I am a professional counsellor with a Master of Arts in Counselling degree and a Registered Nurse with specialty certification in Maternal-Infant-Child Healthcare. I have extensive experience working with families. I provide counselling services to individuals and couples ranging in age from teens to older adults.
I believe that counselling is a collaborative effort where you bring your pain, needs, desire for healing as well as your strengths, potentials, and resources for growth and I bring my knowledge, skills, and experience. The confidential and non-judgmental counselling relationship provides a way to work through problems, alleviates distress, improves healthy functioning, and helps make meaning of experiences.
In counselling you can address current challenges as well as long-standing issues. You can expect me to accept you the way you are, share your pain, help you set goals that you desire, provide insight into root causes of your issues, teach new ways of dealing with issues, and facilitate change in the way you think, feel, and act.
In addition to individual counselling, I am passionate about helping couples improve their emotional intimacy, sexual intimacy, communication and conflict resolution. I also specialize in serious issues related to infidelity and separation. For marriage counselling I use research by Dr. John Gottman and emotion-focused therapy for couples which has been validated by twenty years of research to be highly effective.
My special interest area in counselling is all issues related to childbearing ranging from infertility and pregnancy/child losses to postpartum stress, anxiety and depression as well as parenting issues. I believe the needs of parents and children are equally important.
In addition to my private counselling practice, I am a college instructor and a perinatal educator.
I have been married for twenty years to my husband Gary. We have a 19-year-old daughter and a 10-year-old son.
As a counsellor, nurse and educator, I help people change, heal, and grow.