Therapy services
Therapy with me is not only a place to vent and be validated, though there is always room for that too. From our very first session together, I am quietly forming a picture of the patterns and themes that exist in your life while also looking for your sources of support and strengths. I am listening for what's below the surface, not just what's on it.
What makes this work different is that we don't stay at the surface for long; rather, we dig into how you came to be the person you are, make sense of the survival strategies you've been using, understand why they aren't serving you the way they once did, and start learning new ways of being in the world.
You are always in charge of the direction and the pace, and my hope is that you won't leave session after session feeling like nothing is changing.
Session types
Meet and greet video call
15 minutes
Individual sessions
60 to 90 minutes
ART sessions
60 to 90 minutes
ART consultation for ART practitioners
60 minutes
Trauma therapy
Burnout therapy
Relationship therapy
People pleasing
Anxiety therapy
Support for family members of loved ones with addictions
The areas I specialize in
Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART)
Neuroaffective Relational Model (NARM)
Emotion Focused Therapy (EFT)
Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT)
Person-centred and relational therapy
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)
Narrative therapy
Compassion-focused therapy
Trauma therapy in Ottawa
Most people don't arrive at therapy thinking of themselves as trauma survivors. They arrive exhausted, stuck, reactive in ways they can't explain, or carrying something heavy they've never quite been able to put down. Trauma is often the thing underneath all of it.
I work with adults navigating a wide range of traumatic experiences, and I meet each person exactly where they are.
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Trauma doesn't always look the way people expect it to. Some of what I work with most often includes:
Childhood and developmental trauma: growing up in a home where emotional needs weren't consistently met, where support was unpredictable, or where abuse, neglect, or instability shaped who you became.
Relationship trauma: the lasting impact of an abusive relationship, a painful separation, or estrangement from someone you loved.
Workplace trauma: unwanted attention from a colleague or supervisor, uncomfortable power dynamics, being pushed beyond your role or capacity, or an environment that left you feeling unsafe or unseen.
Single incident trauma: vehicle accidents, sexual assault, witnessing a traumatic event, or other experiences that happened once but stayed with you.
If you're not sure whether what you've experienced counts as trauma, that uncertainty alone is a reason to reach out.
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One of the first things I tell new clients is this: set the pace. There is no expectation that within the first few sessions I need to know everything, or anything, really, that you're not ready to share.
The early sessions are two people getting to know each other. I might ask about the important people in your life, what you do when you need to feel at peace, what your hobbies are. For some clients we stay at the surface for a little while. For others, they naturally start sharing what brought them in. Both are completely fine.
What I am always doing, even in those early conversations, is listening carefully, for patterns, for themes, for the shape of your story. So that when you're ready to go deeper, we already have a foundation to build from.
In a domain of your life where so much has felt out of control, I want therapy to be somewhere you feel in control again.
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Free consultation: a 15-minute relaxed conversation to see if we're a good fit.
First session: we begin getting to know each other. You share as much or as little as feels right. I ask questions and start to see a picture of your story.
Second session and beyond: we begin to find our rhythm. I let you know what I'm noticing, patterns, themes, connections between your past and present. We start going below the surface together.
Ongoing: this is where the real shifts happen. Slowly you begin to understand yourself differently. The things that felt like personal failings start to make sense. And you start to feel like you have more agency over your own life.
Trauma therapy typically unfolds over one year or more, depending on what you're working through. Some clients work with me for two to six years. Others come for six to eight sessions, build awareness, and return when they're ready to go further. There is no right timeline.
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Trauma therapy is not just sitting across from someone and reliving your worst moments session after session. It is not all hard work. There are moments of lightness, of laughter, of genuine relief.
What I hear most often from clients who have done this work:
"I wish I had done this for myself a long time ago."
"I never thought I would feel this way again."
"I thought I would be stuck feeling this way forever."
There is no denying that trauma therapy requires something of us, it’s hard work. AND, I also want each human I see to know that it makes us who we are, amazing, resilient, strong, and resourceful humans. Humans who know and experience the world differently. Humans that have learned and are aware that we would have never arrived at this better version of ourselves without having gone through what we did to get here. That's the work we do together.
