Therapy Services
We provide psychotherapy and psychological treatment for adults (ages 18+). We see clients presenting with a wide variety of issues, and we also have several areas of special focus. Click the links to learn more about how we can help with each.
This means our therapists are trained in multiple evidence-based therapies. We can select the one that is best for you or use an integrative approach that combines techniques from multiple therapies along with knowledge and theory from both psychology and neuroscience in order provide you with optimal treatment.
In determining the right therapeutic approach for you, we draw on effective therapeutic modalities, selecting and integrating the techniques and interventions that will work best to bring the relief and change you are looking for. The main modalities we use are described below.
This approach helps people understand, express, manage, and transform emotion. It helps us move from being overwhelmed by emotions that feel out-of-control and harmful to using emotions as a guide to help us identify and get what we want and need. EFT also teaches us how respond to ourselves and the people in our lives in ways that are positive, adaptive, and productive.
CBT focuses on the links between thoughts, feelings, and behaviour in the present moment. It looks at how out-dated, inaccurate, or distorted thoughts and beliefs can lead to emotional pain and suffering. We work to identify these thoughts and then update or correct them, which in turn eases emotional distress. CBT also looks at changes we can make in our behaviour – what we actually do – that can help with difficult thoughts and feelings.
In psychodynamic psychotherapy, we explore emotions, thoughts, and early life experiences in order to gain insight into present-day problems and long-standing issues that seem to pop up again and again. We identify defenses and patterns that were adopted earlier in our lives to help us cope with some kind of distress or problem but now have become problems themselves. We then explore these hidden thoughts and feelings in order to gain the insight necessary to change these patterns and behaviours.
Trauma-informed, attachment-based therapy looks to understand how early unmet needs and traumatic experiences throughout your life influence your thoughts, emotions, and behaviours in the present. This approach includes understanding how the nervous system responds to trauma. We use body-based strategies and relational or attachment-based strategies along with trauma processing to repair old psychological injuries and create health in the here and now.
Along with these therapies, we offer a number of specialty therapies. These therapies are effective for many different issues, but are especially suited to the treatment of trauma, anxiety, and attachment issues. SSP can also be useful in the treatment of ADHD.
EMDR makes use of “bilateral stimulation” (side-to-side motions or sensations) to access the brain’s natural emotional regulating capacities and to process emotionally upsetting memories or information. The end result is that traumatic memories and bothersome thoughts are softened, becoming less frequent, less distressing, and easier to dismiss. It is considered a gold-star treatment for PTSD and trauma treatments and has been effectively applied to many other conditions as well.
IFS makes use of the idea that we are all made up of parts and sometimes these parts are in conflict with each other (for example, one part wants to go to therapy to feel better and another is nervous about what it will be like). By engaging our parts, we can better understand the conflicting forces inside us and how sometimes our attempts to protect ourselves end up creating new problems. This approach also encourages self-compassion and acceptance.
The Safe and Sound Protocol was developed by Dr. Stephen Porges to assist with trauma recovery. It is based on the nervous system’s response to trauma and how we can get frozen in emergency mode. The SSP is a listening treatment – it uses specially filtered music to help the brain move out of emergency mode and into safe, secure, connected mode. Along with the filtered music, this treatment teaches you how to read your nervous system’s signals to tell when you are escalating into stress and when you are calming into a regulated state.