What is Counselling/Psychotherapy?

Both counselling and psychotherapy refer to talk-based, relational engagement between client and counsellor that supports the client’s mental health and overall well-being. My approach to this work is to join collaboratively with my clients, to identify the changes they wish to make, and to overcome the obstacles standing between them and the lives they desire. These obstacles tend be at the level of thinking, feeling, behaviour, or in interpersonal relationships.

Thoughts can become stuck patterns that contribute to our anxiety/stress, depression, or relationship strife. Sometimes stressful thinking brings a lens of negative assumptions and fears about ourselves or others, or may relate to specific fearful objects, people, or places. Thoughts like these are especially distressing when they do not make sense to the individual having them. By uncovering the ways that these thought patterns both serve us and have become detrimental to our well-being, we can bring a greater sense of choice in thinking and control in how we respond to life.

Emotions and their underlying physical sensations are vital tools that help us understand and respond to others and our environment. Emotions are essential for determining safety and threat, maintaining healthy relationships and boundaries with others, and making decisions that will lead to fulfilling outcomes. Yet many of us become emotionally stuck because we have difficulty tolerating, understanding, and speaking to our feelings. Much of my work with clients focuses on these aspects of emotional intelligence, and on helping individuals develop the skills necessary for leading emotionally fulfilling lives.

Sometimes our behaviour leads to regret, we behave in ways we wish we wouldn’t but can’t seem to stop, or our behaviour causes strife in our relationships and we can’t find a way to reconcile the issue. I work with my clients to find more harmony between what they value and desire and the ways that they behave, ultimately helping them achieve more meaningful and peaceful lives and relationships.

Our relationships with others can bring meaning and joy, but they can also be the sources of great stress and hardship. In many ways, difficulties at any of the three levels described above—thoughts, feelings, and behaviours—tend to manifest within our relationships, and it is often because of strife in relationships that people seek counselling. In my work with clients, we often explore relationship dilemmas and uncover strategies to help to resolve them.

I believe that every client brings their whole self to the counselling encounter; therefore, each of the above aspects of their lives can become the focus of our work together. Those who work with me can expect to address each of these aspects of their lives during our work together, depending on their specific struggles and goals, as all parts are vital for an individual’s well-being. 

In addition to the universal kinds of struggles described above, many individuals have experienced significant traumatic events that pose long-term difficulties, especially when these experiences took place early in life and are related to our parents or early attachment figures. I am well-trained in trauma-informed counselling which remains attentive to how traumatic experiences may be impacting clients presently, and utilize tools to support them to move through and resolve these difficult experiences.

Please Contact me if you have questions or would like to book an initial session.