Our Defining Solutions team specializes in different areas of psychology using a variety of techniques, but one common thread with all our team members is we genuinely care about people and want to help our clients be more successful and satisfied in life and work.
Emma Geoghegan, M.Ed., R.Psych.
Emma Geoghegan is a psychologist, who for the past 20 years, has been helping individuals reach their career and personal goals. She founded Defining Solutions Inc., with the goal of bringing together a team of highly skilled psychologists with a range of specializations so they could provide effective and comprehensive support to individuals and Calgary businesses.
Emma assists people with a variety of career and personal concerns, these include: managing anxiety, depression, self-esteem, anger management, career/ life transitions, enhancing communication, and other interpersonal concerns. She helps her clients develop practical skills to manage and overcome life’s challenges. She commonly assists individuals as they re-evaluate their lives, or make a career/life transition, in order to find the balance and happiness they desire.
Her approach is holistic and collaborative. She believes her clients bring expertise about what will work best for them and she brings expertise to the counselling process that helps her clients gain greater insight into the concerns they are facing and identify strategies that can help them adjust, manage more effectively, and become happier. She helps clients explore their strengths, resources, and values in order to develop a manageable plan to attain their career and life goals.
Emma has always had a strong interest in helping people find satisfaction in their careers. She has helped hundreds of people from high school students to mid-career changers identify a career path that is right for them and supported her clients as they work through their career transition. For the past 6 years she has taken this passion and has been helping organizations. Emma regularly presents on a wide range of topics such as diversity in the workplace, stress management, change and transition, and building resiliency in order to create psychologically healthy workplaces. She has worked extensively with leaders providing comprehensive leadership assessments and coaching. Emma believes accurate assessments can be used to identify strengths as well as potential derailers, and as the basis of a development plan they accelerate the growth of key leadership skills. Allowing a leader to work effectively in their current position and develop the skills to function at the next leadership level.
Currently she is an adjunct faculty member for the Centre for the Center for Creative Leadership and an Executive Coach & facilitator for the Niagara Institute, a branch of the Conference Board of Canada.
Emma holds a Master’s degree in Counselling Psychology from the Faculty of Educational Psychology & Leadership at the University of Victoria. She is a Registered Psychologist with the College of Alberta Psychologists and a member of the Psychological Association of Alberta.
Gaye Kropf, Ph.D., R.Psych.
Gaye is a registered counselling and organizational psychologist with a wide range of experience in assessment and treatment. Areas include: depression, anxiety and stress, eating disorders, rehabilitation, substance abuse, anger management, grief, as well as physical, sexual and emotional abuse. She has worked in private practice, corporate, government and hospital settings. She conducted critical incident stress debriefings and post-traumatic stress therapy for a municipal emergency services department. Gaye also has extensive experience working with Indian Residential School survivors. This involves resolving emotional, lifestyle and relationship issues related to traumatic abusive school experiences.
Gaye has provided assessment and counselling services for parents and children. Also, she has supervised other professionals in an agency specializing in attention deficit and hyperactive disorder. She has also participated as a senior member of a team of mental health professionals providing consulting for staff and therapy for adolescents and their parents in a residential ranch program for high-risk girls.
Gaye’s organizational involvement includes providing comprehensive psychological assessment and development coaching for selection, promotion, career transition, and leader and professional development. She also assists organization leaders to identify and create cultural, human resources, merger, and structural initiatives to facilitate positive organizational change.
Gaye received her Ph.D. from the University of Calgary following undergraduate and graduate studies at UCLA and California State University. She is a member of the College of Alberta Psychologists, the Psychologists Association of Alberta and the Strategic Capability Network.
Our team members are continuously on the look out for best practices and have a professional association with the following: