Jamie Dawdy

My Story

I help people heal their relationship with food, movement, and body image, rebuild trust in themselves, and create meaningful change that feels sustainable—not forced.

My work is rooted in the belief that people do not need more pressure, criticism, or expectations to change. They need understanding, compassion, and the right conditions to support growth.

My approach is shaped by 15 years of experience as a Registered Nurse across public health, education, research, leadership, and psychotherapy, as well as my own lived experience of recovery. I understand how exhausting it can feel to be caught in cycles of self-criticism, body dissatisfaction, emotional eating, and the belief that trying harder should be enough.

I also know that lasting change becomes possible when we move beyond willpower and begin building the internal and external capacity that allows change to take root.

Today, I support individuals navigating body image concerns, disordered eating, eating disorder recovery, low self-worth, and life transitions. My goal is not simply to help people change behaviours—it is to help them understand themselves more deeply, reconnect with their values, and build the capacity to create a life that feels more aligned, compassionate, and sustainable.

My Approach

At the heart of my work is a simple belief:

Lasting change happens when people have the capacity to support it.

Many approaches to change focus on motivation, discipline, or trying harder. Yet many people already know what they want to do. The challenge is often having the emotional, psychological, relational, and environmental capacity to consistently follow through—especially during times of stress, uncertainty, or challenge.

Over time, this perspective became the foundation for the Resilience-Inspired Action Framework™, an integrative framework I developed to complement psychotherapy and help individuals translate insight into meaningful, sustainable change.

Rather than viewing behaviour change as a matter of willpower, the framework approaches change as a developmental process built on six interconnected pillars:

Building Capacity
Developing the emotional and psychological resources needed to feel safe enough to grow and change.

Understanding Your Story
Exploring how experiences, relationships, and beliefs have shaped patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving.

Reclaiming Agency
Strengthening self-trust, choice, autonomy, and the belief that meaningful change is possible.

Defining Your Values and Direction
Clarifying what matters most and creating a path forward that reflects your authentic goals and priorities.

Taking Aligned Action
Transforming insight into meaningful steps, new behaviours, and practices that support lasting change.

Shaping Supportive Environments and Relationships
Recognizing the important role of connection, systems, and environments in sustaining wellbeing and growth.

Together, these pillars provide a framework for understanding resilience, supporting behaviour change, and creating the conditions where meaningful transformation can occur.

Professional Background

I bring over 15 years of clinical and systems-level experience as a Registered Nurse, with a career spanning public health, nursing education, research, leadership, and psychotherapy.

For much of my career, I have worked to strengthen health and resilience at the population level through public health practice, research, policy development, and community engagement. This work has shaped my understanding that wellbeing is never determined by individual choices alone. Our behaviours and experiences are influenced by our relationships, environments, life experiences, and the broader systems in which we live.

For the past eight years, I have worked as a Public Health Nurse focused on improving infant, child, family, and community health outcomes. Through this work, I have supported initiatives that strengthen resilience, relational health, and equitable access to health-promoting resources.

This systems perspective continues to influence my clinical work today. It allows me to approach healing and change with both compassion and curiosity—recognizing the complexity of human experiences while supporting individuals in building the capacity to move forward.

Alongside my public health role, I maintain a private psychotherapy practice dedicated to supporting individuals navigating body image concerns, disordered eating, eating disorder recovery, self-worth challenges, and the complex relationship many people have with food, movement, and their bodies.

Research, Leadership & Framework Development

My passion for resilience extends beyond individual therapy.

I am a co-author of the Ontario Early Adversity and Resilience Framework, contributing to provincial, evidence-informed strategies that support coordinated, cross-sector approaches to resilience-building and long-term wellbeing.

Through my clinical and systems-level work, I have become increasingly interested in how resilience develops and how sustainable change can be supported—not only within individuals, but also within families, communities, organizations, and broader systems.

The Resilience-Inspired Action Framework™ brings together insights from psychotherapy, resilience science, behaviour change research, public health, and lived experience into a practical model for understanding how people build the capacity to thrive.

This framework informs my clinical work and also guides my speaking, workshops, and consultation work with groups interested in resilience, behaviour change, and creating supportive environments for growth.

My Clinical Approach

My work integrates evidence-informed approaches including:

• Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)

• Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT)

• Enhanced Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT-E) for eating disorders

• Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)

• Resilience science

• Trauma-informed care

I believe effective therapy is both evidence-based and deeply human. Research provides important guidance, but meaningful change happens through connection, understanding, collaboration, and creating a space where people feel supported enough to grow.

Extending the Work Beyond Individual Therapy

The conditions that support meaningful change are not only relevant at the individual level. They also shape how teams and organizations learn, adapt, and thrive.

Through workshops, speaking engagements, and consultation, I support teams and organizations in exploring how resilience, psychological safety, trust, and sustainable behaviour change are developed within complex systems.

Drawing from psychotherapy, public health, resilience science, and behaviour change research, my work helps organizations strengthen the human factors that support wellbeing, collaboration, and meaningful change.

This work focuses on building environments where people feel supported, valued, and empowered to contribute—because sustainable change is not only shaped by individual capacity, but also by the systems and relationships around us.

My Commitment

Whether I am working with an individual client, contributing to public health initiatives, or developing frameworks to support change, my purpose remains the same:

To help create the conditions that allow people to thrive.

I believe healing is not about becoming someone different. It is about developing the capacity to fully engage with who you already are—with greater clarity, confidence, self-trust, and resilience.

Because meaningful change is not built on motivation alone.

It is built on capacity.

Psychotherapist | Speaker | Workshop Facilitator | Consultant