As an attachment informed therapist I have acquired extensive training in Emotionally- Focussed Couples Therapy (EFT), and completed Core Skills training in EFT and have been practicing this approach for many years. This training is certified by the Centre for Excellence in Emotionally Focussed Therapy, founded by Dr. Susan Johnson. As needed, I incorporate this approach to assist you to drop more deeply into experiences that are vulnerable with the attuned support of your partner.

As a PACT therapist I believe that cultivating a secure relationship is one of the hardest and most rewarding ventures we embark on as human beings. This coincides with the viewpoint that we are biologically wired to pursue emotional safety in our relationships but often times our early experiences are not marked by the security of emotionally available caregivers. There is a wide range of early childhood attachment experience and each range of experience has a corresponding impact on the attachment styles we develop to protect ourselves emotionally. Some people are impacted in a lesser degree by the lack of consistent emotional availability from caregivers while others experience more severe forms of emotional neglect and/or abuse. My trauma informed abilities as a therapist allows me to help you understand how your respective early attachment experiences have you responding to one another in ways that interfere with your mutual desire for greater ease, comfort, intimacy and connection as a couple.

I have great compassion for your suffering and I’m highly motivated to help you reach the ultimate goal of having an emotionally secure relationship in which you can relax and no your partner has your back. I do this by helping you stay actively engaged and attentive to your inner experience and that of your partner in real time as you respond to one another. I will help you identify how emotionally safe you and your partner are feeling in any given moment and generally in your relationship and through experiential moment-to-moment interventions with your partner help you learn how to shift your understanding of your respective responses so that you can discover ways you and your partner can respond supportively to one another instead. I will encourage you through repetition to stay committed to this work so that you can begin the work of rewiring your brains towards effective communication that is conducive to having a secure attachment with your partner.

I believe that cultivating a secure relationship is one of the hardest and most rewarding ventures we embark on as human beings. Getting you there means that I have expectations from you regarding your participation in our sessions. Sometimes you may be activated as a couple in our sessions. I am skilled as a trauma therapist in helping you both slow down the process in order to help one another feel safer in one another’s care. You can count on my genuine regard and respect for each of you equally throughout this process.

With your active participation my trauma informed, PACT approach allows you to identify and understand your unique wired-in individual defences as attempts to survive what your brain and nervous system detects and response to as a threat during painful interactions with your partner. If couples are not sufficiently aware of and prepared for the activating experience of respective and protective defenses, a couple is very vulnerable to the escalating reactions that can be so painful, stressful and perpetually cause couples to feel resentful and hopeless. My job is to assist you to understand one another deeply and what you as a team will need to work on in order to truly make one another feel as if you are in each other’s care and have one another’s backs. This will involve learning how to negotiate mutually beneficial agreements that you can commit to, to repair experiences of minor or more chronic periods of disconnection, betrayal and infidelity, or simply to learn how to deepen an already mostly secure, loving and supportive connection. A PACT therapist offers you the opportunity to find a roadmap towards effectively collaborating as a team in the creation of a truly emotionally secure relationship.

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Finding meaning and direction

I’ve worked successfully with many people who have experienced psycho-social and emotional blocks to creating the life they want for themselves. I work together with my clients to discover these blocks, their origins, and ways of resolving and healing them.

When you don’t see the light at the end of the tunnel …

For many people intense feelings of sadness, fear/anxiety, worthlessness and helplessness can be an ongoing struggle in their daily lives. I will honour your efforts to protect yourself from harsh situations and help you determine which ways of coping are currently working for or against you and introduce you to new strategies and practises for coping. Together we will explore your strengths, enhance your ability to utilize them, and build on them. This creates new ways of seeing, feeling, and being that can help you manage and begin to heal your emotional pain. I am able to help with any of the following:

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