Counselling Services

“Healing doesn't mean the damage never existed. It means the damage no longer controls your life" — Akshay Dubey 

Counselling can be a powerful way to discuss, reframe, and develop new skills to handle everyday life stressors to processing large lived experiences. Counselling sessions are dedicated to offering participants a safe, confidential space to be themselves, opportunities to learn more about themselves and the resources they have within. Counselling sessions are informed by:

Dialectical Behavioural Therapy - DBT was created and tested by Dr. Marsha

Linehan (A.L. Miller, American Psychotherapy Journal, pg 9), in 1991 to

specifically support people who have extreme emotional dysregulation and

maladaptive behaviours. DBT has since been used in a variety of settings

including educational, social developmental, long-term care, and forensics. Many

of the interventions are practical, intuitive, and work to support people in

developing critical skills to maintain wellness. These skills include mindfulness,

distress tolerance, emotional regulation, interpersonal effectiveness, and dialectics

(D. Spiegel, S. Makary, L. Bonavitcola, 2020).

Humanistic Music Therapy stems from Humanistic Psychology principles. A

large contributor to the approach was Carl Rogers (1902-1987) who established

concepts regarding the therapeutic relationship and the therapeutic setting. These

principles ask that the therapeutic environment remain empathetic in that the

client’s life experiences are honoured, and that the therapist regard the individual

with unconditional positive regard and transparency. Within a Humanistic lens,

music serves as a medium in which individuals can freely express themselves and

explore their innate creative capabilities. Music also serves as a way for the music

therapist and client to relate and “to work together . . . in the interest of addressing

therapy goals.” (B. Abrams, 2015, pg. 152).

Trauma Informed Care indicates that services are informed by having a deep understanding of how trauma impacts the nervous system, everyday living, relationships and interactions within social environments. Sessions are offered using a 3 phase model where each phase is defined as :

Phase 1 - Opportunities to learn how to regulate their nervous system and deepen awareness of how past lived experiences are impacting every day living. Plenty of time and space is utilized to ensure readiness to further explore lived experiences (musically or non musically).

Phase 2 - More opportunities to apply the skills learnt to further process the lived experiences and to apply these skills with everyday stressors.

Phase 3 - In this phase continued coping strategies and opportunities for self expression are provided while preparations are made for closure of the therapeutic relationship.