Our work began through our founder, Performance Neuropsychologist Dr. Chris Friesen’s own journey into peak performance.

Dr. Friesen has always been fascinated by successful people and those who have overcome adversity. This fascination began as a teenager when he read the autobiographies of Arthur Ashe and Christopher Reeve. Their stories and the inspirational books of Anthony Robbins (Awaken the Giant Within and Unlimited Power) and Stephen Covey (The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People and First Things First) captured his attention about our potential as humans and our ability to improve ourselves.

This was personalized for him when he began to play competitive hockey. As a goaltender, he quickly realized the importance of mental training in addition to physical training. He was able to see steady improvements in all aspects of his performance when he consistently incorporated strategies he learned from self-help literature, fitness techniques, and nutrition. It was these experiences that began to form his interest in biology, psychology, physiology, and neuroscience. Upon realizing that a professional sports career was not in his future, he turned his attention to earning his first degree in Health Studies (now known as Applied Health Science), in order to prepare him for a career in medicine or a related field (e.g., chiropractic).

It was during his Health Studies degree that Dr. Friesen discovered the works of psychologists from the Human Potential Movement, including Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers, Viktor Frankl, and Rollo May in addition to the work of the pioneers of personality psychology such as Henry Murray, Gordon Allport, Jerry Wiggins, Paul Costa Jr, and Robert McCrae. It was these discoveries and experiences that confirmed to Dr. Friesen that his true passion was human behavior and performance and led to pursuing a second degree in Psychology.

After 5 years of full-time study to obtain both of his undergraduate degrees, Dr. Friesen still hadn’t satisfied his appetite for learning about the mind and brain. So he applied and was accepted to study Clinical Psychology at York University in Toronto where he completed both his MA and PhD degrees.

As a licensed psychologist in Ontario, Canada, his official areas of practice include working with children, adolescents, adults, and seniors in the areas of clinical psychology, clinical neuropsychology, and forensic/correctional psychology. His training and experience cross a broad spectrum of psychological difficulties including working with individuals with anxiety, depression, personality disorders, dementias (e.g., Alzheimer’s disease), brain injuries (from sports concussion to severe traumatic brain injuries), and those involved in the criminal justice system (i.e., offenders of all types). He has worked clinically in a university psychology clinic, psychiatric hospital, rehabilitation hospital for those with acquired brain injuries, geriatric hospital, prison, and in private practices. He believed that to truly understand success and potential, he needed to thoroughly understand and work with people of all types including those who were at their lowest points and those who were not living up to their potential.

Dr. Friesen now primarily focuses on helping high achieving executives, entrepreneurs, police/military personnel, and Olympians/elite/professional athletes who are performing at the highest levels to continuously improve and achieve their potential. He is a Professional Member of the Canadian Sport Psychology Association (i.e., a Sport/Performance Psychologist) and is an Advanced Certified Personal & Executive Coach (ACPEC), certified through the College of Executive Coaching. He is the first and only Canadian to be triple board certified by the only recognized certification body, the Biofeedback Certification National Alliance (BCIA) in Neurofeedback (EEG-Biofeedback), Biofeedback, & Heart Rate Variability-Biofeedback (HRV-B) and is the author of the best-selling self-help book, ACHIEVE: Find Out Who You Are, What You Really Want, & How To Make It Happen.