Faq

Therapy Approaches:
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT): CBT is widely recognized as the gold standard treatment for a wide number of challenges with mood, anxiety and behavioural challenges. CBT involves helping clients identify unhelpful thoughts that trigger distressing emotions and lead to unwanted behaviours. Clients are provided with strategies to change their unhelpful thoughts which typically results in reduced distress and positive behaviour change. CBT approaches have been adapted for use across the lifespan from early childhood to older adulthood.


Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT): ACT is a newer form of CBT that has been shown in numerous scientific studies to improve psychological wellbeing. ACT helps us improve our ‘psychological flexibility.’ In other words, this mode of therapy helps us learn to be more flexible in how we respond to difficult emotions, thoughts or situations. ACT incorporates mindfulness skills to help train ourselves to better stay in the ‘here and now’ versus being overtaken by powerful emotions and urges that often leads us to behave in unwanted ways. ACT has shown good success in improving psychological wellbeing for a variety of situations including parenting challenges, mood and anxiety, addiction, and adjustment to health issues/illness.


Parent Coaching: Parent coaching involves teaching parents specific strategies to respond to challenging behaviour their child exhibits. Typical examples of situations that can benefit from parent training include:
Child has difficulty going to bed on time
Child displays oppositional or defiant behaviours (disrespect towards parent, siblings or other adults, not listening, being aggressive)
Child has difficulty initiating or focusing on tasks
Child has difficulty stopping a pleasurable activity (e.g., playing videogames, watching tablet)
Child has difficulty separating from a parent and being independent
Child constantly requires reassurance and support from parent(s)


Parents are provided with education to understand why their child may be behaving this way. Parents are provided with skills to understand best practices for implementing parental responses for specific behaviours. Individual behaviour plans will be developed for each situation and parents will be taught skills to address their specific challenge with their child. Therapists work closely with parents and the child to implement the behaviour plan and may also work with the school/teacher and other contexts where child spends time (e.g., daycare), so important people in the child’s life can all be consistent in how they respond to child behaviours.


Exposure Therapies: Exposure therapies help individuals begin to gradually face feared or stressful situations that they have been avoiding. Examples of typical feared or stressful situations include public speaking, avoidance of social situations (e.g., speaking in front of others or being the center of attention), treatment of specific phobias such as fear of animals or flying, fears of eating specific foods or consequences of eating specific foods along with other specific feared situations. Exposure therapy is used for many forms of anxiety along with OCD. Treatment involves closely working with your therapist to learn skills so clients are gradually able to overcome their fear.


Mindfulness Based Approaches: Mindfulness involves paying attention to the present moment, on purpose. Recognizing that some of us can be very hard on ourselves, mindfulness also focuses on helping people respond with more compassion and kindness to themselves and others. Mindfulness meditation has been evaluated in many studies for treatment of mood, anxiety, attention issues, grief, coping with health issues and parenting distress and has shown good evidence for improvement in psychological wellbeing. Mindfulness is a practice – your therapist will introduce you to mindfulness skills and practices in session. As with any skill, the benefits of mindfulness meditation come from practicing the skills as much as possible during your day and week.


Family Therapy: Family therapy can involve the entire family or sometimes only part of the family. The goal of family therapy is to help everyone in the family understand and support each other. This type of therapy can help when families are feeling overwhelmed, sad and angry; when they’re unsure how to move forward; or when they feel that they are repeating the same harmful behaviours over and over.


Therapy may last only a few sessions, or it may take more time for some families. If a family therapist thinks it will be helpful, they may meet with family members individually, as well as in a group.


Group Therapy: Group therapy can take place in several forms. Some groups provide support for people going through a similar situation (e.g., divorce, a mental health issue, a stressful life circumstance). Other groups provide skills participants learn together to improve a certain issue (e.g. anxiety, depression, adjustment to a life situation). Groups provide a different experience than individual therapy because group members not only learn helpful skills from each other, but often feel less alone when recognizing that other people experience similar issues. Central values that group facilitators discuss with all groups include privacy (all information discussed is confidential) and non-judgment (groups are a safe space). Please contact our clinic for current group therapy offerings.


Individual Therapy – Individual therapy is provided using approaches that have the best evidence to improve psychological wellbeing. Our therapists have a range of expertise across the following specialty areas:

• Mood Issues
• Anxiety including social anxiety, generalized worry, phobias, separation anxiety, panic, OCD and post traumatic stress
• Anger management
• Conflict Resolution
• Addiction
• Adjustment to Health Conditions
• Chronic Pain
• Disordered Eating
• Life Stress
• ADHD
• Behavioural challenges
• Procrastination
• Grief
• Adjustment to life circumstances
• Selective Mutism (excessive shyness)
• Trichotolomania (hair pulling)