July 1st 2024 marks the 3 year anniversary since the Calgary Therapy Institute officially opened it’s doors. However, the origins of the institute and it’s founding started many years before. In July 2015 the institute’s founder, Dr. Patricia Miller, embarked on a trip to Peru where she visited one of the seven wonders of the world - Machu Picchu. She and a group of travellers were led by a guide up to the summit of the mountain, and were encouraged by their guide to leave an offering at an altar on Macchiu Piacchu. For her offering, Dr. Miller had leftover cocoa leaves in her pocket from some tea she drank earlier in the day. Her guide instructed her to ask a question and place her tea leaves on the altar. She asked: how am I meant to serve the world’s people, with my education and experience? Following Dr. Miller’s tour of Machu Picchu, she returned to Cuzco, a nearby city. That night Dr. Miller awoke at 4 am with a name on her mind - The Calgary Therapy Institute. She wrote down the name in her journal and acknowledged that she had received her Inka healing from her offering at Machu Picchu. With the name of the institute, Dr. Miller slowly started developing the content for e-learning and CBT groups.
In May 2021, Dr. Miller decided to look for a space where she could move her current clinical practice and shift into a full practice of self-determined healing for trauma-focused care. She searched for a space in Lake Bonvaista because of the proximity to nature, with the lake and abundance of trees nearby. In the Lake Bonavista Promenade, there was a space that had been closed due to Covid-19 and was about to be put on the rental market. The office was fully furnished with individual and collaborative office spaces - perfect for a therapy clinic. As the founder of CTI looked around, she made the commitment to open Unit 242, the first of four units now a part of the Calgary Therapy Institute and it’s co-partner Acorn Psychology.
Almost ten years have passed since Dr. Miller’s Inka healing, and the journey forward has been filled with many opportunities, hard work and tremendous growth. Since the Institute’s inception, the clinic and it’s staff have created peer-reviewed publications, blogs, podcasts, the Traumatology Series (in-press), a children’s book (in-press) and a book called The Many Spaces of Silence (in-press) based on Dr.Miller’s research on the role of self-determination in the healing of trauma.
"Possibility is always there - generations passed have used the power of possibility to create yesterday’s and today’s world. We have the same opportunity to do so for the next generations."
- Dr. P. Miller, 2024
Comments