What You Can Expect

• a quiet, comfortable space
• confidentiality
• supportive, non-judgmental listening
• home exercises as requested
• book and web site references for further reading
• an email connection to the therapist post-session

Therapy offers you a safe place to talk about your life or give expression to anything that may be difficult, confusing, painful, uncomfortable, or preventing you from fully engaging in daily life. It allows you the opportunity to work with a therapist who is trained to listen attentively and to help you improve or stabilize things.

There are many different methods and approaches to therapy. I work with Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing, Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, and Somatic Experiencing as a blend of theoretical and method approaches to working with the mind-body connection and toward wellness and an improved quality of life. With the exception of CBT, all of these approaches engage the body. I use traditional talk therapy blended with increasing awareness of and connection to the body.

Sessions last about an hour once weekly, although this depends on what is best for you. Usually it will take a number of sessions before therapy starts to make a difference. However, a single session may be enough.

Check in with yourself. Are you comfortable and able to talk honestly with your therapist? If, after two or three sessions, you don’t feel you have a good working relationship with me as your therapist, you may decide to work with another therapist.

Counselling therapy is a process, and a very individual experience. Sometimes it is necessary to talk about painful feelings or difficult decisions. You may go through a period of feeling worse than when you first began to address these issues with your therapist. If you do experience a period of feeling worse, tell me about this.

Therapy doesn’t work for everyone. Because you may be working through very personal and often painful matters, it can sometimes be difficult to keep going. Despite this, it is often worth the effort as together you find ways to work through problems. In the long-run, therapy can enable you to feel more capable.

Thank you to the Canadian Counselling and Psychotherapy Association for creating the  Talking Can Help website from which part of the above material is drawn.