Services

A Little More Detail

Counselling is an individually tailored process designed to help you in dealing with your concerns, coming to a greater understanding of yourself, and using ways to manage problems and concerns that include personal and external resources.

This process will involve sharing personal information which may at times be sensitive, very private, or even distressing. While the outcome of counselling is most often positive, the degree to which any person will reach their goals or achieve their desired level of satisfaction is not predictable and is therefore not guaranteed. That said I will guarantee to work with you from where you are and your comfort level. If you have any questions, please ask. It is important that you feel comfortable about this process. I will often make recommendations for things you can do outside of counselling to help achieve your goals and I will try to be as clear as possible in explaining those recommendations. I want to emphasize that the decision about whether to proceed with those recommendations is completely yours.

My theoretical orientation, or the specific types of methodologies, skills and education, that I use to inform my counselling practice has always started with a person-centered approach; I start where you are and while we build our therapeutic relationship, you are the expert of your life and your story and I will support you as we navigate the areas that are causing you trouble. I believe that it is my responsibility as your counsellor to adapt to your needs as an individual and therefore I do not believe in a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach. For this reason, I draw upon a number of theoretical approaches to counselling tailored to each client. Some of these include:

• Cognitive-Behavioral Theory – an approach where I help to identify the connections between negative thoughts and behaviours that may contribute or worsen ongoing problems or issues.

• Narrative Therapy – an approach where clients tell their stories, often ones they may never have spoken aloud before, and together I support clients emotionally enter their story and retell it in a new way with new meanings.

• Solution-Focused Theory – an approach where I support clients in identifying ways they can solve their problems using their own strengths and resources available to them, often times using strategies that clients have already developed in other areas.