Elena Grinevitch

Psychologist and Co-Director

Hi, I’m Elena Grinevitch, the Co-Founder and Co-Director of the Healing Tree Psychology and Wellness Centre. Most of the people I work with don’t arrive thinking they’ve experienced trauma. They come in feeling stuck — caught in the same patterns, disconnected from themselves or the people they love, going through the motions but not really feeling present in their own lives. Some have been carrying a quiet weight for so long it just feels like who they are.

What we usually find, over time, is that there’s a reason for all of it. Early experiences — emotional neglect, inconsistent care, verbal abuse, growing up in environments where it wasn’t safe to feel or need things — leave real imprints on the nervous system, on the way we relate to others, and on the inner world we’ve built to survive. Those imprints don’t just disappear. But they can heal.

My approach is gentle but purposeful. I don’t believe in pushing people faster than they’re ready to go — but I do believe in going somewhere. I work collaboratively, with deep respect for your inner wisdom, helping you build self-understanding, insight, and resilience. Together, we move toward making sense of what’s actually happening underneath — and creating the conditions for something to genuinely shift.

I came to this work in part through my own experience of what therapy can do. The kind of change that’s possible when someone asks the right questions and actually stays with you through what comes up — that stays with me, and it shapes how I work every day.

What I Work With

My work is focused on the more complex end of trauma presentations — including complex trauma, dissociation, and dissociative disorders such as Dissociative Identity Disorder. This is territory I’ve invested in deeply, and where I feel most at home clinically.

Survivors of abuse and neglect — many of the people I work with don’t recognize their experiences as trauma at all. They come to therapy believing they’re struggling with depression or relationship challenges, and over time come to understand how early emotional wounds have shaped their inner world in ways they never had words for.

Dissociation and dissociative disorders — I work with the full range of dissociative presentations, from everyday disconnection and depersonalization to more complex structural dissociation. This includes working with people who have DID or OSDD and are looking for a therapist who won’t flinch from the complexity of that work.

Depression, anxiety, and relationship difficulties — often in the context of early relational trauma, where the symptoms on the surface are connected to something much deeper underneath.

How I Work

I work primarily within an Internal Family Systems (IFS) framework — a model I find deeply humane and effective for approaching even the most difficult inner experiences with curiosity and compassion rather than judgment. I’ve also trained in Emotion-Focused Therapy, and I draw on somatic and body-based perspectives when relevant, because lasting change rarely happens through insight alone.

My trainings include:

• Internal Family Systems (IFS) Level 1 – 2023
• Healing the Fragmented Selves of Trauma Survivors: Overcoming Self-Alienation with Janina Fisher – 2021
• Emotion-Focused Therapy for Couples (EFT-C) – 2017
• The Antidote to Diet Failure: A Mindful Approach to Treating Overeating, Binge Eating and Weight Concerns with Judith Matz – 2017
• Emotion-Focused Therapy Levels 1 and 2 (EFT) – 2014, 2015
• Introductory Workshop in Clinical Hypnosis – 2013
• Level III: Advanced Topics in Complex Trauma and Dissociative Disorders through ISST-D – 2012
• Level II: From Complex Trauma to Dissociative Disorders through ISST-D – 2010
• Level I: The Complexities of Complex Trauma through ISST-D – 2009

I am a licensed psychologist with the Order of Psychologists of Quebec, which means I can provide official receipts for insurance purposes.

Outside the Office

When I’m not working, you’ll find me in a yoga class, at the gym or out walking my dog. Occasionally, I dabble in reading, spending time in nature, or being humbled by my ongoing attempts at learning something new. I’m also Co-Director of Healing Tree alongside my colleague Julia Di Nardo — and if you’ve read anything about how we work here, you’ll know that the work we do together is built on the belief that real change is possible. Not just managing things better, but actually feeling different. More like yourself.

That’s what we’re working toward together.