Trauma Informed Therapy

Therapy is offered in-person (Peterborough & Warkworth) or online.

I strive to provide therapy within an anti-oppression framework that validates and engages each individual’s intersecting identities, as well as systems of power, and how these influence their experiences. This centres on the understanding that I am a descendent of white settlers living on land that was taken from Indigenous peoples. I do my hardest not to pathologize my clients and what they are experiencing.

My approach is informed by research related to the effects of trauma on the brain, nervous system, and body. I recognize that traumatic experiences influence our internal experiencing, and this often gets labelled as anxiety, depression, or personality/mood/emotional problems. Trauma may include acute events of violence, physical, sexual, or emotional abuse. Trauma may also be prolonged experiences of attachment ruptures, neglect, grief, drastic change, relocation, or systemic forms of violence and oppression related to gender, sexual, racial, or cultural identity. These experiences influence our internal narratives about ourselves and others, the ways we cope and navigate relationships, and how we attempt keep ourselves physically, relationally, and psychologically safe.

I practice therapy that is client centred, primarily drawing from relational, internal family systems, emotion-focused, mindfulness, somatic, and EMDR approaches. Therapy is based on the client’s individual needs, and may include but is not limited to increasing emotion regulation, calming the nervous system, developing a deeper understanding of your inner experience, establishing new physical and emotional boundaries in relationships, and processing rather than re-experiencing trauma memories and sensations that can accompany them.

EMDR

Relationship Therapy

One of the treatments I offer is EMDR therapy. Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) is a structured therapy process that supports the client to briefly focus on the trauma memory while also experiencing bilateral stimulation (typically eye movements, or physical tapping), which is associated with a reduction in the vividness and emotion associated with the trauma memories. You can find more information about the EMDR process here: https://www.emdria.org/about-emdr-therapy/

In working with partner’s I try to provide therapy that support’s each person to better understand themselves, one another, and then their relationship. Relational theories suggest that we develop ways of navigating relationships relatively early on in life, and have a tendency to replicate these same ways of being in relationship, potentially projecting our unfinished business onto our most intimate partner’s, with conflict that may seem to never properly resolve itself. My hope is to help my client’s understand these patterns, both within themselves and between one another, to help them have more agency in changing them to better establish connection and closeness.

In working with partners it is the relationship that is the client. While I only work with 2 people in relationship therapy, the context does not have to be a romantic or monogamous relationship. I have supported people in polyamorous relationships, as well as through relationship transitions or de-coupling.

In relationship therapy I draw on relational, Gottman method, internal family systems, and emotion focused approaches.

Fees

Individuals:

  • Initial Intake Assessment - 80 minutes - $170

  • Therapy Session - 50 minutes - $170

Couples:

  • Initial Intake Assessment- 80 minutes - $215

  • Therapy Sessions - 50 minutes - $215

All prices have the tax included.

I offer limited availability sessions at a reduced fee on a sliding scale ($100-$170) for individuals who may not be able to afford the full fee, based on socioeconomic circumstances and barriers to financing.

Please contact me for further details regarding pricing, scheduling, or to arrange a free consultation.