Welcome to Limina Psychology
We are a small private outpatient psychology practice located in Fort Langley, BC. Limina Psychology is run jointly by Licensed Psychologists, Dr. Janelle Kwee (BC #1014074), and Dr. Derrick Klaassen (BC #1016818).
We chose the name ‘Limina Psychology’ intentionally. ‘Limina’ is the Latin word for ‘threshold’, a space of transition. All of us are invited, from time to time, to enter into phases of transition in our lives, to find our own innermost and authentic response to our life situations. Our aim at Limina Psychology is to accompany you in this process, to help you find a way to truly and fully living your own life.
Although we are general psychotherapy practitioners, with a background in working with a variety of psychological disorders and life challenges, our speciality is in existential psychotherapy.
Existential psychotherapy focuses not just on symptom reduction, but also challenges us to consider whether we are living lives that are meaningful and fulfilling. In this way, psychotherapy is not merely about remediating suffering but also about finding our own way towards fulfilled existence. And at times it is about suffering well.
Dr. Janelle Kwee
Carl Rogers said, “it seems to me that at the bottom each person is asking, “who am I, really? How can I get in touch with this real self…? How can I become myself?” In my psychotherapy and consultation practice, my greatest wish is to help people become more fully themselves. My aim is to support people towards the fullest possibility of living their own life. People choose to enter counselling and therapy for a myriad of reasons, sometimes because of their own pain or longing, and sometimes at the encouragement of another person. I hope to accompany each person in a journey of becoming more truly, deeply, and freely their authentic self.
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As a clinical psychologist, I bring a humanistic, existential, and relational approach to my work. Through Limina Psychology, I provide psychotherapy, psychological assessments, consultation to other psychotherapists, clinical workshops, Existential Analysis training supervision, and personal self-experience sessions for trainees in Existential Analysis. Whether you are a psychotherapy client or clinical consultee, I approach my work with you in a person-centered and phenomenological way. I draw on training in Existential Analysis and Logotherapy, Primary Care Behavioural Health Consultation, and Lifespan Integration therapy. I work with some clients for longer-term psychotherapy and accompaniment, and others for brief problem-focused consultation. I am open to exploring with each client their expectations and goals around the work they can do with the quantity and frequency of sessions that they are able to commit to. I work with children, adolescents, and adults, and provide consultation and training to other caregivers, such as physicians and clergy, who may be facing vicarious trauma, or wishing to improve their sensitivity to emotional and mental health concerns in their work.
I welcome clients who are experiencing trauma, ongoing emotional suffering, facing an immediate challenge or transition, grieving, experiencing fear and anxiety, working through a conflicted relationship (or many), or longing for deeper growth, freedom, and authenticity in their lives. Specific concerns that I often work with include birth preparation and postpartum adjustment, grief and loss, parenting, early relationship trauma or neglect, spiritual or identity crises, intimate relationship problems, posttraumatic stress, sex therapy, sleep problems, self-experiential therapy for other counsellors or counsellors-in-training, supervision/consultation for other mental health clinicians, and professional caregiver support. Clients often seek services because of depression, anxiety, burnout, or relationship dissatisfaction, and it is not until we begin our work that we identify more specific themes or targets.
In my professional journey, I’ve had the privilege of working with youth on the streets in Bolivia, providing behavioural health consultation to patients and primary health care providers in inner city Chicago, and offering outpatient community mental health and private practice psychotherapy and assessment services in the U.S. and Canada. The other main part of my professional life has been in teaching, training, research, and writing. I have been actively involved since 2006 in training and mentoring future psychologists and psychotherapists through university faculty appointments in graduate professional programs at Wheaton College (2006-2009), Trinity Western University (2009-2022), and Adler University (2022-present). In these core faculty positions, I have been engaged in teaching, research, clinical and research supervision, and program leadership and administration. I regularly present at academic and community conferences and workshops. I have been involved in section leadership with the Canadian Psychological Association and as a trainer and board member of the Existential Analysis Society of Canada as well as for the Center for Existential Analysis and Logotherapy in the United States. I presently serve as the Director of Clinical Training and Full Professor in the Doctor of Psychology (Psy.D.) program in Clinical Psychology at Adler University, Vancouver campus.
The journey of becoming one’s true self is also my own. I cherish the companionship of friends, family, colleagues, and mentors who help me to embrace the gift of my own life. I am grateful to call British Columbia home, and especially enjoy wandering its beautiful landscape.
Dr. Derrick Klaassen
In his book I and Thou (1923), German-Jewish philosopher and contemplative, Martin Buber, said that human beings become themselves – become who they truly are – through open and authentic encounters with another person. As a psychologist, I see my work as accompanying clients, supervisees and trainees/students in this journey. I seek to do so in a manner that is compassionate and empathic, and that aims to facilitate acceptance, understanding, finding one’s own position, ultimately leads to healing and wholeness. My deepest hope is that all of us (myself included) may come to know ourselves as accepted and beloved in genuine and open relationship with ourselves, our communities, and the transcendent.
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I have the privilege of being involved in work that I love in a variety of ways. I am a Registered Psychologist in British Columbia and co-founder of Limina Psychology. My clinical practice spans more than two decades and I have worked for both smaller and larger organizations during this time. My practice at Limina includes providing a variety of psychological services, including psychotherapy/counselling, psychological assessments, clinical supervision/consultation/training, and existentially-oriented self-experience. In terms of psychotherapy, I aim to assist clients with a variety of challenges, including rehabilitation from chronic or serious illnesses, personal/spiritual development, as well as general psychological concerns (e.g., anxiety, depression, trauma, grief/loss, separation/divorce, etc.).
In addition to my clinical practice, I also serve as an Associate Professor of Clinical Psychology in the Clinical Psychology Doctoral Program at Adler University (2023 to present). From 2009 to 2023, I was an Associate Professor in the Counselling Psychology Program at Trinity Western University (Langley, BC). As a professor, I teach or have taught graduate courses in professional ethics, psychopathology, grief counselling, research design and provided clinical and research supervision. I have also published or co-published over 25 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters on a variety of topics (e.g., grief/loss, existential analysis, phenomenology, qualitative research methods, etc.) and been involved with over 50 conference presentations at scholarly/professional conferences. I maintain an active membership in the Canadian Psychological Association.
My professional and personal passion for the past 20+ years has been Existential Analysis (EA). I find that EA shows up in every corner of my life, whether this is in my teaching pedagogy, my approach to research, my clinical practice or even in my personal life. In all of these areas I endeavour to live genuinely, authentically, openly and with inner consent. I completed my training as a psychotherapist through the International Society for Logotherapy and Existential Analysis (with Dr. Alfried Laengle) between 2006 and 2011. I am also a founding member of the Existential Analysis Society of Canada, and have served as its board chair. Clinically, I serve as a trainer in EA in a variety of countries, including Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom.
Although my clinical and academic work is located in Vancouver, BC, I grew up in Germany (und kann daher auch gerne Deutsch mit Ihnen sprechen). I also count myself as very fortunate to be able to grow on daily basis as a therapist, scholar and person through my colleagues, family, friends, students, and clients. I love hiking and canoeing in Pacific Northwest and try my best to heed the instructions for life of the poet Mary Oliver (1935-2019): Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.
We acknowledge with deep gratitude that we are privileged to work and learn on the traditional, ancestral and unceded lands of the Sto:lo Peoples, including the Kwantlen and Katzie First Nations. We make this acknowledgement with a commitment to further dialogue and understanding, and to witness and take action against all forms of individual and systemic oppression.