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.

Expressive Arts Therapy

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:

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.​

The Happiness Pill Program

I often hear teens say, “If I could just take a pill, things would change and get better.” They are looking for a quick fix, a solution to the pain they are feeling inside.

Their parents share with me that they feel helpless and know in their heart that taking an antidepressant isn’t a sustainable solution for their daughter.

What if the happiness pill was something already inside of you that you could activate to get beyond the depression, anxiety, and overwhelm? 

The Happiness Pill Program is a 6-month life changing program that gets you (a teen girl) from a place stress and anxiety, to a place of contentment, motivation, and confidence.

Press the button below to learn more: