Dr. Colleen Merrifield

I am a clinical psychologist at St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton (SJHH) and have worked for over 10 years in both the Anxiety and Mood Treatment and Research Clinics before joining the Ontario Structured Psychotherapy Program as a Clinical Consultant. Prior to that, I completed my Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology at the University of Waterloo, where I was fortunate to be awarded a Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship. In my current role, I provide training, consultation, and professional mentorship to CBT therapists across Ontario Health West, a region serving over 4 million residents. In addition, I have been a faculty member in the Department of Psychology at SJHH and the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Neuroscience at McMaster since 2014. Over this time, I have been actively involved in teaching, supervising, and training learners, peers, and other professionals in CBT. I have a strong interest in program and resource development and was part of the Diagnostic Assessment and Research Tool (DART) Working Group at SJHH where I contributed to the development and writing of the DART (a free-access, modular, semi-structured diagnostic interview for assessing mental disorders based on DSM-5 diagnostic criteria). In my professional life currently, I am happy to say that I have come to find my true passion in the dissemination and delivery of high-quality, evidence-based CBT training to clinicians so that truly exceptional CBT can, in turn, be made available on a large scale to the general population. Being neurodivergent myself, I also have a special interest in adapting CBT training and CBT delivery to meet the needs of folks who identify as “neurospicy”!