Burnout therapy in Ottawa
Burnout is not just being tired. It's what happens when you've been running on empty for so long that even rest doesn't help anymore. It's the feeling of moving from one task to the next, parenting, working, cooking, cleaning, bedtime, sleep, repeat, without a single moment that feels like it belongs to you.
If these feelings hit close to home, you may be running on empty from burnout.
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Burnout can show up as:
Exhaustion that doesn't go away, no matter how much you sleep
Anxiety, low mood, or a constant low hum of stress you can't seem to shake
An inability to relax or enjoy downtime, even when you have it
Feeling like you've lost your sense of self, like your roles have swallowed up who you actually are
Moving through the days on autopilot, wondering when things started feeling so monotonous and stuck
A quiet knowing that something needs to change, even if you can't name what
Many of my burnout clients don't arrive using that word. They say they're exhausted, overwhelmed, running on empty, or that they just can't keep pushing anymore. The label matters less than the feeling, and the feeling is real.
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My typical burnout client is a mom who works full-time, carries most of the household and parenting responsibilities, feels like she's doing it largely on her own, and doesn't know how much longer she can keep going.
She has often reached the point where it feels easier to just do everything herself than to ask for help, and that pattern, over time, has cost her enormously. Her needs, her voice, her hobbies and interests have been quietly set aside for a very long time.
She comes into therapy wanting to feel different. She leaves knowing herself better, able to say no, able to ask for what she needs, and starting to believe that her own needs are not a burden.
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Recovery from burnout is gradual, and the early signs are subtle. Clients start to notice:
They can name what they're feeling more easily, and know what they need in response to it
They begin to say no sometimes, to the extra task, to the late request, to the thing that was never really theirs to carry
They start to hold others accountable for their part, rather than absorbing all of the responsibility themselves
Their relationships begin to feel more equal and equitable
They find moments where they can actually rest, and let themselves
You won't leave burnout behind all at once. But you'll build a roadmap for how to keep prioritizing your recovery. And that changes everything.
Relationship therapy in Ottawa
The relationships we have with others are almost always shaped by the relationships we had first, with the people who raised us, the environments we grew up in, and the ways we learned to connect, handle conflict, and cope.
Relationship therapy isn't only for couples. It's for anyone who wants to understand the patterns that keep showing up in their closest relationships, and learn how to do things differently.
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Relationship therapy with me can address:
Recurring conflict patterns that never seem to fully resolve
Difficulty communicating needs, setting limits, or having hard conversations
Feeling chronically misunderstood, alone, or like you're walking on eggshells
A history of relationships that haven't felt quite right, and a pattern you're starting to recognize
The relationship you have with yourself, how you speak to yourself, how you treat your own needs, and how much room you take up in your own life
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Many of us were never shown what healthy relationships look like. Nobody modelled how to repair after conflict, how to communicate needs without explosion or shutdown, or how to be in genuine connection with another person without losing yourself.
In relationship therapy we slow down and look at those patterns, where they came from, why they make sense, and what it would look like to do things differently. We work on the skills that make relationships more sustainable: how to communicate, how to tolerate the discomfort of conflict, how to repair, and how to know what we need and actually ask for it.
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Relationship therapy tends to be particularly valuable for people who:
Find conflict deeply uncomfortable and tend to shut down, flee, or people please their way through it
Have trouble knowing or stating their needs, and have been told, directly or indirectly, that having needs is a burden
Feel alone even when they're surrounded by people
Want a better relationship with themselves, not just with others
Are ready to understand why the same patterns keep showing up, and to finally do something about it
People pleasing therapy in Ottawa
People pleasing rarely feels like a choice. For most people, it just feels like the way they are, the person who says yes when they sometimes mean no, who manages everyone else's comfort before their own, who finds conflict so uncomfortable they'd rather not get involved. What looks like kindness or consideration from the outside can feel like exhaustion and invisibility from the inside.
If that resonates, you're not alone, it didn't start with you, and it is how you adapted to survive.
