How I can help
In person
In person sessions offer a safe, private, and nonjudgmental physical space, just for you. I've ensured to set up a comfortable, calming, and welcoming practice space with the shine of natural light and an overall healing ambience, and I trust that it will be an ideal therapeutic working space for us.
Video
Video therapy sessions have emerged as a highly effective and convenient option for receiving psychotherapy services, as it allows you to work from the comfort and privacy of your own spaces. If you prefer to meet by video, you can join me through a secure and encrypted video platform for our sessions.
Phone
Phone sessions have been a staple of remote psychotherapy services for many years. Once again allowing you to join our sessions from the privacy and comfort of your own spaces, we can connect via phone if you prefer to conduct our sessions this way.
What I can help you with:
trauma
Trauma can be understood as an emotional reaction to a highly distressing experience, often resulting in feelings of intense fear and/or helplessness. Trauma can also result from a collection of experiences involving abuse, neglect, or disrupted attachment. I will work with you to understand your traumatic experiences and their continued influence on your life, and ultimately help you integrate new learning to facilitate recovery from traumatic symptoms.
anxiety
Anxiety is a normal reaction to perceived threats and can involve tension, worried thoughts, and physical symptoms like a rapid heart beat or tight chest. This can cause further issues such as insomnia, concentration difficulties, fatigue, and irritability. We will work together to identify the sources of your anxious thoughts or fears and develop plans to decrease your distress, increase your confidence, and implement more effective coping strategies.
Depression
Depression can be one of the most debilitating experiences a person can go through in life. It saps our motivation, takes away our ability to experience joy, and effectively shrinks the world around us. The good news is that depression is highly treatable. We will work together to change maladaptive thought patterns contributing to your depressed mood while increasing your activity level to connect with more opportunities for positive reinforcement.
Insomnia
We all experience sleep problems from time-to-time, but sometimes these sleep problems can continue for weeks or months on end and begin to significantly impact our work, relationships, and wellbeing. Starting with assessment tools to uncover specific problems with sleep (e.g., difficulty falling asleep, not feeling refreshed, waking up often), we will put together a plan to target these problem areas and improve your sleep.
GRIEF
Grief is a natural response to loss and involves painful emotions that will often improve with time. However, sometimes these painful emotions will remain for long periods of time and impact our lives in profound ways. I will be there to listen to your story, help you to develop insight into the personal meanings of your loss, and ultimately reconstruct painful narratives to unlock your natural healing potential.
and more...
Contact me for a free consultation session and we can discuss your concerns while putting together the initial components of a treatment plan based on your goals for therapy.
therapy approaches:
Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR)
EMDR is a highly structured and effective mode of therapy that is primarily focused on alleviating distress associated with disturbing memories. It involves deliberate focus on the disturbing aspects of memories while simultaneously having clients follow therapist directed eye movements for rapid processing of the disturbing material. If you are interested in learning more, you can check out a brief brochure about EMDR here, and a more detailed description of the EMDR process can be found here. Please also check out the FAQ section of this website for some more information about EMDR.
Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT)
CBT looks at the interconnected nature of our thinking, behaviour, and emotions to better understand the development of negative mood states (e.g., anxiety or depression). Interventions primarily involve exploring changes to maladaptive thinking patterns and/or behaviours to reduce symptoms, and to help individuals develop more effective coping strategies to become more effective in their lives.
Motivational interviewing (MI)
MI attempts to help individuals move from a perspective of uncertainty and ambivalence to positive change. This is facilitated by building intrinsic (or internal) motivation to progress toward established goals for therapy. Techniques are primarily geared toward helping individuals to resolve ambivalence, which is a state of having mixed feelings or contradictory ideas about something.
Dialectical behavioural therapy (DBT)
DBT is a type of cognitive behavioural therapy that focuses on developing mindfulness, interpersonal effectiveness, and emotional regulation. Specifically, interventions are primarily designed to help people effectively cope with stress, better regulate their emotions, and improve their relationships.
Solution-focused brief therapy (SFBT)
SFBT is intended to be a brief, goal-focused approach that helps clients to construct solutions rather than focusing on problems. Therapy techniques are often geared toward formulating desired behavioural changes and motivating clients to achieve them.
mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT)
MBCT involves the use of cognitive techniques infused with meditations and a focus on present-moment, nonjudgmental awareness. Techniques teach clients to pay attention to their thoughts and feelings without trying to judge them, thus helping them to let go of negative thoughts that feed negative mood states.