While the idea of counselling and opening up to someone may be a scary picture, it does not need to be. You do not need to face your situation alone.

It is not just for people with ‘serious’ issues; everyone has problems and needs someone to walk alongside them.

There is no ‘magical’ formula; everyone has a unique story to explore and share. Counselling is one way people can start to find healing and be able to make sense of their situation.

It is not a ‘clinical’ process. You are completely in control of your story – what to share or not to share. You are the expert of your situation, and no one understands it better than yourself. Counselling, however, can help you connect experiences, feelings, and beliefs with your relationships, distress, and issues in order to empower you in figuring out what steps to take.

To put it simply, counselling is a confidential and non-judgemental conversation with someone who cares empathetically and will equip and empower you towards positive change.

Methodology

Counselling is a process fundamentally founded on a compassionate and empathetic relationship. However, for those who are interested in the ‘behind-the-scenes’ terminology, I utilize an integrative therapeutic approach founded on Carl Rogers’ person-centered therapy. I incorporate EFT (Emotion-Focused Therapy), CBT (Cognitive-Behavioural therapy), SFBT (Solution-Focused Brief Therapy), AT (Attachment Theory), and IPNB (Interpersonal Neurobiology). Trauma-sensitive care is interwoven throughout my therapeutic approach of compassionately caring and empowering while being sensitive to the individual’s needs, experiences, and desire for care. When appropriate, I also incorporate an individual’s spirituality within the counselling process through a holistic lens as a person’s faith and belief system are often interconnected with their story.

Person-Centered Therapy sets the foundation for the counselling process. Healing comes through a process of being empathetically cared for, heard and accepted by a compassionate individual who truly sees and journeys with them.

Emotion-Focused Therapy gives credibility to our ‘felt’ experience, and incorporates ‘feeling’ into the healing process. EFT helps us understand our experienced reality by acknowledging, accepting, and ‘feeling’ our emotions, and then learning how to process and regulate our emotions rather than ‘losing control’ or suppressing them.

Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy explores our inner-world. It helps us understand how our core-beliefs, conscious/unconscious motivations, and various thought processes impact how we interact and relate with the world around us.

Solution-Focused Brief Therapy empowers the individual, who is the expert of their situation towards change and solutions. This approach does not require us to fully understand, explore, or re-experience our distress, pain, or trauma, but rather helps us develop positive change through developing a unique plan and solutions for our unique situations.

Attachment Theory underscores how fundamental our childhood upbringing was on shaping how we regulate our emotions, how we handle conflict or distress, interact with the world around us, and how we see ourselves.

Interpersonal Neurobiology utilizes Daniel Siegal’s research into how the brain impacts our relationships, emotions, habits, impulsivities, and memory. It helps us understand what happens when we are ‘triggered,’ why we get stuck in unwanted cycles, and how improvement can come through integrating our emotion, experience, and conscious thought framework through the safe, compassionate relationship found in counselling.

Holistic/Spiritual-Care acknowledges that our situation, distress, or problems are interwoven with every part of our life. Our spirituality and belief system (how we see the world) are interconnected to our motivations, emotions, and experiences, and often have a direct connection to distress, confusion, or pain. Exploring how our belief system, spirituality, and faith impact our emotions, relationships, and experiences is often an important part of our story and wellbeing.