The good life is a process, not a state of being. It is a direction, not a destination.
Carl Rogers
**All sessions are currently via phone or video due to continued high spread of COVID-19**
Asking for help is a sign of strength
Sadness, anxiety, stress, anger, and feeling overwhelmed happen to all of us, often multiple times a day (maybe even right now). Typically, these experiences come and go, and we're able to respond to them in ways that are helpful in the moment.
Sometimes these experiences can be more extreme or can start piling up quicker than we’re used to. Instead of coming and going, it seems like they're always with us. Other times, coping skills that were helpful in certain situations, or for a short time, start causing us problems. We can end up feeling stuck, unable to move forward in our lives, or acting in ways that cause us problems with work, school, friends or family, or other important parts of our lives.
It can be hard to recognize that we’re struggling, and even harder to reach out for help. If you’re here, that means you’ve actually done this difficult first step: you’ve recognized you need help, and started looking for someone with the skills to help you. Asking for help, and obtaining a fresh perspective is the first step toward developing the skills to help you cope with life’s challenges. The more skills you gain, the better equipped you will be to move towards the life you want to be living.
Specializing in Anxiety, Depression, OCD, Trauma, and Couples and Family Therapy
Anxiety
Anxiety one of our most basic emotions. It can be quite helpful, motivating us to do things that are important to us, or letting us know of potential danger. Anxiety becomes problematic when we're afraid of things that aren't actually dangerous, or aren't as threatening as we think they are, or when our anxiety stops us from doing things that are important to us.
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for anxiety disorders is among the most successful psychological treatments. It works by teaching you how to accurately evaluate your anxiety triggers to tell if your anxiety reaction is justified or not. If your anxiety reaction doesn't match the threat, you learn skills to help you act more effectively, and manage your emotional reaction in the moment.
Depression
While everyone feels down from time to time, the experience of clinical depression is something else entirely. Clinical depression can include many physical symptoms, like changes in energy, exhaustion, sleep problems, and body pains, as well as difficulty concentrating, intense surges of anger, and overwhelming negative thoughts that can make it difficult to think that you will ever feel better.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy are supported to help with depression. They focus on identifying these negative thought patterns, and reengaging in the activities that are important to you, which breaks the cycle of depression.
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder can look very different from person to person. For some people, it will involve actions that they feel they have to do over and over again, and can't stop doing. For others, it may mainly involve intrusive thoughts that pop into their mind over and over again, when they don't want them, and which are very upsetting.
Some people who had mild versions of these thoughts or compulsions may have been triggered to more severe experiences during the past few years.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Exposure Therapy, and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy work on changing your relationship with these thoughts and urges, so that you no longer feel trapped by them every time they occur, and you can instead engage in other parts of your life.
Trauma
Traumatic events can include anything that is a threat to your physical or emotional safety, or the safety of those you're close to, including things like physical or sexual assault, emotional or verbal threats or abuse, natural disasters, accidents, or health problems.
Most people will experience at least one of these types of events in their lives. Some people may benefit from talking through their experience with someone who is supportive, and not require much assistance beyond that. Other times, people experience changes in their mood, unwanted thoughts or reexperiencing of the event, and physical reactions to reminders of their trauma. In these cases, Exposure Therapy or Cognitive Behavioural Therapy can help you cope more effectively with triggers and memories of your traumatic events.
Couples Therapy
In relationships, it's common for people to have different ways of communicating. Sometimes these differences can be fun and exciting. Other times, as relationships progress, these communication differences can cause misunderstandings and lead to tensions and conflict. You may also find that communication strategies that were once helpful can start to be ineffective and cause problems.
Dialectical Behavioural Therapy for couples focuses on identifying times of conflict, analyzing how and where the miscommunications occurred and conflict increased, and developing skills for both partners to be able to more effectively communicate with each other.
Family Skills Training
When we have a family member or loved one who is experiencing severe mental health struggles, we want to do everything we can to help them. However, sometimes we unintentionally say or do things that make it more difficult for our loved one to cope. We may also unintentionally be reenforcing or encouraging behavioural patterns our loved ones need to change.
Family skills training works with any family member, friend, or roommate to learn about the type of difficulties their loved one is experiencing (depression, anxiety, OCD, etc) and understand why their loved one may behave in certain ways. Family and friends may learn how to set healthy boundaries, encourage or help their loved one in using skills, and work on more effective communication skills.