminars.

Psychologist Expertise

Areas of specific interest to Dr. Fernie include:

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Anxiety

July 29, 2022
Anxiety has been frequently described as feelings of fright, flight or freeze. This means that people experiencing anxiety have both the mental and the physical, visceral feelings of wanting to escape the situation, fight what is challenging or simply cannot move in any direction to deal with what is troubling them.

Assessments

July 27, 2022
Psychological Assessments are used by psychologists to help determine a diagnosis and inform the course of treatment. There are many different components to these assessments such as different tests, interviews, school and medical records, medical information, and observation.

Borderline Personality Disorder

July 21, 2022
Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is essentially a disorder of emotional dysregulation and those of us who are experts in the field would like to see it renamed as such. Those at risk for developing BPD are genetically and neurologically predisposed to a greater sensitivity to life events, particularly interpersonal events. If this greater sensitivity is combined with an early invalidating or abusive family environment, the person is at higher risk of developing the disorder. Alternatively, if the family cannot teach the sensitive child to manage or regulate his or her emotions, general life experience may also foster the development of BPD or BPD traits.
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Childhood Trauma

July 17, 2022
Childhood trauma refers to when a child experiences a traumatic event that results in negative and pervasive physical, psychological and cognitive effects.
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Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)

July 13, 2022
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) is a form of talk therapy that focuses on reframing harmful or painful thoughts and behaviours. This form of therapy is often used to treat anxiety and depression but can be helpful with many different mental and physical challenges.
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Depression

July 3, 2022
Depression is a state of low mood in which people feel helpless, hopeless, worthless, lethargic and unable to enjoy the things that used to give them pleasure. People who are depressed are often irritable or pessimistic. Their low mood goes beyond having “the blues” or being sad. Even people who are grieving usually do not sink into depression. People diagnosed with a Major Depressive Disorder cannot just “pull up their socks” to get better. They require professional help. Psychologists use a variety of scientifically based psychotherapeutic approaches to help people recover from depression.

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)

June 24, 2022
EMDR is an evidence-based integrative psychotherapy that was developed in the late 1980s initially as a treatment for Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). It is based on the Adaptive Information Processing theory which suggests that the psychopathology is the result of maladaptive encoding and/or incomplete processing of traumatic or disturbing adverse events. EMDR aims to complete or store more adaptively these memories.
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Independent Medical (Psychological) Assessments

June 12, 2022
Clients are referred by lawyers, insurers, healthcare professionals, and other third parties for specific Independent Medical Assessments such as neuropsychological and psychological evaluations. Independent psychological assessments involve an approach that combines interviews and psychological tests designed to contribute to the psychologists’ professional opinion about the state of mind and psychological functioning of the client. The referral questions typically involve the courts, lawyers, or insurance companies. The assessment is conducted by a psychologist who has not yet previously been involved in the client’s treatment and will not be seeing the client for treatment in the future. The psychologist provides an impartial, objective opinion about the client’s state of mind and the probable causes of that state of mind.

Mentalization Based Therapy (MBT)

May 29, 2022
Mentalization Based Therapy (MBT) is an evidence-based psychotherapy which was developed by Dr. Anthony Bateman and Dr. Peter Fonagy from the Anna Freud Center (London UK). Mentalizing is the idea of keeping someone else’s mind in your mind. Successful mentalizing involves the understanding of what is going on in our own minds and the minds of other people along with realising how this may be affecting the emotions, thoughts and actions of both ourselves and those around us. However, when our mental health is affected this can lead to impairments in our abilities to mentalize, which can lead to misunderstandings of emotions, thoughts and actions which can negatively impact on social interactions and relationships. The goal of MBT therapy is to help individuals to increase their mentalizing capacity in the here and now.

Mindfulness

May 28, 2022
Mindfulness is the ability to be aware of present thoughts, emotions, physical sensations and the surrounding environment and label them from an objective viewpoint, without judgment.
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Dr. Fernie also specializes in Mentalization-Based Therapy.

Contact

To reach Dr. Fernie directly, please phone 613-230-4709, ext. 190.

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