With over 14 years of experience as a psychologist, Dr. Melanie Langford has enjoyed working in hospital settings as well as in private practice in Calgary. She was initially drawn to clinical psychology because of a desire to support people who are coping with life challenges, including pain and other health conditions. Most importantly, she strives to help people enhance their ability to cope and to improve their quality of life.
Dr. Langford’s experience is in mental health as well as in health psychology (also called behavioural medicine).
The mental health aspect of her work involves helping people with:
- mood concerns (low mood/depression, worries/anxiety, irritability/anger)
- stress (work, life events, health)
- communication skills (assertiveness)
- relationship difficulties (couples therapy)
Throughout her career she saw an increasing need to help people address significant negative events, including traumatic events, and sought advanced training in research based therapies in the area of trauma and PTSD (including EMDR and somatic therapy).
The health psychology aspect of her work includes helping people cope with and effectively manage health conditions. At times this involves high levels of support as people manage the burden of illness. At other times this involves helping people make healthy changes that they are struggling to carry out. Melanie has trained and worked in multidisciplinary medical programs in the following areas:
- chronic pain and rehabilitation
- diabetes
- weight management
- insomnia (disordered sleep)
- oncology (cancer care)
Dr. Langford strives to provide a compassionate and supportive environment within which people can identify their hopes and goals and work toward positive change.