My Approach to Counselling and Therapy

Making the decision to look into counselling or therapy is a big step, and trying to find the right counsellor or therapist can be challenging and intimidating. It's important to find a therapist whom you're comfortable with and can trust.

To give you an idea of what you can expect when we first meet, let me tell you a bit about the way I approach counselling and therapy in general and how I would work with you.

When you first come for counselling or therapy:

• We'll look at your current situation and the challenges you're facing.
 
• We'll examine the changes you'd like to see and what you’re hoping to get from our work together.
 
• We’ll figure out what needs to occur in order for these changes to take place.
 
• We’ll explore the most effective, respectful and empowering ways to help you achieve these changes.
 

I'm a Guelph therapist committed to building a warm and trusting collaborative relationship with you, and understanding you and honouring your values and beliefs and what’s important to you. Throughout our sessions, I'll help you cultivate awareness and insight into your life and the issues that have brought you to counselling or therapy. We'll draw on your strengths, experiences and inner wisdom to deal with the challenges you're facing, and empower you to move towards the life that you want.

We'll examine your feelings and emotions and how these are affecting you, and ways you can learn to cope with and tolerate difficult moods and emotions more comfortably. We'll look at your behaviours and patterns of thinking and self-talk, and explore the relationships between your feelings, thoughts and behaviour, and changes you can make to help you start feeling better.

Theoretical Orientation to Counselling and Therapy

I use empirically-supported, evidence-based treatments whenever possible, which are therapy approaches that clinical research has found to be effective for specific issues. However, since everybody is different—and the reasons that people seek counselling or therapy often don't fit into easily defined categories—I don't believe that there is any single approach to counselling and therapy that will always work best for everyone.

I'm dedicated to working with you to figure out the most effective combination of ideas and techniques for you, depending on your individual situation, your strengths, your goals, and your needs. Our work together will be tailored around what works best and is most comfortable for you.

I have training and experience in a number of different approaches to counselling and therapy including cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), mindfulness-based therapy, positive psychology, solution-focused therapy, narrative therapy, and psychodynamic therapy and I integrate elements from all of these methods into my work.