My Therapeutic Approach
I am a holistic, client-centered therapist who uses integrative, evidence-based therapeutic modalities and techniques which are highly individualized to each client's unique therapeutic goals and symptom management.
Modalities Used
Adlerian - Individual Psychology
This form of therapy is a positive, strengths-based approach that sees all behaviours as serving a purpose. Goals include helping clients identify mistaken beliefs, change self-defeating behaviours, take responsibility for their actions, and build greater connections to others in community.
Dialectical Behaviour Therapy
DBT was initially created to treat chronic suicidality and borderline personality disorder, but it is also highly effective for the treatment of depression, anxiety, eating disorders and substance use. This approach combines acceptance (validation of your worldview and emotions) with change (learning new skills to modify unhelpful thoughts and behaviours).
Sand Tray Therapy
With this approach, clients can express themselves in non-verbal ways, using symbolic miniature objects to build a world. It is highly effect for trauma work, as traumatic memories are often stored in non-verbal parts of the brain. This hands-on process allows one to access both thoughts and emotions that are hard to express in words.
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy
Ever heard the saying 'Thoughts aren't facts'. That is a basic premise of CBT, which is a highly structured, goal-oriented form of therapy that focuses on how your thoughts, feelings, and behaviours influence one another. The end-goal is to become your own therapist, capable of recognizing and reframing unhelpfull thinking patterns. It is effective for a wide variety of mental health conditions, physical conditions, and life challenges
Solution-Focussed Brief Therapy
As the name suggests, this therapeutic modality is designed to be a short-term, goal-directed approach that focuses on building solutions, drawing attention to one's personal strengths, and cultivating future hopes. It is highly efficacious for stress, anxiety, depression, relationship and family conflicts, behavioural challenges with children and teens, and life transitions
Commonly Used Techniques
Scaling
When you enter a therapeutic relationship with me, I may ask you scaling questions such as "If you were to rate your mood today between a 1 and 10, with 1 being lowest mood ever and 10 being highest mood ever, where would you be at? What would it take to get you to one step higher?"
This technique allows us to keep track of your progress, hope, confidence, and anxiety levels.
Homework
While this may be a dreaded option for some, for others they enjoy having personal assignments to work on independently, so their growth, awareness, and healing journey can continue building in-between sessions. One simple assignment I often give is asking people to track how frequently and under what circumstances they have automatic negative thoughts about themselves, as this can highlight patterns that can be addressed in therapy
Somatic Work
These body-focused practices, such as box breathing and progressive muscle relaxation, are used in session to help clients connect the mind and physical body, which helps regulate the nervous system, release chronic tension, and process stress or trauma.
Samara Pictionary
I often will draw out patterns, cycles, and symbolic diagrams (very poorly) during sessions with clients, which can act as a visual aid, allowing a client to see how an invisible, overwhelming internal experience can become visible, predicable, and manageable. For many people, this is a highly validating, shame-reducing, collaborative experience enhancing the therapeutic bond with me as their therapist