JustRelating Team

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Sharon Ramsay is a Black Canadian woman who lives and works in Toronto. Her parents immigrated from two different islands in the Caribbean in the 1960s, eventually meeting in Toronto and establishing their family.  Sharon is bilingual (English and French) and as a first-generation Canadian, her face reflects one facet of the amazing cultural and ethnic diversity that is found her home city. Her ongoing commitment is to view therapy as an offer of radical hospitality by responding to the invitation from those with whom she consults – clients, supervisees, organizations – to understand their situation as it is now and to create a welcoming relationship in response to that initial invitation where hope and change may take root and flourish now and into the future.

The influences of family and faith led her to pursue a career in marriage and family therapy.  She is a Registered Psychotherapist and Registered Marriage and Family Therapist – provincial and national credentials – and is a Clinical Fellow and Approved Supervisor of AAMFT.  Since 1994, in the settings of private practice, post- secondary institutions, community and children’s mental health agencies, she has been learning how context influences our ability to survive and thrive through the expected and surprising rhythms of life. Her clinical work focuses on the search for hope and change through the healing power of being seen and heard. Currently, her clinical, supervisory, and consultation practice has taken on a more overt advocacy stance in response to the cultural, societal, and emotional shifts that impact her clients.[/su_spoiler]

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Carla’s passion is striving to model the EFT model as a fellow human, beyond the therapy room. As a white, straight woman with Protestant faith background, Carla strives to consistently examine the privilege and power afforded to her social location. Experiences of marginalization in context of patriarchy, gender discrimination, and low SES in family of origin bear influence to Carla’s experience of her identity as a woman.

Carla Rather is a Certified EFT Therapist & Supervisor. She is the founder of The EFT Center, a 501(c)(3) non-profit counseling center with multiple locations in Southern California. Their aim is to advance the EFT relational mission, with emphasis on societal level repair in the form of sociocultural relational competency and EFT accessibility for second language speaking consumers.

Prior to being a therapist, Carla was a civilian contractor for the US Army and U.S. Air Force. She is married to Tyler, her life-mate.

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Elana is a senior faculty member at the Ackerman Institute, a certified EFT Trainer, an Executive Board member of NYCEFT, and a co-coordinator of the ICEEFT Diversity Committee. Additionally, Elana has applied her EFT knowledge to help clients intercept the patterns that shape high conflict divorce in her work in mediation and collaborative law. She enjoys sharing the world of emotions and attachment in her trainings which can take her across the country and around the world. She is licensed in both clinicial social work and marriage and family therapy in New York.

As a white, straight cisgender woman who grew up in a religious Jewish family in the midwest, she has lived with both privileged and subjugated identities. She has used her personal experiences to deepen her attunement to the stories of identity, marginalization and oppression in her work.

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George is a highly respected and beloved Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) Trainer and Supervisor. As a white, straight man, he merges his background as a retired Lieutenant of the NYC Fire Department and a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (in NY & CT).  George embodies the calm, precise & strategic approach of a first responder and the mindful, compassionate and nuanced manner of a seasoned clinician. George was trained by the leaders of couples therapy, including Susan Johnson, John Gottman & Harville Hendrix, as he worked front-line to help support and heal families in the profound aftermath of 9/11. George’s down-to-earth, accessible style paired with his masterful precision in articulating and demonstrating the micro-moves of therapy are just some of the reasons that he is uniquely qualified and highly sought after as a Supervisor and Trainer.

George is an Approved Supervisor for the American Association Of Marriage & Family Therapists (AAMFT), Founder and President of the New York Center for Emotionally Focused Therapy (NYCEFT), Director of Training at the Center for Hope and Renewal in Greenwich, CT, Board Member of the Porter Cason Institute for the Family at Tulane University in New Orleans, and teaches courses at The Ackerman Institute in New York City.

He specializes in trauma, family therapy (EFFT), and self-of-therapist issues. He is committed to bringing EFT to first responders and underprivileged families, and hopes his co-authored books True Connection, Sacred Stress and Emotionally Focused Family Therapy and his podcast, Foreplay, contribute to a movement to making our world a more secure place.

