Adults
Therapy is a relationship between you and the psychologist. We make a contract to work together to facilitate a desired change in your life. We help you make decisions and changes by offering feedback, new ideas, and identifying patterns in your life. We may also challenge you to think about and experience things differently and to try new ways of acting and coping.
Our approach is integrative – this means that we are familiar with a number of approaches and try to tailor the approaches and techniques to you and your specific circumstances.
Therapy allows you to gain a fresh perspective on a difficult problem to direct you towards a solution.
The potential benefits of therapy to you include improving your mood; developing skills for healthier relationships; improving your coping skills, and developing a better understanding of yourself.
Children
It can be heartbreaking to watch your son or daughter struggle with emotional, behavioural, or relationship problems that make it difficult for them to experience their world to the fullest. As a parent, your support is essential for the continued development of their coping skills, but your ability to help may be complicated by various factors in your lives. When a child or adolescent shows increased sadness, irritability, or anxiety and withdraws from friends and family, therapy may help improve your child’s sense of well-being.
We place a strong emphasis on developing a positive relationship with your son or daughter, so that he or she feels safe, comfortable, and understood. The treatment itself may take different forms depending on your child’s stage in development; however, the aim is always to help them develop a greater understanding of how their thoughts and feelings impact their lives. From there, progress is reviewed regularly to assess growth and determine next steps.
Therapy begins with a meeting to discuss presenting concerns and formulate a plan to work toward a desired change.
Regular parent meetings provide an opportunity to extend themes discussed in therapy to the home environment, and can lead to improved communication patterns, more effective discipline, and a greater understanding of your child’s emotional and behavioural functioning.
Parent Consultation
When a young person is in distress it is typically a family problem. Whether factors within the family are impacting on the child – or conversely, the child’s difficulties are impacting on the family – everyone is affected in some way. Parent involvement in therapy is vital for facilitating change in both the child and family as a whole.
Parent consultations can be either semi-regular to allow themes to be extended to the home environment, or you may wish to schedule individual sessions regarding your child’s behaviour or mental health. These consultations may be more psychoeducational in nature, centering on child development, parenting practices, or other specific issues.
In either case, during parent consultations we work together to understand your child’s experiences more thoroughly, to help foster more adaptive coping.