My Approach to Helping
To me, therapy is a warm, comfortable space we build together; it’s an hour outside of your everyday life, a shared place we can process whatever needs to be processed from the safety of. Care, compassion, non-judgement and a genuine therapeutic relationship are the foundations of our work together and are my main priorities. My focus is always holistic: we have to look at every layer - from the cues your body and nervous system are giving you to the systemic messages surrounding you - to reach not just the bandaids but the deeper roots of distress and, ultimately, growth.
With a degree in Counselling and Spirituality, I am trained firstly as a client-centred therapist able to explore with you any general emotional and wellness goals you may need extra support for. I also specialize and have had training in: sex, intimacy, & relationship therapy; self esteem & self worth; intuitive food relationships & body positivity; grief, death, & loss; and spiritualexistential concerns. Decolonizing and deconstructing are core values of my work and training, examining how the systems we are in impact individual and collective wellbeing. I work from an actively affirming and anti-oppressive lens.
Being a client-centred therapist means I value your intuitive voice. I tune into your unique worldview, values, and sources of meaning as the basis of our work, and adapt around your needs creatively and collaboratively. I believe my role as a therapist is to help you access your own internal compass and its signals. Sometimes we just need to give ourselves the space and permission to listen inward!
Sliding scale spots available.
More Info About My Practice
My approach to healing:
1. Holistic
You are not just your thoughts: you are a whole system of the physical, mental, emotional, social, spiritual, and societal spheres of your life. I bring the body into session: where are you holding tension and strain? What are these sensations trying to tell us? Thinking systemically, which messages have you absorbed that influence your thoughts and patterns? Are your spiritual needs being fulfilled, or can this distress point us to some needs your heartsoul are nudging you to attend to? What is happening in your environment, and what changes can be made to better support your growth and flourishing?
2. Integrative
One size does not fit all when it comes to our personal inner worlds. There are many therapeutic approaches I draw from and integrate, depending on the needs of the client. My favourites are Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Narrative Therapy, Humanistic Therapy, Emotion-Focused Therapy, Somatic and Nervous System focus, and Existential Therapy.
3. Client-Driven
I am not an expert on your life and your journey. I am a "fellow traveler" beside you, as we navigate this path together. In my work, I value incorporating the client's own worldview and values into session instead of imposing my own. It's all about helping foster their intuitive voice and access to their own compass.
Specific Issue(s) I'm Skilled at Helping With
Anxiety
What is your anxiety trying to tell you? How was it learned, and what kind of positive & compassionate relationship can we build with it? I primarily focus on nervous system regulation, ACT (acceptance & mindfulness-based), EFT (looking at this emotion as pointing to our needs), somatic, and trauma-informed approaches when dealing with anxiety.
Depression
My approach to depression is holistic in nature. What are the biologicalneurological components of your experience? What are the social, systemic, and environmental components? What has changed over time, and what patterns can we see? And, most importantly: how can we look for moments of hope, positivity, and joy and learn to follow & carve out space for these? Employing an existential approach - how can we hold out on our horizon (even through the dark patches) the light of what's meaningful and makes your life worth living?
Self Esteem & Self Worth
The most important commitment I have is to fostering unconditional self-acceptance and self-compassion; we learn too much conditional self-worth, pressure, and shame, when the root of finding true peace with ourselves and our world is to believe we are enough now, just as we are. What would believing this change for you? I know all too well how we can be pulled away from listening to (and valuing) our needs, and paying attention to that inner compass deep down which always knows the way. We just need the space and permission to listen to it and to its signals.
Relationships & Interpersonal Dynamics
Whether in the context of romantic, peer, or familial relationships, I use an emotion-focused and attachment-based lens (EFT) to help you navigate interpersonal dynamic difficulties. I will always be attuned to your needs, and commit to helping you realize and assert them yourself. This may be beneficial for those looking to navigate current relationships, as well as for those looking to explore their own personal attachment and relationship patterns.
Sex & Intimacy
My practice is actively anti-shame, with a commitment to being sex positive. Using my holistic approach, we examine the broader context surrounding the client's presenting concerns, including the client's emotional, social, physical, psychological, and societal experience. My sex therapy work includes (but is not limited to) talk therapy surrounding following concerns:
- General discussions and explorations of client sexual experience
- Difficulties and emotionalmental barriers within both personal and partnered sexual experiences
- Education around building a healthy and satisfying sex life, as pertaining to the client's lived experience and goals
- Sexual trauma, anxieties, and other physicalpsychological blockages to a fulfilling sex life
- Sex and intimacy concernsgoals in the context of relationship dynamics
- Support for those navigating their sexuality, with a commitment to kink positivity and LGBTQ+ affirmation
Food, Health, & Body Image
I promote body positivity and self-acceptance, with a strong commitment to forming healthy relationships with food and movement through intuitive and mindful approaches. My approach is firmly anti diet-culture, and strongly Health at Every Size affirming. I work in line with the client's own goals to provide support for:
- Body image struggles
- Food, eating, and health anxieties
- Disordered eating, guiltshame regarding food and bodies, and exploration of the emotional context around foodmovement
- Establishment of positive relationships toward food and movement, including mindful and intuitive eating and gentle nutrition
- Deeper roots of struggles, including the client's personal experience as well as examining societal messages & systemic factors around bodies and food
- Progress towards balanced living and other health goals, which may include no food rules & detaching morality from foodmovement
- Connection to joy and meaning outside of diet, body, and weight
Spiritual & Existential Struggles
To me, spirituality encompasses anything we feel gives our lives meaning, sense, and purpose. All client religiousspiritual traditions (or lack thereof) are included in this definition, as well as all personal values and belief systems. With my training in Counselling and Spirituality, my number one rule is always to work within the framework of your own beliefs and worldview in order to locate what is meaningful and purposeful in your own life. I work with those both within and outside of religiousspiritual traditions in order to navigate:
- Existential anxieties, including death anxiety
- Questions relating to spiritual and existential themes
- Values and belief exploration
- Exploration of personal meaning and purpose
- Navigation of own beliefs both within and outside of spiritualreligious traditions
- Spiritualreligious trauma, and more.
Grief & Death
Loss comes in many forms, and grief accompanies any type of loss. Grief may occur at the end of a significant relationship, for example, or can accompany any other type of significant transition or change. Of course, grief is also prominent when we lose, or anticipate to lose, someone we love. In the middle of a largely death-avoidant culture, it is important to have spaces to speak honestly and openly about death and dying - whether this is about the deathillness of a loved one, or your own end of life experience. I provide support for those experiencing grief of all forms. In our session, we will build a safe container of a space where it is "okay to not be okay". Our grief, like all emotions, means something: let's hold your grief as a sacred expression of what touches your heart deeply.
Self-Exploration & General Emotional Processing
I provide client-driven, holistic, and integrative support for a range of emotional difficultiesexperiences and self exploration needs. My commitment is to holding a general space for comfort, care, and grounding so you can listen inward. We do not always need to have particular goals to work toward: you are welcome to find in our work together a space of safety and a committed time for self-care. We will work creatively and collaboratively to make a space that works best for you as a whole, unique person.
Clinicians who offer sliding scale payment structures may offer lower or reduced fees based on an individual's ability to pay. Please contact this clinician for more details regarding their fees or sliding scale policy.