approach
Working with a therapist entails sharing some of your most intimate thoughts and feelings. It requires a lot of trust and as the person who could potentially be walking alongside you on this journey, I feel it is important that you have an idea of what my counselling style is like.
I characterize my approach as humanistic / person-centred, strengths-based, transpersonal, and culturally-sensitive. I also work from an attachment-based, somatic and trauma-informed lens.
Humanistic / Person-centred: I believe you are the expert on your own life and have much respect for your innate wisdom and resilience. As such, my style of therapy is very much client-led -- we go at your pace. I believe this is important for establishing safety in the therapeutic relationship. I work with what comes up for you in session and maintain an active facilitative role, asking questions that are meant to guide you to your own insights.
Strengths-based: While part of therapy may be difficult and painful, it is also an opportunity to recognize and reconnect with your innate gifts. Your strengths and resourcefulness have carried you this far in life, and sometimes, we lose our relationship to that power. As a counsellor, it is my role to help empower you and facilitate your reconnection to resilience.
Transpersonal: I take a holistic approach by addressing not only your psycho-emotional and mental health, but your spiritual life as well. By spiritual, I am not pertaining to religion (although religion can be a part of it), but rather to higher meaning. I believe that growth resulting from deep inner work can be meaningful, transcendent, and transformative.
Culturally sensitive: Each of us comes from different cultures and may belong to various groups we identify with. I strive to be respectful of the many attitudes, beliefs, traditions, and circumstances that intersect to shape a person's life and impact their choices and behaviours. I make an effort to continuously educate myself about the diverse ways people live their lives, and continuously work to become more aware of my own assumptions and personal biases.
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Attachment-based: As I seek to understand my clients, I consider possible ruptures or attachment injuries from their relationships to early caregivers that could be hindering their growth and affecting how they currently dialogue with themselves and the world.
Somatic: The body, mind, and spirit are connected. Emotions, stress, trauma --- these all manifest in the body. I have found that psycho-educating clients on how their mental and emotional health impacts their physiology can become life-changing. Helping individuals to better understand and attune to their bodies has become vital to my work.
Trauma-informed: I take great care in building trust and safety in the therapeutic relationship, meeting the client where they're at and going at their pace, while challenging them gently to foster insights, movement and growth.
As I cultivate a nurturing therapeutic relationship with my clients, I strive to ground our work together in safety, respect, authenticity, openness, and collaboration. I work from various theoretical orientations, depending on what is appropriate to the issues being presented and what feels right for the client:
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Psychodynamic Therapy
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Existential Phenomenological Therapy
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Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing (EMDR Therapy)
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Mindfulness-Based Therapy
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Somatic Attachment
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Somatic Experiencing
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Gestalt Therapy
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Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)