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individual counselling

Making the decision to seek counselling is courageous, and it can also feel overwhelming choosing a good-fit counsellor. I work with a range of clinical issues in individual counselling, and most commonly with folks who need help unpacking the impact of childhood experiences, more recent trauma, or anxiety related concerns.

 

The approach I take is specific to our relationship and depends on your counselling goals. However, my lens in therapy has few primary ingredients and knowing these might help you determine if we would be a good fit.

Collaboration

You are the expert on your own life - we work together to create a space that meets your counselling needs. Together, we decide how often it would be best to attend therapy. It is my role to be able to help stitch together the sessions in terms of common themes, share a framework for our counselling work, and ensure our sessions feel safe and attuned to your needs. It is important that counselling has direction as it is an investment in change.

Emotion-Focused

Our thoughts, beliefs, emotions, and actions are connected. When we feel attuned, self-aware, and present, we can connect with our emotions and view them as providing important information. When we can explore our emotions rather than shut them out, we can gain better self-understanding. This can guide intentional action in our lives. From this lens, emotions are not problematic. Rather, it is the intensity of emotions that can become problematic.

Attachment Lens

Your childhood attachment experiences contribute to (but do not dictate) who you are today. While I want to know your story and understand what happened in your family of origin, we do not need relive the hurtful or traumatic events you may have experienced to do therapy. Instead, we will work to understand the ways in which you and your nervous system wisely adapted to these hurtful experiences, and how these adaptations may still be involved in your adult life today.

Neurobiology

When emotions are overwhelming, or more intense than what a situation might warrant, our nervous system is activated. In this state, we can feel hijacked by our emotions. Understandably, it is difficult to choose how to respond, even if we have the best of intentions to use specific strategies to handle a situation. A neurobiological lens in therapy considers how your nervous system is wired for survival, and how it adapted to unsafe situations that were not your choice. Given these adaptations, our therapy involves some re-wiring of those automatic reactions.

Observe Patterns

When we feel overwhelmed, it can feel like there are endless issues to address. As your Therapist, I focus on tracking the ways in which these multiple issues present in a similar pattern. Often, clients are relieved to learn that we are working on one or two main patterns that are not serving them well, and these patterns play out in multiple situations. Our work will focus on both identifying and more deeply understanding your patterns so you can become mindful of them outside of our sessions. We map these out in session so you can more easily work on mindfulness at home.

Internal Parts

Important work in therapy will be understanding "who" is involved in constructing the unhelpful patterns in your life. We tend to think of ourselves as a unified whole or "self", yet we often experience internal conflict. For example, a part of us may desire closeness or connection, while another protective part may push people away. Therapy is about understanding how these parts of ourselves are trying to help, and can take over driving (even if we don't want them to!) Our goal is to grow a solid sense of our adult self, so we can stay behind the wheel, even when a part is triggered.

Common issues I work with in individual therapy:

  • Distorted body image and/or problematic relationship with food

  • Self-worth and developing self-compassion

  • Major life transitions

  • Grief and loss of a loved one or pet

  • Impact of life stressors and regulating distress response

  • Stuck relationship patterns 

  • Generalized anxiety

  • OCD

  • Health-related anxiety

  • Repetitive body-focused behaviours (eg. hair pulling)

  • Depressed mood

  • Impact of childhood trauma

  • Impact of physical, sexual, or emotional violence

I'm Ready. Now What?

  1. Our first session is an intake session, which is 60 minutes long. We confirm this by email and I set up your electronic file where you can book your own appointments in the future.

  2. I send an intake form and consent form by email to complete prior to our appointment.

  3. If you would like to meet me first, I offer a free 15-minute phone or online consultation to determine if and how we might work together.

FEES FOR INDIVIDUAL COUNSELLING

$165 including GST: 50 MINUTE SESSION

$195 including GST : 60 MINUTE SESSION

Many extended health insurance programs provide coverage for Registered Clinical Counsellors (RCC's). 

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