Inner child healing

About

The Trauma Healing Collective was founded in 2023 to serve individuals, groups, and organizations who want to experience their internal and external worlds in a more grounded, and compassionate way. The term ‘Collective’ was chosen based on our founder’s experience working with community-based models and seeing the immense power of human connection and shared experiences.

The Trauma Healing Collective contributes to the growing movement that recognizes the impacts of trauma by providing a variety of multidisciplinary services and supports that ultimately seek to build different ways to live and connect with our communities.

We have a vision of connection, community, and social justice for the future of trauma healing services and seek to be a part of the ongoing movements for change.

 We are starting small, but plan to grow and expand our services in a sustainable way in order to reach more people and fulfill a wide variety of needs in our shared communities.

In the words of the revolutionary trauma expert Judith Lewis Herman: “Recovery can only take place within the context of relationships; it cannot occur in isolation”.

Meet our Therapist

Maureen Bornbaum MSW RSW, SEP
Registered Social Worker & Psychotherapist

Hi there! My name is Maureen Bornbaum (she/her) and I am queer, cis woman, and a Registered Social Worker and psychotherapist. I founded the Trauma Healing Collective in 2023 with the goal of providing accessible, community-centred mental health services. I have more than seven years of experience working with individuals and families to navigate challenging parts of the human experience.

I immensely value education and believe that learning is a lifelong journey. I hold a Bachelor of Social Work (BSW) and Master of Social Work (MSW). I also hold a Social Service Worker Diploma and an Honours Degree in Global Development Studies & Gender Studies. In addition to my formal education, I am always engaging in professional development to stay up-to-date with the latest research on trauma and mental health and gain certifications in different therapeutic modalities so that I can provide best practice to the folks that I work with.

I provide individual counselling and psychotherapy services to individuals who are ages 18+ and need support exploring their experiences, building healthier relationships with themselves and others, and achieving a wide variety of goals. I work with folks who want to navigate their lives in a new way and discover what life can be like when the past is not weighing so heavily on you.

I am focused on working from an anti-oppressive, sex-positive, and anti-racist approach and I am always exploring how my own social location impacts my life and work. This can include looking at how social systems impact a person’s experiences and inform our self-esteem, outlook on life, and experiences. My work looks at both the mind and the body to help restore internal and external connections, presence, and resiliency. I work with clients through assessment and discussion, to see which modality, or combination of modalities, will be most suited to their goals and our time together.

My areas of specialization and passion include:

  • Trauma - including PTSD, C-PTSD, dissociation, attachment ruptures and other forms of trauma.

  • Substance use, abuse, and addiction from both harm-reduction and abstinence-based modalities.

  • Supporting folks who are 2SLGBTQIA+ navigate living in a cis and heteronormative world as well as those who are newly exploring their gender and/or sexual identity.

  • Grief including death, relationship loss, and other life transitions.

  • Supporting individuals who have a diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD)

I am trained in a wide variety of modalities. Please click each approach to learn more about the modality:

Outside of work, I love to spend time with my two rescue dogs - Ukee & Cadence, hike, read, crochet, garden, and spend time with my friends and family!

Specializations

  • Trauma

    We specialize in trauma, including single incident trauma as well as complex and developmental trauma. Trauma is a wound that impacts all aspects of a person and the way that they exist in the world. Our trauma work utilizes a tri-phasic model that starts first and foremost with building safety in the body, mind, and external environment. We then move on to safe processing and remembrance to help the traumatic experiences become more integrated into a person’s entire life story. From there, we shift to re-connection with a person’s environment and self, so that they can live in their world in a more integrated and connected way. We offer a wide variety of trauma specific therapeutic approaches that can support healing, post-traumatic growth, and re-connection with the self and world.

  • Grief & Loss

    We specialize in supporting folks navigate the complicated arena of grief, loss, and life transitions. Our grief work focuses on providing a space to process grief, and all of its interrelated emotions and experiences. We also believe that loss can manifest in many different ways, such as life transitions and relationship changes, and that these experiences can bring significant grief. Our approach honours all types of loss and ways of experiencing and expressing grief. We support folks to integrate loss and change into their lives in a way that honours the past, without keeping you there.

  • Queer Led & Centred services

    We provide services to folks who identify from the 2SLGBTQIA+ umbrella and want support with mental health and wellness. Further, we support those who want an understanding space to explore their identity and/or challenges navigating queer lived experiences in a world that can be unsafe and unwelcoming. We also support people who have 2SLGBTQIA+ loved ones, and want to be able to better support them. We bring lived experience as queer people and therapists, as well as extensive training in queer theory and social justice informed practice. This framework guides our work with 2SLGBTQIA+ folks to support their goals and healing from trauma and other life challenges.

  • Substance Abuse

    We provide support for those who identify anywhere on the wide spectrum of substance use, abuse, and addiction. We view substances as a way to cope with challenging experiences, and emotions. Our work focuses on helping people understand the role substances have played in their lives, and introducing new methods for regulating emotions and showing up in the world. We work from a harm reduction philosophy to help folks safely achieve stabilization. We are also highly experienced in working alongside and in support of 12 step approaches. First and foremost, we meet clients exactly where they are, and utilize a trauma informed approach to support their short and long term goals for their relationship to substances, whether that be changing their relationship to substances, reduction of use, or total abstinence.

“The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.”

Carl Rogers