We provide effective telephone counselling grounded in many years experience working 'over distance'. Located in Clearwater, BC (north of Kamloops near Wells Gray Park), we can sometimes also arrange face-to-face meetings.
We trained in a tradition where a counsellor's best friend is their clinical supervisor. We provide substantial, non-judgemental clinical and personal support to fellow professionals. Much of this is done by telephone.
If you are sourcing an experienced consultant, workshop provider, or public speaker in the area of counselling, psychotherapy, or the ethics of practice, we say Yes, let's talk about your needs.
Experiential Focusing is integral to everything we do and offer, and we mean integral. No visible seams. No clunky technique. We are experienced Focusing Teachers always ready to share this universally applicable practice.
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We provide effective telephone counselling grounded in many years experience working 'over distance'. Located in Clearwater, BC (north of Kamloops near Wells Gray Park), we can sometimes also arrange face-to-face meetings.
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We think of ourselves as (contemporary, innovative) Person-Centred counsellors. We prize non-directivity. But ‘Person-Centred’ is becoming misunderstood. It is often used in quite meaningless ways—perhaps because 'non-directivity' is getting lost.
We have Diplomas saying we are ‘Process-Experiential Psychotherapists'—very similar to 'Emotionally Focused Therapists’—but we want therapy to look like ‘normal’ human conversation and interaction. ‘Focusing-oriented’ is a term popular with therapists who practice Experiential Focusing, but it feels too indecisive.
Alongside non-directivity and ‘Person-Centred’ relationship, we value process. Effective, lasting change is due either to changes in the client's environment—which a counsellor has little to say about—or to process.
Therefore, the therapist’s job is to provide conditions, support, and activities which maximise process. That's why there is a Person-Centred recipe for relationship. That's why there is Experiential Focusing. (Clive has argued in various places that Person-Centred Counselling and Experiential Focusing are two sides of one coin.) Hence, too, the rich ecology of apparently equally effective counselling ‘approaches’. Counsellors and clients vary, and what is facilitative within one therapeutic relationship can be less so in another.
We offer sandbox, play, psycho-drama, lots of chairs, accessing dreams… Sometimes Clive's work as a philosopher becomes relevant. We support somatic therapists who understand our way of offering counselling and supervision as very embodied and akin to ‘body psychotherapy’. Others have likened it to ‘Core-Process Therapy’. And we do get called 'Very Person-Centred'.
Person-Centred relating is flexible. As Person-Centred Counsellors we seek to meet each person where they need to be met with what facilitates their process. We call that 'empathy'.
Person-Centred Supervision is equally flexible, addressing what needs attention here and now. It's purpose is to help the supervisee be the most effective they can given their current clients, their current job-description, and consistent with their theoretical understanding.
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'Informed consent' is an ongoing process not a piece of paper you sign.
When you settle in to counselling with an understanding of what that is all about, then you are consenting to begin counselling. In part, understanding comes through conversation with your counsellor. In part, it can be gained by reading about what the counsellor is offering, how they work, and what their 'policies' are.
Informed consent needs to be revisited as counselling develops. Consenting to begin counselling does not mean consenting to particular ways of working together that are introduced during the journey. A way to think of this is that informed consent is not just a process, it is an ongoing conversation.
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