My Services
"Halls and Colleges and learned discourses and porch and arch, what advantage are they when the wise heart and seeing eye are absent?" - Hafez
My services focus on increasing awareness of the patterns of information that your body, heart and mind offer so that you make the best decisions for you.
Individual Therapy
"All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware"
- Martin Buber
If you are looking for a safe and non-judgmental space in which to share and explore difficult issues and face the challenges of change in your life, then individual therapy may be your answer.
My goal in therapy is to help you increase your capacity to live life more fully by seeing how your strengths and weaknesses relate to the clear paths and obstacles within your life. Through greater clarity you will enjoy more choice to live the life you want or accept the life you have. Choice provides you the opportunity to reduce pain and increase joy.
My cornerstone approaches are focused on building awareness in the present moment and the relationship you have with me, your therapist. Together we will explore sensations, thoughts, behaviours, emotions and beliefs as they arise within the therapy session. Memories of the past and concerns of the future are brought into the present moment so that you can escape the familiar traps of your mind and experience your own truth more directly.
My involvement in your therapy session makes me a co-creator of the experience. I am not the teacher or expert with the magic bullet solution, but rather I provide a safe and non-judgmental environment in which you come to your own understandings and decisions. I include my creative, intuitive and compassionate senses to help you find the support you need to move beyond what might be long-held fixed patterns. You are in the driver’s seat, exploring only what and when you are ready.
Couples Therapy
"If you love someone but rarely make yourself available to him or her, that is not true love."
- Thich Nhat Hanh
When couples come for therapy they are usually entrenched in a dance with each other that has them each stepping on the other’s toes or, worse, one of them avoids the dance floor altogether.
When things break down in the relationship, it usually is deeper than what is initially presented as the problem. It usually stems from unfinished business that resides deep in the tissue of our bodies. Often the dance involves pursuing and withdrawing and may include trauma responses of fight, flight, freeze or collapse.
As with individual therapy, the first step to change is awareness of patterns that limit feelings of connection. With that awareness, the pursuer/withdrawer dynamic can change to supportive challenger/listener, a co-empowerment model rather than a co-dependent model.
Therapy looks at how the couple can lean on each other without losing their own sense of self, while being open to difference. By seeing the themes within the relationship, it becomes possible to co-create a healthier relationship built on a platform of compassion, care and love.
Somatic Experiencing
"Trauma is what we hold inside in the absence of an empathetic witness."
- Peter Levine
My therapy approach is centred around a phenomenological experience. That means that we start with simple observation and noting of what is happening, free from the interpretations that usually send us into repetitive and negative patterns. Somatic Experiencing is based on over 45 years of clinical application looking at the wounds of emotional and early developmental attachment trauma. While “trauma” is a large word that suggests PTSD, it also speaks to where each of us is “stuck” in the fight, flight, freeze or collapse responses caused by any incident either in childhood, in the near past or from repetitive minor stresses. With Somatic Experiencing the option of moving from trauma to triumph is possible.
The Somatic Experiencing approach supports self-regulation through the completion of self-protective responses by gently guiding clients to develop increasing tolerance for difficult bodily sensations and suppressed emotions.
Workshops
"If you want something you’ve never had, do something you’ve never done."
- Thomas Jefferson
I have delivered many workshops in the business world, at mental health conferences and in educational settings. My approach of playful experimentation in the room allows participants to learn concepts and immediately apply them before the ideas are relegated to cold storage. The workshops are dynamic and require audience involvement rather than a traditional one-way communication. Over the course of any workshop, participants have the opportunity to explore ideas both in smaller groups and within the larger group. Feedback is positive and the integration and application after the workshop is much stronger than without my dynamic learning model.
I offer 1-hour, 2-hour and full-day workshops on topics that include; self-care, self-acceptance, working with difficult people, difference and diversity, and character development. Each of these topics may be geared to any work or life situation.
Podcasts
I launched a podcast series, titled Conscious Curiosity on all major podcast platforms and on YouTube in the Spring of 2021 There are several episodes where I interview therapists, philosophers and Buddhist teachers on their views on consciousness.
Fees
My fee for individual therapy or Somatic Experiencing is a sliding scale of $150-$180. You choose the amount within the range. Sessions are 55-minutes. I accept cash, eTransfers, and Paypal as payment options. Credit card payment can be accepted through Paypal.
I am happy to offer a free 20 minute consultation over the phone or by Zoom prior to scheduling an initial session.
Your appointment time is reserved just for you. A late cancellation or missed visit leaves a hole in my day that could have been filled by another client. Therefore, I have a 48-hour cancellation notice requirement. Clients are responsible for payment for any planned session they do not attend without giving 48 hours notice. There may be some flexibility in this policy under emergency situations – but even in these situations I ask that you please try and give as much notice as possible since I will have reserved the hour for you.