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People pleasing is almost always rooted in early experiences. When we grow up in environments where love or safety felt conditional, where keeping the peace, being helpful, or making ourselves small kept us out of trouble, we learn that our needs are less important than everyone else's. We learn that expressing our needs can leave us feeling like a burden and meeting others needs gives us some of the attention we need.
Those lessons don't disappear when we reach adulthood. They show up in our relationships, our workplaces, and the quiet way we talk to ourselves. They show up in our inability to say no, the constant monitoring we feel we need to do of other people's emotions, and the guilt that arrives the moment we try to put ourselves first.
People pleasing is a survival strategy. It made sense once and now its leaving us exhausted. It's also one of the most common things I work with.
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You might recognize yourself in some of these:
Saying yes when everything in us wants to say no
Saying yes so quickly we haven’t even thought about if we have the capacity to help or not
Taking on responsibilities that were never really ours to carry
Feeling responsible for how everyone around us feels
Struggling to identify what we actually want or need, because we've been focused on others for so long
Avoiding conflict at almost any cost, through appeasement, silence, or disappearing
Feeling resentful, depleted, and unseen, and then feeling guilty about that too
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Moving out of people pleasing patterns is gradual, and it starts with understanding where they came from. When you can see that these patterns were a response to something, not a character flaw or a choice, something begins to shift.
Over time clients start to:
Know what they need and feel safe enough to say it out loud
Contemplate saying no, being mindful of the consequences, and being ok to say no anyways
Taking on less responsibility for everyone else's emotional experience
Have hard conversations and discover the relationship survives them
Feel less resentful and more genuinely present in their relationships
Recognize that their needs are not a burden, and start acting accordingly
This work takes time. But it is so worth it with how it so meaningfully changes the way you feel and move through the world.
Anxiety therapy in Ottawa
Some anxiety is normal, even useful. It signals us to prepare, to pay attention, to take something seriously. But anxiety becomes unhelpful when it's constant, hard to control, and doesn't resolve when the stressful moment passes. When it starts affecting your mood and sleep, your relationships, your ability to concentrate, it is time to pay closer attention.
It’s when anxiety feels less like a helpful signal and more like something that's running the show, that we may want to consider asking for help.
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Anxiety looks different for everyone, but some of the most common experiences my clients describe include:
A persistent sense of restlessness or being on edge
Excessive worry that's hard to slow down or stop
A feeling of dread or impending doom that doesn't have a clear cause
Avoidance of messages, plans, people, situations that feel overwhelming
Difficulty concentrating or sleeping, or waking up exhausted despite a full night's rest
Physical symptoms like muscle tension, persistent headaches, or a racing heart
Irritability that feels out of proportion, and guilt about that, too
If you recognize yourself in this list, you're not imagining it. And you don't have to keep managing it alone.
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Anxiety work with me isn't only about grounding exercises and breathing techniques that give you temporary relief before the worry floods back in. It's about changing your relationship with anxiety, understanding what it's trying to tell you, why it's showing up, and how to shift the control imbalance it creates.
Here's how we typically move through it together:
First, we get a clear picture of what your anxiety looks and feels like, what it tells you to think, feel, and do, and why it makes sense that it developed the way it did.
Then we start introducing tools that challenge the unhelpful thinking patterns anxiety creates and reduce the symptoms you're carrying.
From there, we pay attention to what's working and build on it, until you feel more in control of your anxiety than it is of you.
It's completely normal for clients to come back for a session here and there once we've wrapped up, a booster when things feel harder again. That door stays open.
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There is no one type of anxiety client; anxiety doesn't discriminate, and it shows up differently for everyone. But what most of my clients want by the end of our work is remarkably consistent:
Less worry, and real tools to challenge the unhelpful things anxiety tells them to think and do
Moments of genuine calm, ease, and feeling in control
Sleep that actually restores them
The capacity to be present in their relationships instead of being drained by them
A sense that they are running their life, not anxiety running it for them
Support for family members & loved ones supporting someone with addictions in Ottawa
When someone you love is living with a Substance Use Disorder, you become a caregiver in ways you never planned for. You show up, you manage, you worry, you absorb. And somewhere along the way, your own needs get quietly set aside, because how could you possibly focus on yourself right now?