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[su_spoiler title="Learn more..." open="no" style="default" icon="plus" anchor="" anchor_in_url="no" class=""]iro grew up navigating “in-betweennesses” and longing to slide playfully down the hyphens dividing the “either/ors” and “neither/nors” of belonging and identity: made in Japan / raised in Canada and the U.S., queer/polysexual / married & monogamous, cis/gender-playful, Buddhist/Christian, consumer/provider of mental health services. Coming of age right around the same time that Derald Wing Sue made a call for “Multicultural Counseling Competency” in 1982, Hiro now offers the very own services his family needed–but which didn’t exist–during his teens: individual and family therapy informed by decades of research on acculturation, racial identity development, queer theory, gender theory, feminist and post-colonial ethics, evolutionary medicine, liberation psychology and theology, interpersonal neuroscience, and multigenerational transmission of trauma. He earned a Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology from the University of Southern California, where he worked closely with leading second generation researchers in multicultural counseling. He then pursued academia, first as an adjunct in the Marriage Family Therapy Masters Program at USC, and then for 6 years as the Chair of the Psychology Department at University of the West, a small, accredited, non-profit, nonsectarian university based in Buddhist wisdom and values, where he shaped a Marriage Family Therapy Masters program that combined the best of Buddhist psychology and Western evidence-based practice. He now works full-time in direct-service and supervision, with a mission to reduce suffering and increase happiness for all beings.[/su_spoiler]

[su_spoiler title="Learn more..." open="no" style="default" icon="plus" anchor="" anchor_in_url="no" class=""]Jay M. Seiff-Haron, Psy.D. is an Emotionally Focused Therapist in private practice in San Francisco. He works primarily with interracial and LGBT couples and relationships; as an attachment-centered custody evaluator; and with preschooler-parent dyads after domestic violence, separation, loss or trauma. He is core faculty at Cross-Cultural Communications, offering week-long immersive, experiential trainings about antiracism and cross-cultural dialogue, and serves on the standing Board Diversity Committee of the International Centre for Excellence in Emotionally Focused Therapy (ICEEFT) with his corgi-mini Aussie mix. [/su_spoiler]

[su_spoiler title="Learn more..." open="no" style="default" icon="plus" anchor="" anchor_in_url="no" class=""]Dr. Katherine McKay believes that secure, loving relationships have the power to shape how humans see themselves, others and their world. This belief guides her therapeutic approach. Katherine specializes in treating couples and survivors of trauma. She is certified in Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) and Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing (EMDR) and has advanced training in Prolonged Exposure (PE), Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART), and Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT).

Katherine is an EFT supervisor-in-training committed to supporting healthy relationships, the development of her supervisees and creating a nurturing supervisory space by centering attunement.

Katherine has over 20 years of clinical experience, with extensive experience in treating couples and survivors of trauma. In addition to providing therapy, supervision and facilitating Hold Me Tight (HMT) retreats, she is the team psychologist for a national sports team, provides executive coaching, and conducts trainings on various topics. She taught diversity courses on the graduate level as well as provided training on cross cultural awareness and cultural humility to clinicians. Katherine’s clinical research has focused on romantic and co-parenting relationships in the Black community, attachment theory and trauma. Her research has centered on the thesis that relationships have the power to heal and she incorporates this premise throughout her work.

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[su_spoiler title="Learn more..." open="no" style="default" icon="plus" anchor="" anchor_in_url="no" class=""]Peter Muhwati is a black Zimbabwean Clinical Social Worker born just before independence from white minority rule. He has been practising social work since 2009. His entrée into private practice came out of a desire to see improved access to mental health services for men in Zimbabwe.

He is the registered clinician at Stepping-Stone Counselling in Harare where he sees individuals and couples experiencing relationship and other emotional distress. His clinical experience also includes work within a palliative care setting. Peter uses trauma-informed, attachment-based, experiential approaches in therapy.

Peter has completed advanced training in Emotionally-Focused Therapy (EFT) and also incorporates Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy (AEDP).

He is the founding member of Emotionally-Focused Therapy Zimbabwe (EFT Zimbabwe) and he is also on the leadership team of EFT South Africa. 

For a short time, he entered the religious order of friars founded by St. Francis of Assisi. He is still guided by this experience in his personal and professional life. 

Peter is married with two children and lives in Harare[/su_spoiler]

[su_spoiler title="Learn more..." open="no" style="default" icon="plus" anchor="" anchor_in_url="no" class=""]Sadaf is an Associate Marriage and Family Therapist in Orange County, California. She is now working towards her Doctorate of Marriage and Family Therapy, researching relational traumas such as narcissistic abuse in intimate relationships. Sadaf is passionate about the power of EFT in engaging, connecting, and being with others. Her clinical work focuses on attachment and relational traumas in individuals and couples aiming towards healing powers of the inner self and thriving from within. Sadaf is an Iranian-American, straight woman who moved across countries to Sweden and America during her early adolescent years. Having moved to three different countries during her teenage years, Sadaf has brought curiosity, respect, understanding, and a deep empathy for how one’s background and experiences can influence their being in this world. As she grows into all the new identities she has encountered through new faith, citizenship, and geography; she works towards inviting others to accepting, expressing, and thriving in their true identity.[/su_spoiler]