My Approach to Helping
Hello! If you are feeling stuck, depressed, or stressed out, please read on to see how I can help you. I have been practicing psychotherapy for 20 years and have helped men, women, and couples and I am passionate about helping you to make empowering, lasting change.
Common concerns for people I see in my practice include themes such as:
- Feelings of stress, depression, and anxiety
- Feelings of conflict and indecision
- Difficulty applying your usual coping skills to a new problem
- Feeling stuck or worried about the future
- Feeling unable to move on from a painful past
- Experiencing difficulty finding or keeping meaningful friendships and romantic relationships
My approach to helping involves:
- I help you to identify and change long-standing patterns where you feel blocked or stuck.
- Working together to help you develop new tools for managing challenging emotions.
- Helping you to find new, positive, and empowered ways of seeing yourself
- Working to change the impact of past painful experiences so they no longer have the same hold over you anymore
- Providing a safe, calm, and supportive place for you to express whatever concerns are happening for you
- Deep listening--drawing out the parts of what you are sharing and validating your experience
- I may offer "homework" between sessions that can help you practice new skills and reinforce the gains you are making in therapy.
Therapy can help you feel:
- Stronger
- Stronger and more stable
- More confident
- Happier as you heal from painful experiences and gain better self-knowledge
- Confident about your life's direction
If my thoughts on therapy have connected with you, then I hope you'll reach out to me. Have a look at my video to hear more on how I work.
More Info About My Practice
My Education and Training
I have a Master's degree in Social Work from McGill University. I've completed many advanced training internships, affording me a strong foundation for my clinical practice. I also augment my training each year through professional education courses.
I love my work, and have been doing it for more 20 years. I also love teaching psychotherapy, and over the years have taught in both social work and psychology programs at schools such as SFU, Vancouver Community College, City University, SFU, and Mount Royal University. I've also served as a clinical supervisor for new therapists.
Credentials and Certification:
-Certified in Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), a powerful, research-backed method for helping people who have experience traumatic events.
-Certified to Advanced (Level II) in Satir Systemic Therapy.
-Basic and Advanced certifications in Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM) from the International Critical Incident Foundation (ICISF).
I am a Registered Clinical Counsellor (RCC) with the British Columbia Association of Clinical Counsellors (BCACC).
Theoretical Influences that Guide My Work
I have used a variety of counseling orientations, but I specialize in psychodynamic therapy, Satir systemic therapy, and interpersonal process psychotherapy. I draw on work from Sue Johnson (Emotion Focused Therapy) in my work with couples, and am certified in eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy (EMDR). These methods can help you reverse unhealthy patterns and achieve lasting change.
What Does All That Mean?
I believe that the field of psychotherapy has become very obsessed lately with rapid, symptom fixes. While tending to symptoms of emotional pain and distress is essential, I have always seen the process of psychotherapy as being bigger than that: to me,it is about to the experience of helping people grow emotionally. So I tend to work with people who are interested in their own personal growth and development, not just wanting a "fix" or "quick advice".The relationship we form is an essential part of this healing process, for it is through this special connection we develop that you begin to hear and see yourself in a more empowered way.
My work is therefore more about helping you to clear out old patterns, beliefs, habits of mind, that block the full you from coming forward. To help you become more fully rounded as a person in the world. Because once your strengths are able to come fully forward, no longer inhibited by fear, shame, guilt, or doubt--then your problems become much more manageable and you emerge from it all with your full strengths.
