Q+A

Frequently Asked Questions, or Answers I'd Like to Share...

HOW OFTEN SHOULD I COME TO THERAPY?

That is partially dependent on you. I know there are a lot of factors that contribute to how often someone can come, including scheduling and finances. And everyone is different in terms of how often feels manageable for them. I would recommend coming no less than once per month, and even better is weekly or bi-weekly if that can work for you. Spacing sessions out too much can reduce the flow of the work. Ultimately, it needs to be sustainable and effective for you. We can also talk about how often would be best for your specific work.

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DO YOU OFFER SLIDING SCALE?

Yes! I currently offer sliding scale rates for folks working the front line of the opioid or housing crises in Canada.

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HOW DO I KNOW IF MY THERAPIST IS A FIT, OR THAT THERAPY IS WORKING?

Let’s be honest, not all therapy is good. And different kinds and different therapists fit for different people at different times. In my view...

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Good therapy should not:

• Be just venting. You can do that with friends for free, and it doesn’t help to change anything even when it feels good for a little while.

• Be a lecture. If a therapist is “teaching” you by talking at you a lot, relevant or not, they’re taking up too much space and facts don’t make therapy great. There's space for education in therapy but you shouldn't feel lectured at.

• Be only validation. Validation alone doesn't lead to change. Just like venting, it can feel good initially. And it is an important part of emotional support. But you should be challenged beyond this for change to happen. Which is why...

Good therapy should:

• Challenge you. If all that happens is you’re validated into anger at the world, what good is that? (“Ya, she was in the wrong! Ya that is unfair! Ya, he does sound aggressive!”). While this can be a useful step, good therapy should foster your own accountability (not for terrible things that have happened to you or inequality in the world, but for your own wellness) and build radical acceptance so you can learn how to be well in your world.

• Connect with your body. Skills and different ways of thinking are a great starting point, but they can leave a lot of people feeling like “now what?!” And they can feel like so much effort. Embodied work can deeply change challenges and old patterns so you don’t have to work so hard against them.

• Lead to change. A better understanding of what you've been through or what you're experiencing is helpful, but just awareness of your challenges doesn't necessarily make you feel any better. Good therapy should foster beyond the understanding to actual healing and change. If you stop and notice, over time you should realize you're responding to certain people or situations differently, that you can feel your emotions more readily, or that you just feel a bit better, even when the better-ness is hard to define or explain.

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WHAT IS AEDP?

Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy (AEDP) is a type of therapy that blends attachment, emotion regulation, somatic therapy, and trauma therapy. It is an "experiential" therapy, meaning it involves experiencing your emotions and felt sensations, not just talking about them. It is also a relational therapy, meaning our relationship in therapy is part of the therapy and important for "undoing the aloneness" of trauma, negative self beliefs, or the emotional loneliness that can come from painful experiences or attachment wounds.

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AEDP is a type of therapy that Dr Hillary McBride uses, and you can hear it in action in a therapy session and learn more about it in her incredible podcast Other People's Problems.

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You can also learn more about AEDP at aedpinstitute.org/about-aedp-psychotherapy/​

WHAT IS EMDR?

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is a type of therapy that uses eye movements to stimulate the brain to process old memories, emotions, and thoughts so they're stored in more helpful ways, instead of the unhelpful ways we sometimes store negative experiences.

For example, when someone experiences a trauma in childhood, their brain may understand it as "something bad happened to me, therefore I deserved it and am bad." With EMDR, we can "reprocess" the memory of the trauma so it's stored in the brain as "something bad happened to me, it wasn't my fault and I am good."

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This is just an example from the many ways EMDR can be applied. And it can be hard to explain and understand with words because it is such an experiential approach. If you think a negative experience or trauma from your past may be continuing to affect you in unhelpful or distressing ways today, it may be a useful approach for you.

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You can learn more about EMDR at emdria.org/about-emdr-therapy/​

Have another question? Connect with me.