How I Work
The tools of this work are quieter than people expect. Awareness. Presence. Patience. A genuine suspension of judgment; which is harder than it sounds, for everyone in the room including me.
I don't rush toward resolution. In my experience, premature resolution is just conflict that hasn't finished yet. What I'm more interested in is creating the conditions where something real can be said and actually heard, which tends to take the time it takes.
A lot of what drives conflict, including conflict about AI, is attachment. To a particular version of how things should be. To grievances that feel important to hold onto because letting go of them feels like losing. To self-protective positions that made sense at some point but have stopped being useful.
I work with that carefully. Not to talk anyone out of what they feel, but to create enough space that people can see their own patterns more clearly and decide what they actually want to carry forward.
This isn't about being agreeable or finding the middle ground. It's about getting honest enough with yourself and each other that the way forward becomes visible.
Ana Martin, PhD
I've been doing this work in various forms for almost twenty-five years; helping individuals, couples, and groups find their way through situations that felt, at least at the outset, unnavigable. What that experience has given me more than anything is a deep respect for how hard honest conversation actually is, and how much changes when people finally feel genuinely heard.
I came to AI mediation through a combination of clinical experience and research. My doctoral work at Western University focused on resilience, specifically how people adapt through uncertainty and disruption. It's hard to think of a more relevant question for this particular moment in history.
My training includes a Ph.D. in Health and Rehabilitation Sciences with a specialization in Health Promotion from the University of Western Ontario, and a Master of Arts in Counselling Psychology from Adler University.
What I bring to this work isn't a methodology so much as a orientation toward curiosity rather than judgment, toward what's underneath the conflict rather than the conflict itself, and toward the belief that most people are more capable of navigating hard things than they've been given credit for.
I'm based in London, Ontario and currently offer sessions online across Canada.
