Counselling Therapy
Sometimes it’s helpful to have another person to talk to, as a compassionate and objective supporter.
The goals are yours to set. What would you like to be different in your life? You may want to understand and shift unhelpful patterns in your thoughts, emotions or behaviours. Counselling can help you improve your relationship with yourself and others, build your self-confidence, set healthy boundaries, reduce the impacts of stress and anxiety, or move toward wholeness after significant loss, illness, trauma or grief.
Personal growth and healing with the support of a professional counsellor is a dance of listening, exploring, teaching, reflecting and gently nudging in the direction of your preferred future. Effective counselling is a partnership, and it’s important that you sense a good fit with the counsellor as a person, as well as their approach or modalities used. A short, free introductory phone call, prior to booking an appointment, will help us both to know if we can be a good fit. Kathleen’s counselling practice is shaped by feminist and anti-oppressive frameworks, has a primarily somatic (body-based) focus, and draws on tools from narrative and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy.
You can expect to have things to practice between sessions: paying attention in a new way to sensations or thoughts, reading and reflecting, writing, breathing or movement practice, or implementing new strategies we have practiced together. You determine the pace of the changes you’d like to create. Our work together is confidential, with exceptions required by law regarding potential harms that may be revealed in session.
Counselling therapy may be covered under your health insurance benefits. Please check with your plan. Registered Counselling Therapists are licensed, Master’s Level trained mental health professionals, regulated by the Nova Scotia College of Counselling Therapists. Kathleen is a Professional Member of the Canadian Counselling and Psychotherapy Association possessing a Canadian Certified Counsellor (CCC) designation.
The goals are yours to set. What would you like to be different in your life? You may want to understand and shift unhelpful patterns in your thoughts, emotions or behaviours. Counselling can help you improve your relationship with yourself and others, build your self-confidence, set healthy boundaries, reduce the impacts of stress and anxiety, or move toward wholeness after significant loss, illness, trauma or grief.
Personal growth and healing with the support of a professional counsellor is a dance of listening, exploring, teaching, reflecting and gently nudging in the direction of your preferred future. Effective counselling is a partnership, and it’s important that you sense a good fit with the counsellor as a person, as well as their approach or modalities used. A short, free introductory phone call, prior to booking an appointment, will help us both to know if we can be a good fit. Kathleen’s counselling practice is shaped by feminist and anti-oppressive frameworks, has a primarily somatic (body-based) focus, and draws on tools from narrative and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy.
You can expect to have things to practice between sessions: paying attention in a new way to sensations or thoughts, reading and reflecting, writing, breathing or movement practice, or implementing new strategies we have practiced together. You determine the pace of the changes you’d like to create. Our work together is confidential, with exceptions required by law regarding potential harms that may be revealed in session.
Counselling therapy may be covered under your health insurance benefits. Please check with your plan. Registered Counselling Therapists are licensed, Master’s Level trained mental health professionals, regulated by the Nova Scotia College of Counselling Therapists. Kathleen is a Professional Member of the Canadian Counselling and Psychotherapy Association possessing a Canadian Certified Counsellor (CCC) designation.
Somatic Experiencing
Somatic Experiencing (SE) is a way of helping the nervous system to restore rhythm and flow, by paying attention to sensations in the body. SE is particularly useful in addressing physical or emotional pain (Current or historical) that is not easily accessed through language in talk therapy.
SE is not a stand-alone treatment. Rather, it’s a somatic approach to healing that brings in the innate
and often overlooked wisdom of the body. This enriches the counselling experience and supports people to develop more body awareness and a more holistic sense of self-presence.
When we experience trauma or overwhelm, the nervous system acts with survival energy to protect us. Often, that protection strategy helps us in the immediate situation, and then the nervous system restores itself. Sometimes, though, if those self-protective responses are interrupted and incomplete, we can develop reactions to current stressors that are out of proportion. The nervous system now has a go-to pattern when there is general stress or some specific stimulation (‘trigger’). This may be experienced as hyper-arousal (anxiety, too much fight or flight energy) or hypo-arousal (depression, dissociation or freeze energy).
With slow and careful exploration, beginning with education about how the nervous system works, SE allows us to bring curiosity to how the body and brain get stuck in these unhelpful response patterns, and provides opportunities for those neural pathways to be diminished and replaced by more flexible and appropriate responses. SE practice can bring more regulation to sensations and emotions, restore relationship with ourselves and others, and help us feel more present, whole and integrated.
SE works directly with the nervous system, in the session. We will identify and track sensation, work with attention to interoceptive (inside the body) and exteroceptive (outside the body) information and follow the rise and fall of activation in the body. In some situations, supportive touch work can be helpful to bring awareness to particular areas of the body. SE touch work can be done seated or using a massage table. The client is fully clothed, and touch is always negotiated with the client’s consent.
Please note that all of Kathleen’s counselling work is informed by somatic experiencing, however SE is not always the focus of our work. The tools we use will be determined according to your needs. Learn more about Somatic Experiencing.
SE is not a stand-alone treatment. Rather, it’s a somatic approach to healing that brings in the innate
and often overlooked wisdom of the body. This enriches the counselling experience and supports people to develop more body awareness and a more holistic sense of self-presence.
When we experience trauma or overwhelm, the nervous system acts with survival energy to protect us. Often, that protection strategy helps us in the immediate situation, and then the nervous system restores itself. Sometimes, though, if those self-protective responses are interrupted and incomplete, we can develop reactions to current stressors that are out of proportion. The nervous system now has a go-to pattern when there is general stress or some specific stimulation (‘trigger’). This may be experienced as hyper-arousal (anxiety, too much fight or flight energy) or hypo-arousal (depression, dissociation or freeze energy).
With slow and careful exploration, beginning with education about how the nervous system works, SE allows us to bring curiosity to how the body and brain get stuck in these unhelpful response patterns, and provides opportunities for those neural pathways to be diminished and replaced by more flexible and appropriate responses. SE practice can bring more regulation to sensations and emotions, restore relationship with ourselves and others, and help us feel more present, whole and integrated.
SE works directly with the nervous system, in the session. We will identify and track sensation, work with attention to interoceptive (inside the body) and exteroceptive (outside the body) information and follow the rise and fall of activation in the body. In some situations, supportive touch work can be helpful to bring awareness to particular areas of the body. SE touch work can be done seated or using a massage table. The client is fully clothed, and touch is always negotiated with the client’s consent.
Please note that all of Kathleen’s counselling work is informed by somatic experiencing, however SE is not always the focus of our work. The tools we use will be determined according to your needs. Learn more about Somatic Experiencing.