PSYCHOTHERAPY and COUNSELLING
In working with adults, youth, and children, we see therapy and counselling as an opportunity to experience collaboration and authentic connection to self, other, and the world, no matter how old you are. Our practice is guided by the understanding that therapy must include your whole person which means we strive to creatively facilitate a supportive, respectful, and developmentally appropriate therapeutic relationship.
Some issues we can help with include:
- mental health concerns such as anxiety and depression
- trauma
- stress
- life transitions
- relational challenges
- identity development
- school and work concerns and transitions
Our purpose is to assist you in living a more meaningful life in which you can more deeply experience and integrate your emotions, thoughts, body, values, and spirituality. Both Barbara and Joanne utilize expressive and play therapy approaches in their work with their clients.
PARENT CONSULTATIONS
Being a parent today is incredibly challenging, particularly in a world of working from home, home schooling children, and the ever present social media. Sometimes, you just need to check in with someone to be your sounding board and to get some fresh ideas of how to approach parenting challenges. We work from a neurobiological and attachment perspective so our goal is to help you enhance your relationship with your child as they grow, while helping you identify particular strategies for your unique family circumstances. We know that if we can support parents, the whole family benefits.
CAREER DEVELOPMENT
Whether you work to live or live to work, change is inevitable. We can help you cope with stressful work situations or assist you in deciding to make a move and to what. We also have extensive experience working with adolescents and young adults in terms of education and career development planning. We offer formal and informal career assessment as well as counselling and coaching to aid you in growing a career in the way that helps you meet your professional and personal goals. Barbara was a member of the Executive of the Career Counsellors Chapter of the Canadian Counselling and Psychotherapy Association. She also has several publications on career counselling and assessment.
ASSESSMENT
Assessment is an important process, one that requires curiosity and compassion. We conduct comprehensive psychological and psychoeducational assessments for families and organizations. We can assess for a range of issues including:
- learning disorders in children, youth, and adults
- neurodivergence issues such as ADHD or issues around executive functioning in children, youth, and adults
- complex behaviours
- learning disorders
- trauma
- giftedness
- CLBC eligibility
We do NOT assess for autism at this time.
Our commitment is to ensuring that our clients feel understood, and in turn understand the information contained in the assessment, how we arrived at our conclusions, and feel as though they can act on any recommendations. We are pleased to offer further support to our clients by attending any meetings in the community, such as meeting with school based teams, in order to explain the assessment and collaboratively discuss what the next steps could be in supporting our clients and the community.
Costs vary depending on the type of assessment sought, so please contact us to discuss your needs.
CLINICAL CONSULTATION OR SUPERVISION FOR MENTAL HEALTH PROFESSIONALS
We also offer clinical consultation and supervision to practicing clinicians who want to enhance their practice and desire additional support. We incorporate play and creativity into our supervision work, emphasizing the self-reflective experience, in order to deepen the experience. Joanne utilizes the Reflective Supervision model when providing clinical supervision. Reflective Supervision consists of process work often using journalling and other forms of self-reflection. Barbara works from Bernard’s model and incorporates metaphor, play, particularly sand tray, and expressive approaches in order to enhance clinician development.
Please note that supervision is only offered to local clinicians or those who can provide access to their files as supervision has an evaluative component (including for entry to a professional body), and the supervisor is legally responsible for the clients. Consultation does not require access to the client files.
Both Barbara and Joanne have completed coursework and training in supervision that included live supervision of our supervision. Barbara has co-authored a chapter on Metaphoric Case Supervision published in the Canadian Counselling and Psychotherapy Association book Clinical Supervision of the Canadian Counselling and Psychotherapy Profession.
TRAINING
We also offer a range of trauma informed and play/creativity based workshops and training for a range of professional disciplines. For example, we offer training in neurobiology and trauma. We also offer Child Teacher Relationship Training and Child Parent Relationship Training. We can deliver training for individuals and for small groups. Contact us regarding your training needs and we would be pleased to discuss developing customized training to meet your needs.