Psychotherapist

Ian Heft, MA, MA(CP), RP is a Registered Psychotherapist based in Owen Sound, ON and the Owner and Clinical Director of Fundamental Health: Ian Heft & Associates.

Ian was astounded by ART from the very first day of his Basic Training and has been fortunate to be able to travel throughout the US and Canada to learn from the most skilled and versed practitioners of this modality: ART founder Laney Rosenzweig in Connecticut, Colleen Clark in Alberta, and Kathy Long in Florida.

Ian has close to 15 years of experience in the human services sector, most recently as a Mental Health Clinician and previously to that working with universities and colleges, community agencies and in the healthcare sector in the areas of postsecondary student services, employment, crisis intervention and English Language instruction for newcomers to Canada. He oversaw a test and exam accommodations centre for students with disabilities at Laurentian University in Sudbury, ON and was a Youth in Transition Worker mentoring adults who were aging out of foster care at Sault College in Sault Ste. Marie, ON. He worked as a Practicum Advisor for an online Master of Counselling Psychology program at Yorkville University in Fredericton, New Brunswick and has worked most recently at a treatment centre and in frontline community harm reduction/addiction medicine and running a growing private practice based in his hometown of Owen Sound, ON.

Ian has worked extensively in First Nation communities for several years serving Indigenous clients and alongside colleagues who practice traditional healing, and has seen the ways that ART is very compatible with traditional Indigenous ways of knowing and how this approach complements the work that First Nation colleagues are doing in their communities. Ian would be thrilled to train more Indigenous practitioners in rural or remote First Nations to help bring this to more clients who could benefit from it.

He has led proposal projects that successfully secured over $2.5 million in funding through federal and provincial grants, including one for a 2-year program providing outreach services and addiction medicine in two First Nation communities and a community development project to expand a regional organization for individuals with Learning Disabilities across Northeastern Ontario.

Ian has a Master of Arts in Interdisciplinary Humanities from Laurentian University and completed a thesis focusing on addiction, a Master of Arts in Counselling Psychology from Yorkville and is a Registered Psychotherapist. He is currently completing a PhD in Community Psychology from Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, ON.

In the small amount of spare time he has, he enjoys playing guitar, banjo, mandolin, mandola and a bit of piano and travelling, whether for work/trainings or just for fun.