MENTAL HEALTH WEEK

Get to know the Mental Health Practitioners at INS Québec

This week, May 2-8, is the Canadian Mental Health Association’s Mental Health Week. This year, the week is spent under the theme of empathy.

At INS Québec, empathy is what allows us to put ourselves in the shoes of high-level athletes, to understand their very specific reality and to consider the specific requirements of their training and competitive environments. Empathy is the superpower shared by all the different practitioners in our network, including Alexis Gagnon-Dolbec and Elena Grilli Cadieux.

Anxiety, Alexis knows all about it!

Alexis Gagnon-Dolbec was an athlete and a coach in the sport of lacrosse, where he had the chance to evolve on the university, national and international scene. Holder of a master’s degree in sports psychology and a doctorate in clinical psychology, Alexis studied for 3 years at the anxiety clinic of the Douglas Mental Health University Institute. His knowledge of anxiety treatments is particularly useful to him with INS clients. He joined the INS team in 2019 and the short track speed skating support team in October 2021.

Always prioritizing the individual before the athlete, he nevertheless understands that there may be an interrelationship between mental health, life events and sporting ambitions of his clients. It is therefore a duty to take this reality into account, which can sometimes be difficult to manage. Through his collaborations with INS athletes, Alexis also likes to integrate principles specific to mental preparation into his therapeutic interventions in order to offer athletes complete psychological support consistent with their realities.

The quest for balance is Elena’s business!

Elena Grilli Cadieux loves discovering and better understanding the psychological challenges specific to each discipline and getting involved in the sports community. Propelled by her altruistic, dynamic, benevolent personality, her sense of leadership and her good humor, she wishes to guide each athlete towards the development of their full potential, overall health, and healthy sports practice.

It was as a cheerleading athlete that she was exposed to the psychological challenges in the sporting world. Elena works as an intern and doctoral student in clinical psychology at the INS, under the supervision of Amélie Soulard, Mental Health and Mental Performance Lead. Specialized in sports psychology from the perspective of cognitive-behavioral and humanistic approaches, Elena collaborates with athletes struggling with various mental health challenges such as mood or eating disorders. She has a particular interest in mindfulness interventions, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), as well as those focused on emotions and body image.

You are an athlete and mental health is important to you? #GetReal and meet our mental health practitioners! You can make an appointment by contacting the INS Québec Medical Clinic.

#GetReal
#MentalHealthWeek