Counselling for Individuals

Anxiety

Anxiety is beneficial for alerting us to dangers so we can prepare to be safe. However, when anxiety manifests by anticipating a future concern that causes muscle tension and avoidance behaviour it can cause mental disorders such as generalized anxiety disorder, phobias, panic, and separation anxiety. Treatment for anxiety can help to identify triggers, modify corresponding behaviour, improve thinking, and gain valuable coping skills with support and care.

Stress

A little stress can be healthy but feeling overwhelmed, tense, and exhausted can cause long term health issues that affect a person’s physical, emotional, and behavioural health. Therapy for stress management includes resilience interventions to handle and protect against stress, relaxation techniques to counter responses, improve time management and self-care, restructure associated thinking to gain control and balance, increase relaxation, and reduce stress symptoms.

Depression

Sadness is normal and is experienced by everyone as a reaction to a specific event, situation, or person. Depression is a serious and very common mood disorder and includes a persistent feeling of sadness and hopelessness about everything without being predicated by a trigger and can lead to diminished interest in activity that was once enjoyed. Depression is also associated with chronic pain, digestive issues, fatigue, guilt, feelings of worthlessness, concentration problems and thoughts of death.

Therapy for depression includes help with adjusting to crisis, identifying negative beliefs, exploring relationships and understandings, uncovering new ways of coping and solving issues, changing corresponding behaviours, gaining a sense of satisfaction and control, goal setting, and increasing tolerance and acceptance of life situations.

Trauma Therapy

Exposure to threat of psychological integrity, injury or violence can cause trauma and the effects can be physically experienced. Some individuals directly suffer trauma, some are associated with trauma such as hearing about it or seeing the events unfold, some have association with trauma due to their environment, or are first responders witnessing and assisting in events that others experience. Compounding variables also contribute to trauma such as gender, socioeconomics, genetic predispositions, and lifestyle. Post-traumatic stress symptoms such as anger, guilt, depression, isolation, and sleep issues are reduced with individualized treatment. Trauma therapy helps to process trauma events through exploration of associated feelings and emotions in a caring and safe manner and provides helpful skills for healthy functioning that reduces fear, builds trust, and offers validation.

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder   (PTSD)

Memories of trauma events such as violence, assaults, and accidents can dominate thinking and is one of the biggest health concerns worldwide. PTSD can cause repeated reliving of trauma memories, avoidance of reminders of trauma, and a pattern of increased arousal of symptoms expressed through hypervigilance, irritability, concentration and memory issues, and sleep difficulties all of which can lead to maladaptive behaviours. Treatment for PTSD enables individuals to regain the ability to focus, recognize and maintain balance between the internal systems and external reality, and develop healthy and realistic perceptions of life to dissolve related symptoms and increase enjoyment of fulfilling and supportive habits by establishing safety supports, managing anxiety, and processing emotions.

Grief and Loss

One of the most common and challenging experiences that can negatively impact an individual’s health and daily functioning is coping with death, relationship loss, diminishing health, job loss, relocation, and other losses.

There is no time limit to grief, and this can be difficult when caring friends and family are unable to understand the process. As a trained professional that has experienced grief and loss, I can help to navigate your healing journey with genuine empathy and understanding of your personal experience.

Life Balance

In our fast-paced society it can be a challenge to maintain balance. With technological advances that make us available more than ever, we have never been as engaged with work as we are now. Having life satisfaction, health and well-being is related to how well we balance our relationships, work, school, responsibilities, and obligations. Therapy can assist individuals to develop plans toward goal attainment, set boundaries to protect well-being, and introduce strategies and interventions to support and encourage a healthy life balance based on individual needs.