Kim McCoy Coleman (she/her)

Kim is a mother, sister, daughter, aunt, and friend, as well as a professor, social worker, creative arts- and psychedelic-assisted- therapist.  She is also a cisgender White woman, a member of the LGBTQIA2S+ community, neurodivergent, and has a (dis)ability. A first-generation immigrant to Canada, she has mixed Irish, German, and Hungarian ancestry. Kim is the proud mother of twins, Aya and Noor. She enjoys spending time in Victoria, resides in Venise-En-Quebec, and serves as an Associate Professor of Social Work in New York. She strives to remember that she lives and works on lands belonging to the Iroquois, Western Abenaki, Mohican, Mohawk, and Haudenosaunee peoples and practices this awareness from a place of deep gratitude and humility.  

Kim’s identity and lived experience, which includes both privilege and oppression, and her commitment to critical reflexivity, help her to have deep empathy for those who experience marginalization, shame, isolation, and stigma. She relates strongly with how these forces can contribute to complex feelings of disconnection from oneself and others, community, culture, or society, diminishing our sense of vitality and joy.  

Kim holds a deep appreciation of the bio-psycho-social and spiritual dimensions of a person-in-relationship with their sociopolitical, cultural, and geographic environment.  She works from a systems perspective, which highlights how we are embedded within complex structures of family, community, sociocultural and political dynamics which can cause harm and constrain us from living in alignment with the true nature of our authentic spirit. Her approach to counselling is deeply relational and is supported by a steadfast commitment to social justice.

As a Psilocybin-assisted therapist, she is deeply grateful to support others on their own unique journey to reconnect with their true spirit and to tap into our shared inner healing intelligence. She invites and welcomes an embodied process of becoming more fully attuned to one's Self energy, which unleashes our capacity for radical self-compassion, allowing us to heal and nurture our relationships with ourselves and others, the world around us, and to build compassionate communities. She considers herself a humble witness as individuals heal themselves while contributing to our universal, collective healing.

Kim’s passions include being a Mom, travelling whenever and wherever she can, and all things creative. She loves the arts and being in nature and is always trying to make more time to engage in both. She enjoys looking for awe in her everyday life and finds strength in her spirituality that draws from many, but welcomes all, sources of wisdom and guidance. Kim's spirituality is shaped by her early Catholic upbringing, a deep appreciation for Nature/Humanism, a growing interest in Yoga/Hindu practices, and from her study and practice of the Sufi faith tradition.

Professional Background

Kim holds two master’s degrees –in Art Therapy and Social Work – both from the University of Illinois at Chicago and she is a PhD candidate at McGill University in Montreal. With over twelve years of clinical counselling experience, she has worked with a range of individuals, families, and groups across a variety of settings. For example, she has worked in child and family clinics, in-patient psychiatry, and addiction treatment facilities. She has also worked with survivors of sexual assault and as a supervisor of a family violence prevention program. Most recently she has been an Employee Assistance Program (EAP) coordinator and in private practice as an Art Therapist. Across all her experience, trauma has been the common denominator and complex trauma has become an area of special focus.

Kim has taught at the University level for fifteen years in a variety of places spanning the United States, Canada, and the Middle East.  She is currently an Associate Professor of Social Work at the State University of New York at Plattsburgh.  Her current research explores the capacity of awe to improve wellbeing, with a special interest in how awe contributes to psychedelic healing.

Kim's therapeutic approach blends compassion and curiosity with creativity and is rooted in Relational-cultural Theory, Internal Family Systems, and Narrative Therapy – three perspectives which blend well with holistic wellbeing, deep healing, and transformative potential of plant medicine. She works in a trauma-informed, healing-centered way and is especially sensitive to one’s intersectional identity. Some of her greatest gifts are her capacity for empathy, an unwavering stance of radical non-judgement, and her ability – and privilege - to build authentic healing relationships with others along this shared human journey.