Gita Arjan Baack, M.A., Ph.D.
28 Saddlesmith Circle
Kanata, Ontario, Canada K2M 2S4
Phone: 613-271-1293 or 613-915-4466
Email:gbaack@rogers.com
Web:http://www.gitabaack-oticonsultingandcoaching.com/index.html
Gita Arjan Baack holds a Ph.D. in Social Science with Tilburg University, The Netherlands in association with Taos Institute, USA; and an M.A. in Human Systems Intervention/Organizational Development with Concordia University, Montreal, Canada. Since 1998, she had been running a successful consulting and coaching practice as President, OTI Collaborative Consulting and Coaching helping clients at the organizational, team and individual levels (hence the acronym for the company, OTI) in the key areas of:
- Organizational Development, Transition and Change
- Visioning, Strategic Planning, Strategy Development and Implementation
- Stakeholder/Industry Consultations
- Facilitation, Leadership Development, Team Building, Executive Coaching
- Research and Analysis
- Governance, Organizational Redesign and Competencies Based Management
- Team Development and Conflict Resolution
- Diversity and Employment Equity
- Narrative Coaching; Career Coaching; Life Coaching
Currently Gita is applying her extensive experience with groups and with creativity to achieve break-through group dialogues with inheritors of trauma, devastation and loss to help surface the “un-discussables” and to help group participants find meaning in what she calls the “ in-between knowing and not-knowing”. She has found that “re-storying”, inaugurated mourning (as opposed to aberrated mourning) and memory work can best be achieved by tapping into the creative side of the self and by the validation or witnessing and the support that groups in conversation can provide each other. Her paradigm is not about pain and absence but about resilience and presence, while recognizing the presence of absence for inheritors of tragedy.
In 2012, Gita received the Asper Scholarship from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem to continue her research on 2nd Generation inheritors of trauma. In collaboration with Hebrew University, she will continue to gather their stories in Canada.
Gita is an Associate of the Taos Institute, a member of the Organizational Development Network, the Shoah Committee of Ottawa and the Genealogical Society, USA.
She lives and thrives in Ottawa and often travels and works in Israel. Her 2 children live in Los Angeles and are creatively pursuing their work as writers, researchers, performers, film analysis and production.