Dr. Sarah Mordell, R.Psych.
Dr. Sarah Mordell is a registered psychologist specializing in the treatment of depression, social anxiety, and generalized anxiety disorders, as well as stress, self esteem issues, and post-traumatic stress disorder. She works with older children, adolescents, and adults. Sarah also has a special interest in working with older adults (65+) presenting with depression, anxiety, and adjustment difficulties.
Sarah’s approach to therapy is integrative, collaborative, and client-centred. She primarily uses Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) strategies to help clients identify connections between feelings, thoughts, and behaviours and change unhelpful patterns of thinking and behaving. However, she is flexible to the needs and preferences of clients and incorporates other techniques that research has shown to be effective. Sarah works with clients as partners in the therapeutic process to develop a plan unique to their strengths and challenges. Since coming to therapy can be a big step in itself, she aims to create a warm, non-judgmental, and genuine atmosphere where clients can feel safe to explore and make sense of their struggles. Sarah supports clients to make connections and changes that are meaningful and will extend beyond the therapy session. For her work with children and adolescents, she seeks to engage parents as part of the therapy team to help maintain progress at home.
As a scientist-practitioner, Sarah strives to continually advance her mental health expertise with practices grounded in research evidence and she has been active in several research projects aimed at improving client care. She has previously been involved with projects examining youth justice programming and emergency department practices for patients presenting with mental health concerns. Sarah is currently the principal investigator for a federally-funded evaluation study of a youth justice program according to best practices.
Sarah received her doctoral degree from Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia. She completed her pre-doctoral residency with the Calgary Clinical Psychology Residency program (formerly the Calgary Consortium in Clinical Psychology). The residency included a major rotation with an adolescent inpatient unit at Foothills Medical Centre, where presenting problems included anxiety, depression, trauma, self-harm, and eating disorders. Sarah also completed a rotation with an older adult outpatient program at the Sheldon M. Chumir Centre, seeing clients with anxiety, depression, anger, and adjustment issues. Prior to residency, she completed placements in several settings in the Lower Mainland, including Surrey Child and Youth Mental Health, Youth Forensic Psychiatric Services, the Maples Adolescent Treatment Centre, Burnaby General Hospital, and the Simon Fraser University Clinical Psychology Centre.
