Therapy starts with a story

“Stories are truer than the Truth,” goes a saying I once heard. Stories drive us, inspire us, and haunt us. Everyone has them, and everyone in therapy is working with at least one.

It’s a story you might not share with anyone anymore, about how you see the world since trauma turned your life upside down. You don’t share it because others think you’re exaggerating, or grow distant and withdraw.

It’s a story you might no longer share with your spouse, about how they make you feel, or how you’d like them to make you feel, because it gets denied, dismissed, or attacked. You feel gaslit, you’re tired of defending yourself, and you’re just wondering if you can keep going.

It’s a story that might feel fragmented, waiting to be finished. It might be stuck in the memory of your spouse or kid gazing lovingly at you, or how much you miss the career you lost. It’s as if your life has writer’s block for what happens next, and you’re struggling to make sense of the options.

It’s okay. This is the place for stories like these.

The single most important factor in therapy

Choosing a counsellor is a tricky problem. In my experience, it’s about answering the question, “With whom will I feel safe enough opening up to, emotionally?” It’s not like buying “the best” hairdryer or car, on which you can rely on statistics (which, even then, can be interpreted subjectively). With counselling, we’re talking about the experience of qualities like trust, compassion, and curiosity- things that are hard to quantify.

Despite therapy’s qualitative nature, I can boil down the success of therapy to a single factor on which every other factor is built: the alliance between the client and counsellor (often called the most significant predictor of therapeutic success). Because everyone has a unique personality, the rapport I develop with each client is unique. Still, I strive to treat each client with the same respect and curiosity, even if the content and energy of the sessions differ, and I employ the same strategy to “get on the same page” and collaborate with each client.

Have you ever experienced a conversation where you couldn’t get your point across, no matter how hard you tried? Or have you ever felt partially validated by someone, but held back a delicate detail that you feared might erase their validation? In moments like these, it can feel as if two points of view are competing to decide who’s right and who’s wrong. Often, such “competitions” arise when we discuss our most vulnerable experiences, when our emotional investment is at its greatest, and every detail is worth fighting for.

What’s needed in these moments is for someone to listen to you nonjudgmentally, ask considerate questions, and set aside their own views and assumptions so they can hear and appreciate your experience accurately. This approach is the North Star of how I work with all of my clients: the gentle, focused, and nonjudgmental exploration of the client’s point of view (including, where relevant, how they perceive the therapy I’m providing!). In other words, I’m actively holding space, helping to deepen the client’s understanding of their story and experience using the tools and strategies that I list further down the page.

Through this process, a couple of things happen:

You feel safe. Nothing happens without safety.
You can examine the meaning behind your issues and your attitude to them, without the static of someone else’s thoughts distracting you.

Why is meaning important? It’s crucial because meaning is the root of beliefs, and as the neuroscientist Sam Harris has said, beliefs are levers that enable or prevent actions. We always act in line with what we really believe.

Find the meaning, and you’ll find your true beliefs. Find your beliefs, and you can change your actions.

Change your actions, and you’ll change your life.

Therapy takes teamwork

My role

As I mentioned, a foundational part of my work is creating space for my clients and helping them expand their understanding of their story. However, my job is more than that.

I also track the process and progress of therapy by regularly checking in to gather feedback from the client and by starting each session by referring to the previous one. Treating therapy as “one continuous session” this way adds focus and momentum to the process, helping clients get to their goals sooner.

Your role

Clients play a role in therapy, too- firstly, by defining the goals of therapy. What do you want to talk about and get out of therapy? They bring their life experience and expertise; In my view, the client is the expert in their life. I can suggest tools and ideas, but only the client knows how my input will fit into their unique situation. Finally, the client makes changes in their life aligned with meeting their goals.

Therapy’s evolution

When working with me, each session builds off of the last, but no session is the same. That’s because with enough focus and momentum, the process gets stronger, more hopeful, and more exciting, while being unique to each person.

Someone once described the therapy process as like a river, in that it flows over and smooths the stones and other obstacles in its way, adapting to reach its destination. In the same way, the therapeutic conversation flows over, explores, and navigates the obstacles the client discusses in their life.

Through this process, three distinct therapy stages emerge.

First Stage: Over the first couple of sessions, we’ll thoroughly explore your situation with a systematic assessment. We might work on concrete changes you can make and practice immediately in your life, particularly for clients experiencing a high degree of stress. Some clients who need help with a specific problem find that finishing this stage is sufficient.
Second Stage: Once the assessment is complete and we have managed acutely stressful situations, we’ll clarify your deeper values and vision for your life and develop a plan to bring them to fruition. The second stage focuses on life’s bigger picture and more complex content than in the first stage, but it’s no less vital to clients who need it.
Third Stage: At this point, often after ten or more sessions, we’re focusing on what I call the deeper work of therapy. We’re talking about unpacking lingering childhood scars and about the ongoing struggles of living with trauma, treatment-resistant depression, etc. Some wounds require an indefinite amount of time to heal or ongoing support, a fact of life which this stage of therapy honours.

The ingredients of counselling

There might be more aspects I could mention, but on a technical level, I see three components interacting simultaneously in therapy. Between them is where the magic of therapy happens.

The therapeutic alliance. Research has consistently shown that the rapport between client and counsellor is the most critical factor in predicting therapeutic outcomes. Ultimately, you and I are human beings, and to work well together, we need to build a strong rapport. That’s why building and improving it is my most crucial job.
The client’s life. It often amazes me how much change can happen in a client’s life between one session and the next, whether the client planned it or not. Regardless, therapy must adapt to the changes to stay practical and relevant to the client’s goals.
My skills and experience. I employ two therapeutic styles and three primary therapeutic theories, mixing and matching them to suit each client’s individual needs, personality, and preferences. While there are key differences that distinguish them, all of them serve the principal goal of empowering the client to support change in their life. Please click on the boxes below to learn more!

Therapeutic Styles

Counselling

Counselling, specifically, is focused on exploring the client's inner world, and less on their external world (their external world may be satisfactory, or not). A key word to describe the aim of counselling is "understanding." Please click the box to learn how I practice counselling with clients!

Coaching

Coaching is focused on the client's extermal world, and assumes their inner world is already understood, or less important to the issue they want to focus on in therapy. Coaching's keyword is "solutions." Please click the box to learn how I practice coaching with clients!

Counselling Theories

Are you ready to explore working together?

Click the "Book Here" button below to schedule a complimentary 20-minute consultation, during which we can discuss how my flexible, conversational approach to therapy can be tailored to help you meet your specific goals.