What is Counselling?

Counselling is primarily a relationship-based process of growth. In this helping relationship, the counsellor’s main role is to work with you to create a safe environment to explore difficult and painful experiences, emotions, and ways of behaving and relating with others. This secure space offers the ground to begin experiencing yourself in a new way, and trying on new ways of seeing and interacting with your world.

At its best, counselling is both challenging and supportive. Pursuing healing and change can be very hard, and can push us to the limits of our own understanding and ability. Counselling provides the opportunity to push those limits with non-judgmental and focused professional help. Many people seek counselling as a result of crisis, or when emotional and mental pain becomes unmanageable. As a result, counselling typically begins by developing an understanding of the concerns that bring you to the office, as well as finding some immediate ways of containing and bringing down the intensity of the difficulties you bring to therapy. As therapy moves forward, you and your counsellor typically work to address the root causes of the initial concern(s), and to move beyond simply surviving, to thriving in life.

While I believe that counselling can benefit anyone who seeks it, I also acknowledge that not every counsellor is a good fit for every client. It is important for you to explore your options, and find the counsellor who will help you strike the balance of challenging and accepting yourself. I encourage you to take your time looking at the About page on my website, as well as the websites of other counsellors in the area, and then contact me if you feel I am a fit.