Individual counselling is probably the most common type of therapy type and it is just as it sounds, you meet one on one with the counsellor. There can be many different challenges that prompt counselling support. Whatever the goal or reason for the counselling, individual counselling is a safe and supportive environment to explore challenges, difficult experiences and find collaborative solutions. Individual counselling is different from speaking to a friend. Counsellors are trained to be objective, to help you heal from past trauma and painful experiences, as well being bound by professional ethics including confidentiality. Anyone can benefit from counselling and you don’t need to be in a grave crisis to seek support. Often, the sooner you address difficulties, the sooner you will find resolution.
Group counselling is a type of therapy where multiple people with similar challenges (e.g. anxiety, depression) meet with a counsellor to navigate this challenge. The therapist leads the session and helps create a safe and supportive environment, and the group participants also contribute and learn from each other. The opportunity to learn from and with other people with similar struggles can be an incredibly rich learning experience and help with the isolation that often goes along with mental health challenges.
The Creating Calm program was developed by Meg Kapil to help individual understand and explore the nature of stress and anxiety along with helpful information about how your brain and body respond to and contribute to anxiety. Individuals will be supported to develop their own person toolkit to regulate their responses to stress and anxiety that will help them be healthy long after the group is complete.
The Creating Calm groups for school age children also includes parents and recognizes that we all live in a particular system. Being healthy needs to include the whole system for optimal success. Parents will be able to understand stress and anxiety and learn regulation skills for themselves as well as being able to support their children.
The Creating Calm group has been offered at the Foundry Victoria and at a School District 61 Elementary School.
If you have encountered traumatic experiences in your life, this can impact you long after the incident or incidences are over. Traumatic events are recorded very differently in your brain which results in physical and emotional responses to a trigger. Common responses to a trigger include fight, flight, or freeze and can be very overwhelming and leave a person feeling chaotic and unsafe both physically and in relationships. Individuals with past trauma often are hypervigilant, on constant alert for danger, even when there is none. This can impact you personally, socially, at work, and in relationships. Goals of trauma therapy include:
· Understanding the impact of trauma on your mind, body, and relationships
· Developing practices and strategies to regulate hyperarousal and the capacity to feel calm and safe
· Address coping practices that are problematic or maladaptive (e.g. self-harm, substance use, risky behaviour)
· Addressing the traumatic experience without getting overwhelmed by it
· To be able to live fully in the present and cultivate hopes for the future
· To improve quality of life and daily functioning
. To live intentionally and cultivate healthy relationships
EMDR is an evidence-based therapeutic protocol that stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. In EMDR the therapist assists the client to hold a distressing memory in mind along with associated emotions and a negative cognition. Bilateral stimulation such as eye moments are used to decrease how vivid and distressing the memory is. This process allows the client to process these memories that have previously been distressing and have kept the person stuck, dysregulated, and distressed.
What is consultation and supervision?
Counselling consultation and supervision is a collaborative process that serves several purposes, including the evaluation and exploration of skills and knowledge, the promotion the consultee’s professional identity and competency, and exploration of case conceptualization and counselling theory. Consultation is distinct from supervision. In supervision, the supervisor is responsible for the welfare of the supervisee’s clients. In consultation, the consultant is not responsible for the welfare of the consultee’s clients.
Who am I? What are my qualifications as a supervisor and consultant?
I hold a Master of Arts in Counselling Psychology from the University of Victoria and am currently a PhD candidate in Educational Psychology at the University of Victoria. I have been a Canadian Certified Counsellor (CCC) with the Canadian Counselling and Psychotherapy Association (CCPA) since 2009 (#9322) and a CCC-S (supervisor designation) with CCPA since 2018 as well as a Registered Clinical Counsellor (RCC) with the British Columbia Association of Clinical Counsellors (#15902) since 2018.
I have provided clinical supervision for graduate students in their pre-practicum and practicum experiences. I have completed two graduate courses in clinical supervision, attended supervision workshops, and have been the TA for ED 5850 Counselling Supervision: Theory and Practice (CCPA and University of Lethbridge) on three occasions. I have also co-facilitated a supervision workshop with Dr. Blythe Shephard for CCPA and facilitated supervision workshops for the University of Victoria Counselling Psychology program.
Working together…
Working together necessitates that we both uphold the code of ethics and standards of practice of our profession (e.g., CCPA). I maintain professional liability insurance, and request that you do the same.
My approach to supervision and consultationincludes a variety of roles that I might take on during our meetings, depending on your needs. These may include the role of teacher, coach, consultant, evaluator and/or facilitator of growth. I believe that supervision should provide a combination of support and challenge in order to help you in improving your counselling skills, case conceptualization skills, and personal and professional growth. This means that at the foundation of our work, there needs to be a trusting and respectful relationship between us, so that we may address areas of strength as well as areas requiring development and refinement. Working from a developmental perspective, our work together will involve identifying and building on what you are doing well, and offers of constructive feedback on how you can strengthen and advance your skills as a counsellor. I welcome and encourage your feedback to me about our work together and any ‘blind-spots’ you feel might be impacting our work, this is truly a collaborative process.
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