Hello, I’m Calixte Renaud (she/her) but you can call me Cee.
My practice as a therapist is to offer a non-judgemental, supportive space where we can curiously and compassionately explore all parts of your story.
About Calixte
I’m a Registered Psychotherapist with the College of Registered Psychotherapists of Ontario based in Toronto, Canada and I’m a member of the Ontario Society for Registered Psychotherapists. I studied at The Toronto Institute of Relational Psychotherapy (TIRP), an experiential clinical training program in psychodynamic relational psychotherapy.
As a white queer femme, I strive for a practice rooted in an understanding of how systemic injustice impacts our health and wellness. I came to therapy work through my own ongoing healing process. I know firsthand what it means to struggle with depression, burn-out, suicidal thoughts, identity struggles, family challenges and finding our meaning in a sometimes disconnected and literally-on-fire world. I have been, and still am, a therapy client myself. I understand how hard it is to trust others with our stories, especially when they’ve been misread.
I’ve over a decade of professional experience working in sexual health education and reproductive justice as an abortion counselor, crises center phone lines support, sexual health and pleasure workshop facilitator, and in supporting logistic roles in community organizing. Previously, I worked at the co-operative queer sex shop Come As You Are, facilitating workshops and providing open, client-supportive conversations around pleasure and sexual wellness. I’ve had the honor of working as part of the management team with Choice in Health Clinic, helping create better access to trauma-informed, queer and trans-affirming abortion care. I have a strong commitment to bodily autonomy and self-determination in health care and all aspects of our lives. I’m actively thinking deeply and critically about therapy, the history of mental health systems and what it means for us to engage in it, and how we can imagine brazen futures.
Education + Experience
Healing is a process. Healing is practice. Healing is non-linear.
Some of the ways I continue my growth as a therapist and human is through personal therapy, individual supervision, group supervision, a therapist book club, online trauma-informed webinars, peer groups, podcasts, so many many books, community gatherings and deep conversations with respected friends and mentors. While I continue to pursue additional training and educational opportunities in Polyvagal Theory, Internal Family Systems, and somatics, I believe that knowledge production and growth also thrive outside of academia and institutions. Some of my greatest learnings have come through conversations with mentors, listening to brilliant and imaginative youth, struggling through conflict and difference, participating in community teachings and activism, and being humbled when I mess up.
Certifications + Memberships:
Registered Psychotherapist with the College of Registered Psychotherapists of Ontario
Dip(TIRP), Toronto Institute for Relational Psychotherapy
BA Honors in Gender Studies and Philosophy, York University
Member of the Ontario Society for Registered Psychotherapists
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Clinical Applications of Polyvagal Theory in Trauma Treatment with Stephen Porges & Deb Dana: Integrating the Science of Safety, Trust, Self-Regulation and Attachment (2024)*
Clinical Applications of Internal Family Systems Therapy, Alexia Rothman (2024)
Neurodiversity and SOGIE-Affirming Care Workshop - Kat Singer (2023)
Stephen Porges Polyvagal Theory and It's Clinical Applications (2023)
The Ultimate Trauma Treatment Certification: Therapeutic Success for Clients with Complex Trauma, Arielle Schwartz (2023)
Trauma Treatment Certification Training, Janina Fisher (2022)
Certificate in Somatic Embodiment & Regulation Strategies, Linda Thai (2021)
San’yas Ontario Indigenous Cultural Safety Mental Health training (2020)
Supporting the Rights of Migrant Sex Workers: Legal Training for Service Providers, Butterfly Asian Migrant Sex Workers Network (2017 + 2020)
*Training marked with * are currently in progress
Social Location:
Our social location influences the lens through which we see the world and informs how we understand each other. I know that we bring with us our identities, communities and experiences of privilege and oppression into the therapy room, and as such I find naming my social location an important act of transparency. I welcome open conversations about how similarities and differences in our identities and experiences impact our work together. I look towards politicized queer, antiracist theorists, and organizers to continue this unpacking, and am indebted to them for their hard work. I’m a queer white settler neurodivergent cis-gender femme from franco-ontarienne and british isles ancestry. I will not always get it right, but I’m committed to the process of unlearning and having brave conversations.
What I believe…
Wounds happen in relationships and they are healed in relationships
There are no bad parts and no bad people, and our adaptive strategies can cause us and others harm
Healing doesn’t just happen in the therapy chair, far from it. Healing is collective, and has been part of our communities for centuries. We can access healing through books, songs, movement, connection, community, grief, activism, nature, friends, and ancestral lineages.
Diagnoses do not define us.
We are all beautifully messy humans trying to figure out how to be with each other after centuries of harm
You are the expert of your experience.
We are worthy just as we are, and we can come to befriend our nervous system and defences in order to gain more connection
We get to heal in a broken system. In fact, moving towards healing our embodied and generational trauma is one of the ways that systemic change can happen.
Behind any slick website + decent writing is another human stumbling around like anyone else