Meet Rachel Bennett
Registered Psychotherapist, Eco-Existential Coach, Educator, and Creator of Rising Rooted
My work is holistic, eco-existential, and creative, attending to the many ways our bodies, relationships, cultures, environments, and inner worlds shape how we live. Each offering at Rising Rooted brings a slightly different edge to this approach, with its own intentions, methods, and scope. You can learn more about the particular style of each service on its individual page.
Hi, I’m Rachel.
I’m a psychotherapist by training, but more than that, I’m a curious human who has always been trying to understand what it means to be alive — in a body, in a family, in a culture, on this planet at this time.
I live, work, and play on unceded Anishinabek territory (also known as Madawaska Valley, Ontario). I feel deeply grateful to be in relationship with this land — its rivers, forests, seasons, and long winters, and for the humans who have cared for it since the land knew humans. I grew up further south on Haudenosaunee land near Lake Erie, and both landscapes have shaped me. Living rurally keeps me close to cycles that feel older than the noise of modern life.
I identify as a Canadian settler of mixed European descent — mainly British, Celtic, and German — with Onondaga ancestors in my lineage. I am cisgender and heterosexual. I am able-bodied. I am neurodivergent. I live in remote-rural Canada. I grew up Catholic and began deconstructing that tradition in adolescence, slowly finding my own spiritual voice through eco-spirituality and returning to the land-based belief systems woven through my ancestry.
I am weird and a little witchy.
I grew up as an only child between two very different households in a high-conflict blended family. I often felt like an outsider looking in — studying the emotional weather, trying to make sense of what makes people hurt and what makes them heal. Now I’m raising my own blended family and doing my imperfect best to interrupt generational patterns rather than repeat them.
That early “outsider” lens never left me. It evolved into a deeply optimistic and caring scientific quest — exploring wellness, nervous systems, attachment, meaning, and soul within the context of modern life. That outsider’s attentiveness continues to shape how I work. I listen for what sits beneath the obvious story—the patterns, adaptations, relationships, cultural expectations, and questions of meaning that shape a person’s life.
I spend most of my free time reading, thinking, walking in the woods, or exploring the world with my toddler and our dog.
The Evolution of Rising Rooted
Rising Rooted began as a private psychotherapy practice.
I love individual therapy. I believe deeply in its power. But over time, I also began to see its limits.
So much of the mental health crisis we face is not just individual — it is cultural. It is relational. It is systemic. It is born from disconnection: from land, from rhythm, from community, from meaning.
Individual therapy can help us heal inside those conditions. But we must also work to change the conditions themselves, and that is a collective project.
Rising Rooted has grown in response to that realization. It has become a virtual ecosystem — individual psychotherapy, therapy support groups, individual coaching, non-therapy group programs, and free resources for mythic self-exploration — all rooted in my desire to build spaces where people can connect more deeply with themselves and with each other.
Rising Rooted is my ever-evolving way of applying my talents and passions in service of something larger than myself.
It is my song to the world — imperfect, evolving, and grounded in the belief that healing is not about fixing broken people, but about remembering how to live well together.
My Institutional Stamps of Approval
Registered Psychotherapist (RP)
Canadian Certified Counsellor (CCC)
Master’s Degree: Counselling Psychology
Bachelor’s Degree: Anthropology
Diploma: Social Service Work
Other Relevant Training
SOMATIC EXPERIENCING® PROFESSIONAL TRAINING BEGINNING LEVEL: 80+ hours of training and supervision from 2023-2024
Trauma Treatment Certification Training (CCTP): The Latest Advances and Proven Techniques to Resolve Deeply Held Trauma: 13 hours of self-study offered through PESI. Completed in 2023.
Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy (AEDP): Radically Relational Interventions for Working with Complex Trauma: 20 hours of self-study offered through PESI. Completed in 2025.
Jungian Psychology Course with David Van Nuys, Ph.D.: 25 hours of self-study offered through the Zur Institute. Completed in 2025.
This list is not exhaustive. My learning extends well beyond formal qualifications, and I remain deeply engaged in ongoing study and reflection. I am always reading and learning about psychology and its intersections with philosophy, ecology, mythology, biology, culture, and the wider questions of what it means to be human.
I participate regularly in both individual and group clinical supervision. I also remain committed to my own healing and inner work. I believe that supporting others with integrity requires more than professional knowledge—it asks for ongoing curiosity, humility, self-examination, and a willingness to keep growing.
If this spoke to something in you, there are a few paths you can follow from here:
Psychotherapy
Individual psychotherapy and online support groups for people in Ontario and unregulated Canadian provinces and territories
The Wolfskin Project
A growing library of free resources for self-exploration, myth, and everyday magic.
Each door leads somewhere different. It is my hope that all of them lead back to you.
<3 Rachel
