Our Team

“All a kid needs is a little help, a little hope and somebody who believes in them.”

Magic Johnson
I’ll never forget the day I sat in my office speaking with a parent about their child while completing my pre-doctoral internship at the Alberta Children’s Hospital. After a fairly lengthy feedback session and reviewing my suggestions for the child, the parent sat patiently listening. When I asked her if she had any questions about the information and suggestions I had shared with her, she asked me “Do you have any children?”. I remember distinctly being taken aback by the question. My first reaction was surprise, and my second reaction was, frankly, frustration. I remember thinking “Here I am after completing 13 years of university education, and many years of supervised hands-on training experiences, and I still can’t be taken seriously because I don’t have children?”. I tried my best at the time to compose myself and to address the subsequent questions this mother had for me. But this experience bothered me for quite awhile. Until I had my own children….. and then I understood….
Parenting my two children has been one of the most rewarding and one of the most challenging things that I have ever done. My son is gregarious, athletic, confident, and has never met a boundary he hasn’t tried to push. I believe his perseverance will probably be one of his greatest strengths and a key source to his success in life, if it doesn’t drive me crazy first. When I meet parents who also have high-spirited, testing children, they often tell me “You don’t understand how hard it is to parent this child”. To which I usually chuckle to myself and reply, “oh I have a pretty good idea”.
My daughter, is gentle, creative, has a beautiful imagination, and is a little sensitive. She is generally a rule follower and has been much different to parent than my son. Her kind, gentle and compassionate nature is probably one of her greatest strengths. And, like all of us, the flip-side of her greatest strength is probably one of her biggest challenges with sensitivity and reluctance to take risks. My husband and I constantly strive to balance our parenting style with responsiveness to her sensitivity and also gentle encouragement to confront situations that she might prefer to avoid.
What I have learned so far in my parenting journey is that there is not a “once size fits all” model. We are all unique in our temperamental styles and we all thrive under slightly different conditions. That being said, there are some fundamental qualities that underlie strong parenting skills for all children and teens. Structure, consistency, responsive but confident parental guidance, boundaries with consequences, interested and involved parenting are some of the most important qualities in my mind. I am constantly encouraged to see parents who want only the best for their children. Usually, with a little bit of guidance, a little bit of new information, and a slightly different perspective, kids, teens, and parents can make important, productive, and significant shifts in difficult behaviours and situations. As Maya Angelou wisely professed, “When you know better, you do better”.
~ Dr. Kincade


For more information about the formal education and training of Dr. Kincade and Evolve team members, please see below.

Dr. Michelle Kincade

Dr. Kincade is a registered psychologist with the College of Alberta Psychologists in private practice in Calgary specializing in Clinical Psychology and Neuropsychology. Her training and experience includes people of all age ranges, so she is pleased to offer her services to children, teens, adults and seniors.

Her background education began with the completion of a Bachelor of Arts degree majoring in Psychology at the University of British Columbia followed by a Masters of Science in Psychology at the University of Alberta. Dr. Kincade worked, studied and performed research in the area of geriatrics and dementia for several years.

Dr. Kincade continued her studies in St. Louis, Missouri where she pursued her doctoral training at the APA accredited Clinical Psychology Program at Washington University. The Clinical Psychology program provided intensive education and training in issues related to mental health and well-being. In addition to assessing aspects of personality, emotion, psychopathology and psychological health, Dr. Kincade gained extensive training and several years of supervised experience providing psychotherapy-based solutions.

While completing her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology, Dr. Kincade simultaneously completed specialized education and rigorous training in Clinical Neuropsychology. Clinical Neuropsychology is a subspecialty of clinical psychology that focuses on in-depth understanding of the brain and how different areas of the brain influence aspects of thinking skills as well as emotional and behavioural functioning. Clinical neuropsychology also involves assessing how neurological injuries, disorders or diseases impact one’s abilities. In the course of Dr. Kincade’s training, she received supervised clinical experience for over 6 years in a variety of acute-care and rehabilitation hospital settings. During this time, she worked with patients with a variety of medical and neurological conditions.

During her doctoral training, Dr. Kincade was also actively engaged in doing neuroimaging research at the highly respected Washington University School of Medicine. She performed research studies using Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) to investigate many neuropsychological and neuroscience questions. Dr. Kincade’s research has been published in peer-reviewed journals such as Nature Neuroscience, Journal of Neuroscience, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience and Cerebral Cortex and has been presented at international neurosciences conferences.

After completing her Ph.D. education, Dr. Kincade came to Calgary to complete her APA and CPA accredited internship at the Alberta Children’s Hospital and the Foothills Medical Centre where she gained further experience in the areas of Pediatric Neuropsychology, Adult Neuropsychology, Mood and Anxiety Disorders, Attention Deficit / Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD or ADD) and Family Therapy.


She went on to work at the Calgary Learning Centre where she gained invaluable experience in providing psychoeducational assessments for children, adolescents and adults. She provided assessments to evaluate whether students suffered from specific learning disabilities or clinically significant attention problems and made recommendations for educational interventions to help optimize students’ learning.

Dr. Kincade then joined the Neurosciences Division at the Alberta Children’s Hospital as a Clinical Neuropsychologist. She was the neuropsychologist on the Brain Injury Team and also worked with patients suffering from a wide variety of neurological conditions such as epilepsy, stroke, brain tumours, multiple sclerosis among others.

As a result of her cumulative training, Dr. Kincade has extensive experience in providing clinical psychology and neuropsychological assessment services to clients across the lifespan. She is able to offer a very comprehensive range of services and her practice consists of a combination of assessment, consultation and therapy.

Neural Basis and Recovery of Spatial Attention Deficits in Spatial Neglect
Nature Neuroscience

An Event-Related fMRI Study of Voluntary and Stimulus-Driven Orienting of Attention - Journal of Neuroscience

Neural Systems for Visual Orienting and Their Relationship to Spatial Working Memory - Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience

Two Neural Systems for Visual Orienting and the Pathophysiology of Unilateral Spatial Neglect (Chapter) - The Cognitive and Neural Bases of Spatial Neglect – Oxford University Press

Reactivation of Networks Involved in Preparatory States - Cerebral Cortex

Voluntary Orienting is Dissociated from Target Detection in Human Posterior Parietal Cortex - Nature Neuroscience

Neural Basis and Recovery of Spatial Attention Deficits in Spatial Neglect Nature - Neuroscience


Lisa Jarrett, M.A.

Lisa is our psychometrist/office assistant and has worked at Evolve since April 2013. With a B.A. (Hons) from the University of Victoria, and an M.A. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Manitoba, she conducts psychological testing for both child and adult assessments under the supervision of our psychologists. She is also responsible for the smooth running of the office. Feel free to contact her with any questions you may have regarding the need for assessment or therapy.