This service is for you if you are that person on the other side of someone else's addiction who is running on empty and needs support, too.
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The people who reach out for this kind of support often arrive at a similar place. They are exhausted, close to their breaking point, and not sure how much longer they can keep going. They describe moving from one crisis to the next with barely a moment to breathe. They carry anxiety, low mood, sleeplessness, and a worry that never fully lets go.
They can feel angry, sad, numb, and frustrated, sometimes all in the same day. And they often feel like they have lost themselves entirely, because everything in their life has come to revolve around their loved one's addiction.
What they rarely feel is that they're allowed to ask for help. This work starts by changing that.
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Family member support is for partners, parents, siblings, friends, anyone who is part of a loved one's support system and feeling the weight of that role.
In our work together we focus on you. Not on fixing your loved one or managing their recovery, but on helping you find a way to keep showing up for them that doesn't require abandoning yourself in the process.
We explore why it feels so difficult to step back, why the guilt arrives the moment you think about doing less. We look at what a healthy division of responsibility actually looks like, and what belongs to you versus what belongs to your loved one in this journey. And we build the skills to help you hold your boundaries without it feeling like a betrayal.
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Progress in this work is gradual, and it starts to show in the quiet moments. Clients begin to:
Feel more like themselves again; less consumed, more grounded
Set limits around how much support they can realistically give without depleting themselves
Say no sometimes, and sit with the discomfort of that without it undoing them
Make time for their own needs, relationships, and rest
Understand why they feel so responsible for their loved one's wellbeing, and start to release some of that weight
See what their loved one's responsibilities are in their own recovery, and allow them to carry more of it
Most people who come to me for this support don't want to stop caring for their loved one. They just want to do it in a way that leaves room for themselves too. That's exactly what we work toward.
The approaches I use
Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART)
ART is a powerful trauma processing tool that is not widely practiced in Ottawa. If you have unresolved trauma that still feels present, memories that are easily triggered, emotions that spike when you think about what happened, or a body that hasn't quite caught up with the fact that the event is over, ART may be worth exploring.
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ART uses eye movements, similar to EMDR, which many people have heard of, to help the brain reprocess traumatic memories. What makes ART distinct is that it also facilitates image replacement and addresses body symptoms directly. Sessions have a clear beginning, middle, and end, so clients leave feeling that something has actually shifted.
When we recall an emotional memory, that memory temporarily becomes open to change. ART uses that window, combining eye movements, breath work, visualization, and guided imagery, to help the brain store the memory differently. The facts of what happened remain. The emotional charge attached to them lessens significantly, or in some cases lifts almost entirely.
ART works directly with the survival brain, the part responsible for fight, flight, freeze, and fawn responses. This is why trauma memories can feel so activating when triggered. ART targets that activation at the source.
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One of the most important things to know about ART is that you do not have to share the details of your trauma for it to work.
ART processes your experience through your own images, memories, and felt sense, not through verbal retelling. Some clients share nothing. Some share a little. Some share everything. The effectiveness of ART does not change based on how much you disclose.
For people who feel they simply cannot tell their story one more time, this changes everything.
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ART tends to work well for people who can access their trauma memory, who can see images of it, narrate it internally, or feel it in the body when they think about it.
You would be a good candidate for ART if you can sit with the memory for short to medium periods of time, and if you have some ability to regulate your emotions, either on your own or with support.
ART may not be appropriate if you have certain eye, balance, or vestibular conditions.
A typical ART process involves one intake and education session, followed by one to five ART sessions of 60 to 90 minutes each. It is recommended that you plan for minimal responsibilities after an ART session, as your brain will continue processing for up to 48 hours. Many clients plan their sessions for the end of the day or on a day off.
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ART is recognized as evidence-based by The Society of Clinical Psychology and the American Psychological Association. Research shows effectiveness for PTSD, trauma, anxiety, depression, and other mental health challenges.
What I've witnessed in my own practice has been some of the most meaningful moments of my career. Clients have described ART as lifting the emotional weight from memories that had followed them for years, some for decades. One client told me it was the first time in nearly ten years they had not experienced suicidal ideation.
