Everyone has challenging experiences throughout their life. You may have navigated through difficult times successfully throughout your life and might be wondering if therapy is really necessary. Within the landscape of conscious personal growth, working with a therapist can be supportive in both holding space and guiding the healing process. Evidence based research shows that engaging in counselling and psychotherapy within the therapeutic relationship can be of tremendous benefit for many people. My belief is that therapy is a process. It allows for exploration, discovery and is part of conscious growth that can affect all aspects of one's life.
How can therapy help me?
The benefits from participating in psychotherapy are related to incorporating and integrating various elements. It might be that there are adjunct therapies that also support you as well as other resources in your life. Therapy is an opportunity to work with a trained professional in a collaborative way to address areas in your life that are important to you. Some benefits may include:
Attaining a better understanding of yourself, your goals and your values.
Recognizing patterns in life that are not life affirming, identifying origins and creating new responses.
Developing skills and practices for improving relationships.
Learning new ways to cope with stress and anxiety.
Discovering new ways to work through life changes and life transitions.
Assisting in self-esteem and self-confidence improvement.
Finding ways to manage anger, depression, anxiety and other emotional pressures.
Attuning to insights and understandings that can lead to new thought, emotion and behaviour responses.
Attending to grief and loss in the various ways it can touch relationships.
Working with trauma in a gentle way that allows for reintegration and expanded capacity.
Gaining tools to develop resiliency within the various landscapes that life presents.
Creatively exploring hope, meaning and purpose.
Practicing self care and self compassion techniques that promote wellness and wellbeing.
Understanding thinking and how mindfulness might open doors to new ways of thinking.
What to expect?
Seeking counselling and someone to talk with is valid, courageous and part of creating a life that is meaningful and important to you. I honour your questions, wonderings and process when deciding about therapy. If you choose to proceed with therapy, we will arrange a time for the first intake session. This appointment can be in person at my office in Walkerton or by Telehealth (Video/Phone) and will be set up through Jane App.
The first appointment or initial intake session is generally a little longer in duration (80 minutes). This allows for the time and space to get to know one another and to look more closely at your goals and intentions for therapy. Evidence shows that the therapeutic relationship is central in the therapeutic process. We will assess whether my skills and approach might be a match for your needs, discuss frequency of visits and fees. This is a collaborative and inclusive. In addition, we will review your intake form and go over confidentiality and limits of confidentiality.
Therapy is an ongoing process of engagement and overarching goals that are articulated in the first session may evolve. It is not static and in subsequent sessions I encourage ongoing review of the process so that the length of visits meets your current needs. There is no fixed number of sessions and it is unique for each individual.
