Therapeutic Values and Stance: 

It’s hard to define good mental health or self growth. But I’ve discovered some components which go a long way in getting us there. Self-awareness means being honest with ourselves and each other, means dedicating time and energy to reflection and cultivating thoughtfulness. 

Intentionality means being serious about choosing our goals (attainable goals taken on one at a time) and finding small every-day ways to put them into action. My supervisor compares mental health to learning a new language, it’s a big undertaking that we can practice at a little bit everyday. 

I fear our cultures and traumas teach us to disconnect from our bodies and emotions, so it’s crucial to cultivate healthy relationships with ourselves. 

I also believe in utilizing a birds-eye view in session: I have a background in sociology which taught me to take the big picture in account. The systems we are immersed in impact our beliefs and relationships. We often have to work against our contexts when taking care of ourselves.

I believe good mental health is impossible to detangle from healthy relationships. So I prioritize teaching clients about functional communication, relationship care and prioritization, boundary work, and social skills. I explore with clients the ways they experience connection and disconnection, and strategies for cultivating the first while giving respectful space to the later.

Therapies, described in my own words: 

Client-Centered: My most often used therapeutic strategies are validation and exploration, everything is valid. We so often come to believe that our thoughts and feelings and behaviours are, primarily, a source for criticism. Not here. Here I only make one assumption: there’s a good reason for each feeling and thought and behaviour, even if we don’t know yet what that reason is. Therapy is an experimentation: we gather some data, propose a theory on what might help, and give it a go to see what happens. And we repeat this process as many times as necessary. Above all else, therapy is a collaboration. You are the expert on you, and you have the right to take lead in this process.

Humanistic: Being a humanistic therapist means trying to treat every client, every session, every problem with as much open-mindedness and flexibility as possible. Nothing is permanent. We are allowed to change our minds, our perspectives, our stories, or our priorities all the time. That’s how we grow! My first priority in session is protecting my client’s autonomy: giving them a sense of control over what we talk about, when, and how much. Giving them opportunities to express discomfort or boundaries so we can rearrange ourselves into a more comfortable position. And allowing them control over what strategies they feel have potential and are worth investing time and energy in.

Relational: It’s true that I speak and act differently as a therapist then I would with a friend or family member. But I try to limit the amount of depersonalization I use in session. I believe that by showing up authentically and imperfectly, I help create a safe space for others to do so. A part of that means using my own human experience in real-time conversation as a tool or source of information. I try to share with clients, when appropriate, my own perspectives, thoughts, feelings, and reactions while we’re talking. I believe this not only offers new information about the topics at hand, but it also allows clients an opportunity to practice open, honest, imperfect communication in a safe space.

Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy: I know this is a go-to therapy for many, many therapists. I also know that many, many clients have had less then stellar experiences working with CBT. For this reason, I have often considered dropping it from my portfolio completely. But while there are side-effects of CBT that I try to avoid (ie. conversation feeling cold, clinical, or superficial and the use of invalidating language), when it comes to ADHD coaching or anxiety (for example) there is simply no better option. Cognitive strategies, for me, look like identifying and specifying the thoughts that hurt us, then forming and practicing appropriate counter-arguments. Desensitizing unhelpful neuro-pathways while building new and more supportive ones. Behavioural intervention means problem solving, attending to our routines or time management, and making small action-based changes in the hope of cultivating profound internal growth.

Trauma-awareness: This breaks down to four important beliefs: Trauma isn’t always the big scary thing we don’t want to talk about, often it is the small uncomfortable moment we barely noticed. Trauma is universal and that’s ok. Trauma does not need to be as overwhelming as we imagine it to be. And trauma doesn't need to be spoken about directly, or even identified, to be treated. I am very much still learning about trauma and how to treat it. But I want to mention it here anyway, because what I have learned about trauma has deeply influenced my practice. 

Resource and Information Access: One of my favorite things to do as a therapist happens after my sessions: it’s when I send an email to a client I just saw with articles about concepts they took an interest in, homework they’re enthusiastic about completing, or notes summarizing our conversation. Access to reliable information is so important in managing our mental health and I am honoured to be trusted to provide just that. Whether that means doing some quick googling and finding articles that I can vet, or sketching out a quick worksheet personalized to the client’s needs. Resources can be hugely important in the therapeutic process (though not for everyone) and I prioritize time and energy to provide them.

Narrative Therapy: This kind of therapy is worked into my usual talk-therapy routine. I keep an ear out for the meaning attached to certain words, tones of voice, and even body language in order to suss out the underlying story someone holds about their experience. These stories are precious, but can often be hurtful if they haven’t been pulled into the light and looked over. We often internalize inconsistent or shame-inducing beliefs about ourselves, or blaming and one-dimensional beliefs about others. I consider it part of my job to gently pull at the edges of these stories and edit them with a client’s help. I do this to maximize on opportunities for meaning-making and resilience. 

Self-Compassion Training: Living and working in a society that regularly circulates shame and guilt and blame I am committed as a therapist to combat these processes by reminding clients to regularly practice self-compassion. This means educating clients on what self-compassion is and how it works. Modeling self-compassionate perspectives in session. And encouraging clients to practice self-compassion in their own time. We all have the potential to find and strengthen our compassionate selves, and doing so provides crucial armor for navigating the outside world.

Skill Building: I try to think of most therapy work as a kind of skill building. Acceptance and intentionality and self-efficacy are all skills that require time and effort to gain. Most often the skills I am teaching, or that my clients are practicing, are skills in toleration. Toleration of anxiety or sadness, of loneliness or hopelessness, of feeling out of control. When toleration is learned we find a new starting place from which to problem-solve and enact change. In therapy we can choose our own pace for climbing these learning curves.