Results vary from person to person. For some the shift is profound and rapid. For others it creates more manageable distance from the pain. The only way to know how it will work for you is to try it.
Neuroaffective Relational Model (NARM)
NARM is a specialized approach for healing the effects of early childhood and developmental trauma. Unlike therapies that ask you to revisit and retell painful memories, NARM focuses on the survival patterns you developed in response to what happened, the ways you learned to disconnect from yourself, your emotions, and your relationships in order to stay safe. Those patterns were needed and made sense then. In adulthood, they often show up as anxiety, emotional numbness, relationship struggles, or a persistent feeling of being stuck. NARM works in the present moment to gently shift them.
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NARM works by inviting curiosity rather than excavation. Instead of digging through past stories or forcing you to relive traumatic events, it focuses on what's happening right now, in your body, your thoughts, your feelings, and your patterns of relating to others.
NARM targets the unconscious survival styles that developed in response to early trauma, the ways we learned to disconnect from ourselves and others in order to cope. By bringing awareness to these patterns in the present moment, NARM helps resolve the underlying disconnection that drives so many of the symptoms people come to therapy for.
The goal is not to analyze your past endlessly. It is to help you reconnect with your natural capacity for health, aliveness, and genuine connection with yourself and others.
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NARM is particularly well-suited for people dealing with:
Childhood and developmental trauma, especially the kind that didn't involve a single dramatic event but a chronic absence of safety, attunement, or emotional connection
Emotional disconnection, feeling cut off from yourself, your body, your needs, or your relationships
Relationship difficulties rooted in early attachment experiences
Feeling stuck in patterns that don't respond to insight or talk therapy alone
A sense that something is off, but difficulty pinpointing exactly what
If you've done therapy before and feel like you understand your story intellectually but haven't felt it shift in your body or your relationships, NARM may be worth exploring.
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NARM has a growing evidence base and is increasingly recognized as an effective approach for developmental and relational trauma. What makes it distinct is its focus on the present-moment experience of the body and the unconscious patterns driving symptoms, rather than the narrative of what happened. In practice, I find it reaches places that other approaches sometimes can't, particularly for clients whose trauma is less about a single event and more about a lifetime of learned disconnection.
Emotion Focused Therapy (EFT)
EFT slows things down and helps you get genuinely curious about your emotional experience, rather than avoiding it, pushing through it, or judging yourself for having it.
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EFT works from the understanding that emotions carry important information. Most of us were never taught to listen to them; in fact, many of us were taught the opposite. EFT helps you learn what each emotion is trying to tell you, why it's showing up, and what it needs in order to move through rather than stay stuck.
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EFT is especially helpful for people who struggle to identify or express what they're feeling, often a pattern that developed early in life in response to environments where emotions weren't welcome or safe. It's also valuable for anyone who tends to intellectualize their experience and wants to develop a warmer, more compassionate relationship with their inner world.
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EFT is well-supported by research, particularly for depression, trauma, and relationship difficulties. In practice I find it opens doors that other approaches sometimes can't, particularly for clients who have spent years disconnected from their emotional experience and are ready to start reconnecting.
Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT)
DBT is one of my favourite modalities, and one of the most practically useful for everyday life. It's built around four core areas: emotion regulation, distress tolerance, mindfulness, and interpersonal effectiveness.
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DBT gives you a concrete framework for understanding your emotions and responding to them in ways that align with your values, rather than reacting from a place of survival.
It's particularly useful if you:
Find conflict deeply uncomfortable and tend to avoid, shut down, or submit
Struggle to know and state your needs
Have difficulty saying no
Think in black and white terms and want more flexibility in how you see situations
Find yourself going hours or days without communicating after a conflict, isolated, dysregulated, and unsure how to repair
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DBT is genuinely useful for most people I work with. It works especially well for anyone who wants a better relationship with themselves and others, who wants to feel more equipped to navigate hard emotions without being overwhelmed by them, and who is ready to start honouring their own needs without feeling like they're abandoning the people they love.
