Background

Lois holds a Masters of Educational Counselling degree from the University of Victoria and is a registered counsellor with Canadian Counselling and Psychotherapy Association. She is also a Somatic Experiencing® Practitioner with specialized training in early developmental trauma, intergenerational trauma and complex trauma. Further, she has specialized training in touch work for trauma. She also is an approved assistant for the training of therapists to become registered Somatic Experiencing® practitioners. And, through Somatic Experiencing® Trauma Institute, Through Somatic Experiencing Trauma Institute, Lois is an approved assistant and session provider for all levels of the trainings. She can sign off on the personal session hours for those working on becoming Somatic Experiencing® Practitioners.

Lois Hansen was born in Squamish BC. She is the third born of five children to parents who were raised in Saskatchewan. Her grandparents were from Austria on her mom’s side in Sweden on her dad’s side. She has one daughter, born in 1995 in St. Albert, Alberta, and she has just adopted a five-year-old cat named Mocha. Her hobbies include walks in nature, hanging out with her cat and floating down the Enderby River.

Her first career, often referred to as her first love, was as an elementary school teacher. Throughout these 19 years she was an elementary teacher, counsellor and a principal. Now she combines her educational background with her psychology background and often teaches psycho-educational workshops, offering consults for other therapists and teaching about trauma practice.

One example of a class that she taught was in 2018-2019. It was entitled Healing Complex Trauma, a three-week course offered to Indigenous front line workers through First Nations Health Authority.

The course had three main streams:

  1. The neurobiology of the brain and how trauma changes the brain (this is significant because if the brain can change then under the appropriate conditions it can also heal)
  2. Group therapy where front-line workers work through their personal traumas
  3. Movement and art integration

As a consultant as well as a counselor, she works directly with clients and/or with counselors, sharing effective trauma therapy interventions. She is passionate about helping clients overcome challenges of trauma as well as assisting counsellors in equipping them with the skills to deal with the highly traumatized clients. Consultations are done individually, or through seminars, for counsellors, teachers and even for clients, teaching vital and innovative interventions to release the effects of trauma.