Why Choose Therapy?
If your daughter is struggling with mental health challenges or lingering emotional difficulties, therapy could offer valuable support. Our counselling team specializes in addressing issues such as anxiety, depression, trauma, disordered eating behaviors, and other mental health concerns. Rest assured, our therapists are dedicated professionals with extensive training in psychology, counselling, or social work, ensuring your daughter receives expert support and guidance.
In-Person Counselling
In person counselling happens in the community of Douglasdale located in southeast Calgary with your counsellor. Thrive’s office share Business Centre offers private spaces for your counselling sessions. A warm & inviting reception area welcomes you and during business hours, you will be greeted by a friendly receptionist who can offer you water, tea, or coffee. The Douglasdale location is inviting and accessible, with parking and public transit nearby. Thrive is near Deerfoot and Barlow Trail, with access to restaurants and other businesses close by if you need to run an errand while your family member attends counselling.
The expressive arts are for people of all ages.
It is a way of exploring thoughts, feelings, and experiences using curiosity and creativity.
This way of exploring problems and challenges taps into different parts of our brain and can give us unique insights and understanding needed to foster change.
A session using expressive arts might include visual arts like painting, music, creative writing, creating with clay, or different movements. The expressive arts require no specific skill set in the arts, only an openness and curiosity to the experience.
Expressive Arts therapy can support people dealing with a wide range of issues, including family and relationship issues, anxiety, depression, social and emotional issues related to loss, trauma, and psychosocial difficulties
Check out some of these sources:
- Prairie Institute of Expressive Arts (PIEAT)
- International Expressive Arts Therapy Association (IEATA)
- Ontario Expressive Arts Therapy Association (OEATA)
Walk and Talk Therapy
Walking and exercise are known to release endorphins in our body that reduce stress. Endorphins, like serotonin, help with lifting our mood and others endorphins, like dopamine, released in consistent walking and exercise, are connected to our pleasure and reward centres.
Walking and talk counselling provides a unique opportunity to be parallel (side by side) with your counsellor, while moving your body. You get different sensory cues in what you see, hear, smell, and feel as the environment constantly changes. Walk and talk counselling has different choices available to you in terms of pace, distance, taking some time to sit, being still, and well,…. walking. The act of walking can be a literal and metaphorical moving forward or moving through a problem or challenge.
A few things to consider for walk and talk sessions:
- Walking sessions are weather dependent.
- The pace of the walk is slow to moderate. Finding the rhythm of your pace will be discovered with your counsellor in the first couple of times.
- Walking sessions will be mostly in Fish Creek park, with some availability in Carburn Park and Rylee Park
- Some clients may choose a safe and more quiet route near their school, work, or home.
- Walk and talk sessions will be held during the daytime, when sunlight is available.
- Walking sessions are 50 minutes in length with some flexibility available.
- Information about risks and benefits including privacy of information will be discussed prior to first session.
- Walking sessions are available for adult and teen clients.
On-line Therapy
Imagine yourself settled in your space, perhaps on your favourite sofa or in your favourite room. Maybe you have your pet nestled on your lap (if you like animals of course!) or perhaps wrapped in a cozy blanket. You access your email using your computer, tablet, or smartphone and click on your encrypted on-line session link. You are now connected to your counsellor via video or chat for your session and you begin immediately, no commute needed: in your space.
Sounds great but how do you know if it’s safe? What happens if there is a technology failure? How do you know you are getting the same quality of service? What if you prefer to meet your therapist face to face? These questions and others can be discussed with your counsellor beforehand.
On-line counselling is rapidly growing within our technologically savvy society. Some people prefer on-line options, others prefer face to face options. Some people will blend face to face and on-line options. It can be appropriate for children, teens, and adults.
There are potential risks and benefits to using this approach in counselling. Counsellors should have some training specific to on-line counselling (sometimes called telepsychology, e-counselling, on-line therapy, telemental health, etc.).
If you think on-line counselling might be the way to go for you, read on for more information and schedule a free consultation.
EMDR
How does EMDR work
Here’s a brief overview of each phase:
History and Treatment Planning: Your therapist will work with you to understand your history and identify specific targets for EMDR treatment.
Preparation: You’ll learn about the EMDR process and develop strategies to manage any emotional experiences that may arise during therapy.
Assessment: The therapist will help you identify and focus on the specific memories or negative beliefs you want to address.
Desensitization: Using bilateral stimulation (typically in the form of guided eye movements or self-tapping on the shoulders), the therapist will help you process the traumatic memory and reduce its emotional charge.
Installation: You’ll identify and develop more positive beliefs related to the memory, replacing negative or distressing ones.
Body Scan: You’ll check for any residual tension or distress in your body related to the memory and work to address it.
Closure: The therapist will help you return to a state of equilibrium and ensure you feel safe and stable before ending the session.
Reevaluation: In further sessions, you and your therapist will review progress, address any remaining issues, and reinforce positive changes.
What to Expect During EMDR Therapy
Why choose EMDR therapy
Many clients who have experienced trauma report having intense emotional reactions that may seem disproportionate to the present situation. Often, these reactions are linked to unresolved past traumas. EMDR helps by processing these earlier experiences, resulting in reduced emotional reactions in the present.
Ongoing research has demonstrated EMDR’s effectiveness for a wide range of symptoms and concerns. Studies show that EMDR is beneficial for treating various conditions, including anxiety disorders, depression, addictions, panic disorders, phobias, and more.
EMDR is not hypnosis, an unscientific practice, or a miraculous cure. It is an evidence-based approach to treating symptoms of trauma. Brain imaging studies show that, prior to EMDR therapy, clients have heightened activation in the amygdala, the brain’s emotional center. After completing EMDR, scans often indicate increased activity in the prefrontal cortex, which is involved in functions such as attention, decision-making, and complex reasoning. These changes in brain activity align with clients’ reports of reduced emotional response when thinking about or being reminded of a previous traumatic experience.
Jessa Tiemstra offers EMDR therapy as part of her service offerings to clients. She has witnessed significant transformations in clients who undergo EMDR. For many, traumatic memories become less distressing, leading to fewer emotional overreactions in their daily lives. Others experience enhanced empathy, increased openness, or a new perspective on past events.
