The story of Center Street Psychology
Alisha Sabourin and I (Amy Antony) are the directors and co-owners of Center Street Psychology. We would be honoured for you to read our story of how we met and where we are headed!
Alisha and I are beyond excited to welcome local Calgarians and Albertans, in providing the best care, we know how to provide. To provide a little history of how the foundation began was when Alisha and I met in 2011. We were starting our Master of Counselling degrees and we met in our micro skills Introduction counselling class. I remember the exact spot Alisha was sitting - she was sitting towards the front of the classroom, where she normally sat. This was known to be her spot in each of our new classes as we began a new semester throughout the 3 1/2 years that we completed our masters degree. Alisha was known for having the best lunches and having the warmest of smiles. Her lunches and snacks were neatly packed, and organized and often times her food would bring the other students within our cohort together as they would always want to know where she got the freshest raspberries when they were out of season or what she did to help preserve her fruit to last as long as they could, so that it would last beyond its shelf life. These were some of the legacies Alisha became known for. Alisha quickly became known for her genuine demeanour, humour, and loyalty.
Alisha and I quickly became friends because we both beat to our own drum and realized that we were very authentic humans. We were only children, who had endured our own trauma and grief and loss within our own families. Given how unique it is to find somebody else who's an only child and somebody who has the same kind of rare and quirky personality, but also equally, I realized how quickly Alisha was unconditional in nature. Alisha is the type of person that would give the shirt off her back; altruistic. Given our fresh start of a friendship in our master’s degree we soon realized that friendship was starting to translate into fun outside of school and studies. Before we knew it, Alisha was moving in and became my roommate in Strathearn (full circle). We spent many late-night chats in my room about life and our hopes for our future in our personal and professional lives. As you can imagine, we believe that every psychologist should have their own psychologist (bias, right?!). Therapy is cool! Around 2011/2012, Alisha and I embarked on our own individual counselling journeys, jumping in to heal past attachment wounds, traumatic events, losses, and attempting to understand this world as we knew it as adults, which was very different than the world that we knew as children. This involved understanding our own upbringings and family of origin. To this day, we still attend regular therapy both individual and couples as part of our wellness regime. It is what is right with you for going to therapy, not what’s wrong with you!
Fast forward to 2020/2021, Alisha and I began working together up north supporting indigenous communities and started talking about our dreams and our hopes. We shared with one another "how amazing would it be to open a group practice". Alisha shared further that it has been a lifelong dream to move back to Calgary from Edmonton. We both shared that we wanted to provide approachable and inclusive care through owning a group practice. Alisha and I were thinking about our journey, and our hopes and dreams came full circle when Alisha visited me in Calgary. When she came to visit, there was one special night where we were walking outside in Crescent Heights with a glass of wine in our little carafes that people probably thought we were drinking hot chocolate (shhhhhh) and we aligned energetically in this vision. We realized how impassioned one another were and wanted to do great things together. Fasttrack forward to the end of January 2023. I was driving along on Centre Street and noticed that there was a space to lease and with Alisha’s approval and her words "I intrinsically trust you" we signed a lease together and we became co-owners and directors of Center Street Psychology. We are beyond thrilled to welcome you through our doors, and to support you in your counselling and wellness journey!
Check out this picture of us at our graduation in Seattle in 2014! Who would have thought this all would have unfolded over a decade ago.
