Lisa Couperthwaite
Dr. Lisa Couperthwaite completed her undergraduate degree in Psychology at York University and her Master’s and Ph.D. in Clinical and Counselling Psychology at the University of Toronto (OISE). She first registered with the College of Psychologists of Ontario in 2011 as a Psychological Associate, following which she completed her doctoral degree in 2013 and recertified with the College in 2014. She has since been practicing as a Registered Clinical and Counselling Psychologist.
Clinically, she has a special interest in trauma and PTSD, incorporating use of evidence-based diagnostic assessments and treatment approaches in her work, primarily with clients who have experienced adult-onset traumas and/or other occupational stress injuries. She also has research, clinical and counselling experience working with various marginalized groups, including those identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer, two-spirit, transgender, transsexual, and so on.
Dr. Couperthwaite also has a special interest in supervision best practices and participates in the Ontario Psychological Association Supervision Task force to develop guidelines and teaching materials for those providing clinical supervision. Through her full-time employment at the Work, Stress and Health/Psychological Trauma Program at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) and her work in private practice, she participates in the supervision and training of graduate students seeking to develop competencies in assessment, treatment and clinical supervision.
Research Synopsis
Dr. Couperthwaite’s research interests are primarily in relation to the study of predictors of relationship satisfaction among individuals of diverse sexual orientations and gender identities with an overarching goal of studying quality of life factors particularly relevant to minority groups facing multiple intersecting stressors with a potential to negatively impact well-being. A sub-goal of this research is been to establish the psychometric properties of a number of widely-used instruments to promote future research in this area. Her current project involves analyzing a large data set containing online survey data obtained from an English-speaking, primarily North American and European community sample of adults recruited from various Internet sources, representing various sexual orientations and gender identities. This dataset continues to be a source of various publication drafts and conference presentations with respect to various love style and attachment style and relationship satisfaction variables for further analysis.