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DBT has one of the strongest evidence bases in psychotherapy. I've seen it change people's lived experience day in and day out, helping them finally feel like they can honour their own wants and needs while still caring for others. When we stop putting ourselves last every single time, there is space for both. That shift alone can be profound.
Person-centred and relational therapy
At the foundation of everything I do is a person-centred, relational approach. This means our work together is led by you, your pace, your priorities, and what matters most to you.
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Person-centred therapy holds that you are the expert on your own experience. My role is not to tell you what to do or who to be; it's to create the conditions in which you feel safe enough to explore that for yourself. The therapeutic relationship is not just the backdrop to the work. It is part of the work. Feeling genuinely seen, heard, and understood by another person is something many of my clients haven't had enough of, and that experience itself is healing.
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This approach works well for almost everyone, and it underpins everything else I do. It's particularly valuable for people who have felt judged, dismissed, or misunderstood in previous relationships or previous therapy, and who need to rebuild a sense of safety before they can go deeper.
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The therapeutic relationship is one of the strongest predictors of positive outcomes in therapy across all modalities. A person-centred, relational approach prioritizes that relationship above all else. The research consistently supports its effectiveness, and in my experience, it's what makes everything else possible.
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)
CBT looks at the connection between your thoughts, feelings, and behaviours, and helps you identify the patterns that are keeping you stuck.
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CBT is a structured, practical approach that helps you notice unhelpful thinking patterns and develop more useful ways of responding to situations. It's collaborative, skills-based, and gives clients concrete tools they can use between sessions.
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CBT tends to work well for people dealing with anxiety, depression, and patterns of thinking, like perfectionism, catastrophizing, or black and white thinking, that are getting in the way of living the life they want. It's a good fit for clients who appreciate structure and want to feel like they're building something tangible, session by session.
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CBT is one of the most extensively researched therapeutic approaches in existence. It has strong evidence for anxiety, depression, OCD, and many other presentations. I use it as part of an integrated approach, drawing on its strengths alongside other modalities depending on what each client needs.
Narrative therapy
Narrative therapy invites you to look at your life story from a new angle, and to separate who you are from the painful experiences you've been through.
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Narrative therapy works from the understanding that the stories we tell about ourselves shape how we experience our lives. Many of us have internalized stories that were given to us by others, by our families, our cultures, our difficult experiences, and those stories don't always reflect who we actually are. Narrative therapy helps you examine those stories, challenge the ones that no longer serve you, and start writing new ones.
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Narrative therapy works well for people who feel defined by their struggles, who have started to see their pain as their identity rather than as something that happened to them. It's particularly valuable for anyone working through trauma, grief, or major life transitions.
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Narrative therapy has solid research support, particularly for trauma, depression, and identity challenges. In practice I find it opens up a sense of possibility that clients sometimes haven't felt in a long time, the recognition that the hard chapters don't define them, and that the story isn't finished yet.
Compassion-focused therapy
Compassion-focused therapy is designed for people who are very hard on themselves, who carry a lot of shame, self-criticism, or a deep sense that their needs don't matter.
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Compassion-focused therapy helps build the capacity for self-compassion, not as a soft or indulgent idea, but as a genuine and practical skill. It works with the understanding that many of us developed harsh inner critics as a way of staying safe or in control, and that learning to soften that voice is some of the most important work we can do.
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This approach is particularly helpful for people who struggle with perfectionism, people pleasing, shame, and self-blame, who hold themselves to standards they would never apply to someone they loved. It's also valuable for anyone working through trauma, where self-blame is often part of the picture.
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Compassion-focused therapy has a strong and growing evidence base, particularly for shame, self-criticism, depression, and trauma. In my experience, it's often the thing that makes everything else in therapy easier because when you start treating yourself with more kindness, the whole process opens up.
Finding the right support starts with one conversation.
You've just read about the approaches I use and the presentations I work with, and maybe something on this page resonated with you. Maybe you're still not sure which direction makes the most sense. Either way, the next step is the same. Reach out, book a free 15-minute consultation, and let's talk about what's been going on and what kind of support might help. You don't need to have it figured out before we speak. That's what I'm here for.