Education & Credentials

Dr. Desmarais completed a Master’s degree in Child Studies and a Doctoral degree in Clinical Psychology at Concordia University. Her doctoral research was focused on parental experiences with accessing and using local and government-funded services specialized for their adolescent children with autism spectrum disorder. She received several awards during her graduate studies, including the Canadian Disability Policy Alliance Scholarship and the Faculty of Arts and Science Graduate Fellowship.

Training & Experiences

Dr. Desmarais trained in multiple different settings, which allowed her to engage in clinical assessment and treatment with a wide variety of populations. She has acquired specialized training in medical psychology, grief, complex trauma, and autism spectrum disorder across childhood and adolescence. Dr. Desmarais completed her pre-doctoral residency at the Montreal Children’s Hospital, where she trained in Chronic Pain, Gastroenterology, Hematology/Oncology, and Pediatric Trauma. These experiences refined her skill-set in individual and group therapies, as well as parent coaching across outpatient and residential treatment settings. Dr. Desmarais pursued additional clinical training in assessment at the Jewish General Hospital in the Neonatal Follow-Up Clinic in order to better support families who share developmental and emotional-behavioural concerns for their young children. Additionally, Dr. Desmarais takes a special interest in providing support to families of youth with complex trauma histories, and thus she sought out nuanced training in the assessment and treatment of trauma-related disorders through Batshaw Youth Centers and the Ungava Tullatavik Health Centre. She continues to build on her expertise by regularly seeking out training on the most up-to-date and cutting-edge research in pediatric trauma.

Current Work

In addition to her work at Elevate Psychotherapy and Wellness Clinic, Dr. Desmarais is a staff psychologist in the Department of Hematology/Oncology at the Montreal Children’s Hospital. Her work is dedicated to supporting children with oncological and hematological illnesses, such as Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia and Sickle Cell Disease, and in this role she provides compassionate and evidence-based care to children and parents to help them cope with chronic illness. Dr. Desmarais also completes autism spectrum diagnostic assessments within the Brain Development and Behaviour Clinic at Montreal Children’s Hospital.

Dr. Desmarais is dedicated to disseminating her knowledge to the general public, as well as professionals and students in training across disciplines. She does this by providing group trainings and workshops on the impact of complex trauma on the brain, trauma-informed interventions, and on school interventions to support children with special needs. She has a keen interest in supervision, and offers supervision services in assessment and therapy to both peers and student trainees.