Individual Therapy

Calgary Counselling Services

Why Get Counselling?

In life, nothing goes as planned – and that can send us into a tailspin. You might be struggling to overcome anxiety, stress, depression, trauma and behaviours that no longer serve you and affect your outlook on life.

During these times, having a grounded and welcoming environment can be helpful for you to talk and process your emotions and thoughts while developing positive skills and responses.

At Elevate Psychology, I offer individual counselling in Calgary. These one-on-one sessions allow us to explore your feelings and behaviours, help you better understand yourself and set personal goals to improve your overall mental health.

Who is Counselling For?

Specializing In...

ANXIETY

Do you feel nervous or have a sense of impending danger for future events? You might be experiencing anxiety, a common disorder that negatively impacts how people react to everyday situations. By delving into the origin of your anxiety, we can utilize therapies and techniques that help change your perception and cope with anxiety symptoms.

DEPRESSION

Not everyone has the same feelings or symptoms when depressed. Some experience persistent sadness and worthlessness; others suffer from restlessness and irritability. I’ll explore the experiences that contribute to your depression and set you up to overcome it with a customized approach.

TRAUMA

PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) is a condition that's triggered by a traumatic event, such as a life-or-death situation. By accepting and processing the event together, we can regain a sense of control over your life, reducing intense symptoms, such as nightmares, intrusive memories, avoidance and negative outlooks, that can last years.

Additional Areas of Expertise

My Methodology

Throughout my years as a Calgary psychologist, I’ve seen, helped and witnessed life-changing transformations. In all that time, one thing is clear: everyone has different pasts, comes from unique cultures and reacts differently to people, places and circumstances. It’s why my approach is based on the unique individual I’m working with.

We’ll establish a comfortable rapport so I can get to know you, your history and the challenges you’re facing. This will form the basis of our therapeutic framework, which delves into the origins of your issues and uses a combination of emotional processing, education, and behavioural modalities to encourage positive changes in your life.

Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy (CBT)

CBT helps you identify negative thoughts and behaviours while developing skills and techniques that challenge and replace them with more realistic thoughts.

Solution-Focused Therapy

Solution-Focused Therapy offers a different approach to treatment, focusing on solutions and future hopes instead of dealing with present or past traumas.

Prolonged Exposure Therapy (PE)

This highly-effective PTSD treatment will help you slowly approach your traumatic memories, feelings and situations, helping you reduce the fear of the trauma.

Dialectical Behavioural Therapy (DBT)

DBT is a modified version of CBT treatment with the primary aim of teaching you to develop healthy coping habits for stress, emotions and self-destructive behaviours.

Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT)

By combining cognitive behavioural and mindfulness practices, MBCT allows you to understand and manage your thoughts while controlling stressful symptoms.

Gottman-Based Marriage Therapy

The Gottman method is couples therapy that focuses on disarming verbal conflict and increasing intimacy and respect. It’s ideal for those with relationship concerns.

Mindfulness & Meditation

Calm breathing techniques are a powerful tool to help cope with anxiety, stress and depression. I’ll help you learn when and how to utilize these techniques.

Client-Centered Approach

This non-directive talk therapy lets you actively take control and become an equal partner in the therapy session while I guide you through it without interfering.

Narrative Therapy

This story-telling therapy will help you become an expert in your own life. The emphasis is to understand and find alternative points of view of your story.

What to Expect

Undergoing counselling services in Calgary can be exhausting, emotionally overwhelming and even physically challenging – which is why plenty of people are put off by it.

You don’t have to worry about that at Elevate Psychology.

I’ve created a warm, down-to-earth environment that accepts all adults, partners, parents and teens from various cultures, heritages and circumstances. By keeping things light and comfortable while remaining professional, I encourage my patients to open up, be themselves and guide them to the path of becoming the person they want to be.

Together, we’ll work to help you rise above and conquer life’s challenges.

How will I know what type of therapy will work for me?

While there are many different styles of therapy (also called interventions or modalities), most therapists are trained in several common ones, such as Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Mindfulness-Based Therapy, and Solution-Focused Therapy, to name a few. I believe the best way to approach this is to clearly state your goals and try different interventions!

Most of the time, you won’t know what style or intervention is being used during the session, as most therapists use a combination of different techniques and cater them to the client present in front of them.

In my opinion, it is far more important to reach the goals set out for therapy than to focus on completing protocols set out by different modalities.

How do I know if I need to come in for family, couples or individual sessions if I have relationship concerns?

Family and couples sessions are composed of multiple individuals. This may be a couple, a family consisting of parents and children, a group of siblings, one parent with a child, friends, or members of the same household.

Individual sessions are meant for one individual only. If you believe you could benefit from spending some time assessing and managing your own thoughts, emotions or behaviours, then individual therapy is for you.

If you would like to focus specifically on the dynamics of a relationship, then couples or family therapy might be a better fit. The focus of these sessions is exclusively on enhancing the relationship, whereas the focus of individual sessions is on the individual and whichever concerns they would like to address.

I feel nervous about coming in and talking about the difficulties I am facing or have faced in the past. What can I do about this?

Taking the step to initiate therapy requires a lot of courage. My speciality as an adult and teen psychologist is to try my best to ensure your comfort during our sessions. This includes taking breaks as needed, proceeding slowly when needed, and giving you plenty of time to collect your thoughts before moving on.

It is the therapist’s job to guide the session and stay focused on the goals at hand. I recommend ensuring you arrive a few minutes early to avoid the stress of traffic and parking (or log on earlier, if virtual), dressing in comfortable clothing, and giving yourself some cushion time after the session if you have other appointments. Water, tea, and coffee are always available at the office as refreshments.