Modalities
Rooted in research, shaped by experience,
and tailored to you.
Over the years, I’ve come to understand that healing looks different for everyone. That’s why I draw from a range of evidence-based, trauma-informed, and culturally responsive approaches to support each client’s unique path.
Whether you’re processing trauma, navigating relationships, managing stress, or exploring identity, these modalities offer flexible and meaningful ways to meet you where you are.
The approaches below reflect not just my formal training, but also years of experience walking alongside individuals and families—especially those facing systemic barriers—as they move toward healing, resilience, and deeper self-understanding.
Cognative Behaviourial
Cognitive-behavioural therapy stresses the role of thinking in how we feel and what we do.
It is based on the belief that thoughts, rather than people or events, cause our negative feelings. The therapist assists the client in identifying, testing the reality of, and correcting dysfunctional beliefs underlying his or her thinking. The therapist then helps the client modify those thoughts and the behaviours that flow from them. CBT is a structured collaboration between therapist and client and often calls for homework assignments.
CBT has been clinically proven to help clients in a relatively short amount of time with a wide range of disorders, including depression and anxiety.
Emotionally Focused
Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) is an approach to therapy that helps clients identify their emotions, learn to explore and experience them, to understand them and then to manage them.
Emotionally Focused Therapy embraces the idea that emotions can be changed, first by arriving at or ‘living’ the maladaptive emotion (e.g. loss, fear or shame) in session, and then learning to transform it.
Emotionally Focused Therapy for couples seeks to break the negative emotion cycles within relationships, emphasising the importance of the attachment bond between couples, and how nurturing of the attachment bonds and an empathetic understanding of each others emotions can break the cycles.
Internal Family Systems
Internal Family Systems (IFS) is an approach to psychotherapy that identifies and addresses multiple sub-personalities or families within each person’s mental system.
These sub-personalities consist of wounded parts and painful emotions such as anger and shame, and parts that try to control and protect the person from the pain of the wounded parts. The sub-personalities are often in conflict with each other and with one’s core Self, a concept that describes the confident, compassionate, whole person that is at the core of every individual.
IFS focuses on healing the wounded parts and restoring mental balance and harmony by changing the dynamics that create discord among the sub-personalities and the Self.
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing)is an information processing therapy that helps clients cope with trauma, addictions, and phobias.
During this treatment, the patient focuses on a specific thought, image, emotion, or sensation while simultaneously watching the therapist’s finger or baton move in front of his or her eyes.
The client is told to recognize what comes up for him/her when thinking of an image; then the client is told to let it go while doing bilateral stimulation.
It’s like being on a train; an emotion or a thought may come up and the client lets it pass as though they were looking out the window of the moving train.
Culturally Sensitive
Culturally sensitive therapists provide therapy that acknowledges, respects, and integrates the diverse cultural identities of the individuals and families they support. This approach goes beyond surface-level awareness and involves a deeper understanding of how culture shapes a person’s worldview, communication style, and experience of mental health and healing.
These therapists recognize that people from different backgrounds hold unique values, beliefs, and traditions. They are mindful of these differences and actively work to create a safe, inclusive, and affirming therapeutic space. Cultural sensitivity involves humility, ongoing self-reflection, and a commitment to adapting therapeutic approaches to best serve each client’s lived reality.
Motivational Interviewing
Motivational Interviewing (MI) is a collaborative, goal-oriented method of therapy that works to engage a client’s own motivation and commitment to change. It is particularly effective for individuals who feel stuck in ambivalence—wanting to change but feeling unsure or resistant at the same time. Through guided conversation, clients are encouraged to explore and confront these mixed feelings in a supportive, nonjudgmental space.
Rather than taking a directive or confrontational approach, therapists use strategies such as reflective listening, affirmations, and open-ended questions to help clients discover their internal reasons for change. The focus is on evoking personal values and goals that align with healthier behavior. Motivational Interviewing is commonly used in cases of problem drinking, substance use, or mild addictions, but its principles are also applicable in addressing a range of behavioral challenges, including health habits, procrastination, and treatment engagement.
Clinical Supervision and Qualified Supervisors
Supervision services are provided by experienced practitioners who offer guidance, clinical insight, and mentorship to less-experienced professionals. These sessions help supervisees refine their therapeutic skills, navigate ethical considerations, and build confidence in their clinical work.
While each licensing body has specific supervision requirements, the purpose is consistent: to ensure safe, competent care and support professional development. Supervision also offers a reflective space to process challenging cases, explore personal growth, and meet the standards necessary for independent licensure.
More than a regulatory step, supervision is a collaborative process that fosters accountability, self-awareness, and excellence in practice.
Narrative Therapy
Narrative Therapy uses the client’s storytelling to indicate the way they construct meaning in their lives, rather than focusing on how they communicate their problem behaviors.
Narrative Therapy embraces the idea that stories actually shape our behaviors and our lives and that we become the stories we tell about ourselves.
There are helpful narratives we can choose to embrace as well as unhelpful ones. Although it may sound obvious, the power of storytelling is to elevate the client–who is the authority of their narrative–rather than the therapist, as expert.
