Daniel Martinez Tafolla M.A., RCC

I was born in Mexico, in a very small city called Uruapan. My parents always wanted to have 2 children and my brother, who is 3 years older than me, was on board with this. However, his only demand to them was that it HAD to be a boy and the name would be Daniel, no Danielle/Daniela, a little brother named Daniel who he could play with. He got his wish and for the most part of our lives together we have enjoyed each other’s company (maybe 2 or 3 years during our teenage years that we probably were arguing a lot, never too serious).

My journey into the mental health profession started late in high-school by accident. I wanted to be a psychiatrist, since I was always interested of becoming a doctor. However, my school at the time didn’t send my documentation in time and I lost my spot in the med school. This led me to study Psychology (my second career option) and I could never be happier about this.

During my university years, I met wonderful people that became close friends and teachers that became mentors. I had the opportunity to get a lot of exposure to social and mental issues in the society due to several projects we needed to take: Anti-bullying program in a secondary school, neuropsychological rehabilitation in a foster home and psychosocial rehabilitation in a psychiatric hospital with acute disorder patients.

Immediately after University, I started to study my Masters in Family Therapy. After that, I moved to Sydney, Australia and lived there for 1 year. I worked in the hospitality sector, while I was trying to get my English certificate. Not having enough of studying, I applied for another Master degree, this time in Palo Alto University in California. Not being able to stay for long in California, I moved back to Mexico and continued my classes in an online setting. During my practicum-internship year, I met my supervisor and mentor Ratha Chek who, after a few months of intense counselling sessions with people in Canada, US and Mexico, offered me something I couldn’t reject. She offered me the opportunity to work for her at her centre in Vancouver.

After graduating from Palo Alto University with a focus on Couples and Marriage Counselling, I started the process to move to Canada. Just after COVID, I finally came to Vancouver and it wasn’t pretty at the beginning because of my visa status. Thankfully, I got my working permit and started even more paperwork to become a Licensed counsellor in Canada. Since then, I have been working alongside an amazing team and have learned a lot from them and have taught me more about Somatic therapy.

All of this has been made possible thanks to my friends from everywhere in the world, my colleagues, Ratha and especially my parents who have never lost hope in me.