Catherine Peckitt

MA, RSW

Catherine is a seasoned Registered Social Worker and Psychotherapist with over 35 years of dedicated practice. Her journey began in the field with the completion of an undergraduate degree in Psychology (1993) with a minor in Social Work, followed by a postgraduate certificate in Marriage and Family Counselling (1994). She also completed a postgraduate certificate in Mediation (2000) and is a valued member of the Arbitration and Mediation Institute of Ontario. In 2013, she completed an M.A. in Organizational Development, broadening her understanding of human behaviour within organizational contexts. She is a member of the College of Social Workers and a member of the Ontario Association of Social Workers.

Throughout her career, Catherine has been committed to enhancing her skills and expertise, evident in her diverse array of qualifications. Her professional journey has been marked by versatility and adaptability, as she has seamlessly transitioned between various roles and settings. Prior to coming to Forward Thinking Psychological Services™, she worked as a Clinical Social Worker at the North Huron Family Health Team for 15 years, where she worked with individuals of all ages, couples, families, and groups in both hospital and outpatient care. In this capacity, Catherine offered compassionate support and evidence-based interventions to address a wide range of mental health concerns, including trauma, anxiety, depression, and eating disorders.

For over 10 years before healthcare, her clinical work was with the Avon Maitland District School Board, working as a Social Worker. She was promoted to Counselling Coordinator and, in that capacity, she provided guidance and supervision to fellow therapists, contributing to the professional development of her colleagues.  In addition to her clinical work, Catherine has played integral roles in leadership and supervision within the mental health field. Her tenure as a Clinical Manager at the Huron Perth Centre for Children and Youth saw her spearheading the implementation of evidence-based interventions for children with complex mental health needs.

Catherine has a diverse range of experience in children, adolescent and adult mental health. This includes working with children, adolescents and adults with depression, anxiety disorders, PTSD, trauma and OCD. She has also worked with children, adolescents and adults with a range of OCD presentations, helping people with obsessions about contamination, doubting, symmetry/exactness, sexuality, relationships as well as compulsions of cleaning, checking, reassurance seeking and mental review.

She has also worked with children, adolescents and adults with OCD related presentations, such as body dysmorphic disorder, who have experienced and Body Focused Repetitive bBehaviours (BFRBs), such as Excoriation Disorder (skin picking) and Trichotillomania (TTM or hair pulling). She has also worked with children and adolescents with ADHD and adults with a variety of eating disorders.

When conducting Marriage and Family Therapy (MFT), Catherine uses systems theory and a holistic approach to work on communication skills, role clarification and conflict resolution by involving multiple family members in therapy sessions and addressing relational patterns and interactions. When working with couples, Catherine’s intervention approaches include Emotion Focused Therapy (EFT), the Gottman Method and Structural Family Systems Therapy.

Her overall therapeutic approach is one of collaboration whereby the client’s needs and goals guide the therapeutic process. She uses a trauma-focused approach, as needed, and explores problems with a system-focused lens. She has specialized training in many modalities of therapy from which to draw including Psychotherapy, CBT, Exposure Therapy, Inference-Based CBT for OCD, DBT, Interfamily systems (IFS), Narrative, Psychodynamic, ACT and Family systems. All of these approaches are evidence-based and focused on building resilience.