Therapy
in the deep, sometimes secret places of your being there lives a desire for healing and restoration that starts with a longing to be seen, listened to, and deeply understood.
A gentle, sometimes urgent restlessness can awaken you. When you stop to listen, you hear a small but persistent voice that urges you towards healing. This voice invites you into exploring what may keep you from love, belonging and satisfying relationships. It dares to hope for fuller joy and well-being. It can sometimes be difficult to trust this voice and yet something in you knows it is rooted in a deep wisdom.
Up until this point, you’ve done the best you can, often surviving some of life’s deepest sorrows and harshest realities. We all have a story. If there are any guarantees in life, it’s that there will be suffering and at times, we will struggle.
Through it all, you have been strong, resilient and adaptive and yet there is a sense that there is more. It is not uncommon to need to return to wounded places that feel old and new all at once. Painful experiences in your current life can often stir up familiar echoes, that resound against the tender places of yesteryear.
Individual therapy is one of the ways to respond to that restless cry. I will listen and be attuned to your search for healing. As a psychotherapist, I strive to create a therapeutic relationship with empathy, genuine presence and steadfastness to promote trust and safety. I work collaboratively with you to process the pain you carry, to hold the chapters of your story with you. This in turn can lead to healing a multitude of hurts. Feeling seen, heard and deeply understood can feel incredibly vulnerable and yet can be the very thing you’ve been hoping for all along.
I work from a client-centred perspective that promotes inclusivity through a cultural humility lens that embraces an anti-racist, anti-oppressive, LGBTQ positive perspective. I value the tenets of harm reduction and the promotion of healthy sexuality that respect an individual’s right to choose what is right for them and honour who they are truly. As a trauma-informed psychotherapist, I work from an attachment lens that recognizes the impact of traumatic injuries on our whole being and all the adaptive ways we have developed to cope and survive. Finally, I honour you as the expert of your own life, story, and experiences.
relational psychotherapy
our deepest wounds occur within relationship, and it is often only in relationship that we heal.
Relational Psychotherapy is based on several, multi-dimensional principles and recognizes the following:
We are wired for relationship. As infants we need our parents/guardians and community to survive. When this has been hurt in any way, it can cause an echo through all of our relationships. Relational psychotherapy places much value in examining relational patterns that have emerged in our families of origin that are often later repeated in our peer and intimate relationships and partnerships.
In our current lives, experiencing any kind of discord in relationships with others can cause distress, depression, and sometimes despair. These struggles can evoke feelings of low self-worth, frustration, loneliness, or being misunderstood in relationships with partners, coworkers, parents and children.
The relationship we build together is integral to the work. I strive to build a place where you feel deeply understood and accepted. I approach you with openness, understanding and empathy. I work towards building trust that you may feel safe to share your story and experiences with me.
And finally, the relationship that we build together can be in and of itself healing. The experience of being with someone who values who you are can foster growth and a new sense of well-being that often transcends from the therapeutic space into our relationships with self, with others and into the world.
For more information on relational psychotherapy, please visit http://www.tirp.ca/therapy.html