Mary Dixon-Bourque MSW RSW (she/her)
Registered Social Worker
Mary Dixon-Bourque is a registered Social Worker with the College of Social Workers and Social Service Workers of Ontario. The focus of her clinical practice is to provide client-centred, holistic, trauma-informed, and anti-oppressive social work therapies.
Mary has specific interests in supporting those who feel stuck by the weight of un-grieved losses and emotions, and how that experience impacts their health physically and mentally. She’s interested in the body’s innate ability to heal itself thorough emotional processing and the body-mind connection.
Mary has been providing counselling and social work services for 17 years. For the past 15 years she has been working with persons with disabilities, chronic pain and illness. Prior to that she held positions in community health organizations, including Canadian Hearing Society, Amethyst Women’s Addiction Centre and Community Head Injury Resource Services.
Commitment to Anti-Oppressive Practice
Mary’s lived experience with chronic pain led her to recognize that society’s value of a person’s existence is based on the level of productivity they can achieve, (e.g.,. working a full-time job or completing chores at home). She’s supported and advocated for marginalized groups that continue to face societal injustice. Most recently she has done this work in the community health care system advocating for people’s needs to be met by public service providers regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, sexual identity, cultural value or ability.
Therapeutic Approaches
Mary integrates interventions from a feminist approach, CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy), Grief Therapy, Family of Origin work, CBT for Insomnia, and somatic based therapies (e.g.,. sensorimotor psychotherapy) when working with clients. She enjoys authentically connecting with each person she works with to determine what would be most valuable and helpful to them when entering psychotherapy.
License and Registration
Registered as a Social Worker with the College of Social Workers and Social Service Workers of Ontario
Education
- MSW – Masters in Social Work, Carleton University, Ottawa
- BSW – Bachelors in Social Work, Carleton University, Ottawa
- BA Hons – York University, Toronto. Major Women’s Studies, Minor Sociology
Continuing Education
- Rainbow Health: LGBT@SQ Foundations cultural sensitivity training
- Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction Training for Chronic Illness and Pain
- Provincial Health Services Authority: Indigenous Cultural Sensitivity Training
- The Body Keeps the Score: New Frontiers in Trauma Treatment – Bessel van der Kolk, MD,
