Frances Miller, MSW, RSW
Secretary
Nearly forty years of clinical work, slowly and intentionally built into the architecture of a Canada-wide training program.
Frances Miller has been doing this work for close to forty years, the kind of number that usually only surfaces when someone else brings it up. A Master of Social Work from the University of Toronto sits behind the practice, alongside active membership in the Ontario Association of Social Workers, the Ontario College of Social Workers and Social Service Workers, and the International Society for Schema Therapy. The clinical work spans family, couples, group, and individual therapy, drawing primarily on Schema Therapy and supported by training in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, insight-oriented and psychodynamic approaches, systems theory, and attachment-based work. Frances is an ISST Certified Advanced Schema Therapist, Supervisor, and Trainer.
The early years were spent in the territory most clinicians eventually decide to hand off to specialists.
Working in community children’s mental health agencies in Toronto, Scarborough, and Oakville, Frances focused on individual and family therapy with children, teens, and adults, and on the treatment of trauma related to sexual abuse. She led multidisciplinary team approaches with SASAT, the Scarborough Agencies Sexual Abuse Team, and HSAP, the Halton Sexual Abuse Program, while developing a particular focus on adult survivors of childhood abuse. Training other therapists ran in parallel, both in the multidisciplinary treatment of child abuse and in trauma treatment for adults. That period shaped much of what came after. The instinct to work across disciplines, rather than retreat into a single one, has stayed with her.
Private practice began with Oakville Counselling Services.
Oakville Counselling Services was built to meet the needs of clients across the lifespan, holding a steady focus on anxiety, depression, relationship difficulties, and trauma. Adult individual psychotherapy, couples counselling, and attachment-oriented group therapy remain part of what Frances offers. In 2015, she encountered Schema Therapy and recognized something rare in it: an integrative approach robust enough to hold the complexity she had been working with all along. Mentored by Wendy Behary, LCSW, and Dr. Joan Farrell, Frances deepened her training and founded the Oakville Schema Therapy Centre.
Wanting to bring the work to a wider audience eventually led to a Canada-wide training program.
Schema Therapy Training Canada was founded with the mission of growing the model in Canada and beyond. STTC now offers training to therapists at every level, from those new to schema work to experienced practitioners seeking advanced certification, through supervision groups, experiential groups, certification programs, webinars, and individual supervision. The organization is active in national and international events and programs, and operates with a strong team of experienced schema therapists and supervisors around her.