Individual Counselling
Understand yourself. Move forward and improve your life.
At Vancouver Counsellor Services, you will work one-on-one with a practical and skilled therapist to explore your feelings, beliefs and behaviors. Through individual counselling, you will discover how to change old habits that aren’t working for you anymore and new ways to improve relationships with people who matter. Change can be scary but with understanding, grounded clinical knowledge and transparency, we can help you increase awareness to move forward in a healthier direction.
Is therapy right for you?
You may be wondering whether you need professional counselling. It’s a personal choice and therapy certainly isn’t for everyone.
We believe that therapy may be the right choice for you if:
- You have the self awareness to know that your life can be better.
- You are ready to commit to a process to change it.
- You are ready to take responsibility for your life to try to make lasting changes.
- You realize that you can’t do it alone.
Some of the life situations that our team helps with include:
- Boosting self-esteem and assertiveness
- Cultivating self-care
- Overcoming feelings of isolation and loneliness
- Dealing with anxiety, phobias, panic attacks
- Managing feelings of hopelessness, sadness
- Coping with struggles with infertility, during pregnancy, postpartum
- Improving communication skills such as how to convey gratitude and argue eloquently
- Responding to social pressures, dating and intimacy
- Navigating complicated interpersonal or co-worker situations
- Setting boundaries personally or professionally
- Learning how to constructively respond to life changes such as empty nesting, retirement, menopause
- Supporting aging parents
- Learning how to constructively adapt to unexpected life changes such as job loss
- Coping with grief from loss of a partner through death, divorce or separation
- Healing after the loss of a pregnancy, child
- Adjusting to medical diagnoses, illness or chronic injury
- Establishing healthy goals, planning for a successful future, career counselling
Individual counselling for youth, teenagers, adolescents, young adults
Many might say that the teenage years are not easy. The combination of peer pressure and the growing influence of social media adds to the complexity. For most teenagers, the highs and lows are perfectly normal. However for some, challenges with anxiety, depression, eating disorders and addictions may require professional support. It is important to be aware of what’s going on with your child(ren) and recognise that they may need support, at least once in a while.
Issues facing teens may include:
- Anxiety
- Depression
- Social isolation
- Suicidal thoughts and actions
- Eating disorders & body image
- Substance abuse (illegal and prescription drugs)
- Bullying
- Death of a parent or loved one
- Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
- Divorce of a parent or re-marriage
- Sexual assault or abuse
- Sexual Identity, orientation and homophobia
Emotional and behaviorial changes may signal the need for support. These may include:
- Irritability, restlessness, frustration or feelings of anger
- Feeling overwhelmed with life
- Conflict with family and friends
- Disruptive or risky behavior
- Self-harm, such as cutting, burning, or excessive piercing or tattooing
- Frequent thoughts of death, dying or suicide
- Abuse of alcohol or drugs
- Frequent complaints of body aches and headaches
- Feelings of sadness and hopelessness about the future
- Feelings of worthlessness, guilt, exaggerated self-blame or self-criticism
- Extreme sensitivity to rejection or failure, needing excessive reassurance
- Tiredness and loss of energy
- Slowed thinking, speaking or body movements
- Trouble thinking, concentrating, making decisions and remembering things
- Loss of interest in normal activities
- Insomnia or sleeping too much
- Poor school performance or frequent absences from school
- Neglected appearance — such as mismatched clothes and unkempt hair
- Changes in appetite
- Weight gain or weight loss