Many people experience anxiety, depression, relationship stress, or significant life changes, yet hesitate to seek help. Understanding what a psychotherapist does and how therapy works can make the decision to reach out much easier. As a psychotherapist in West Vancouver, I provide a safe and supportive space where people can explore their thoughts, emotions, and experiences with greater clarity. Psychotherapists, like me, provide a space where people can explore their though

Before we became parents, many of us had an ideal image of what that role would look like. This image is often based on our own experiences of being parented. Consequently, we might decide to parent our children similarly, or we might enter parenthood with a determination to parent in a dramatically different way, or we might design an ideal based on any combination of these two.   Regardless of which design we arrive at, one thing is true: our ideal image is often rooted in

Recently, I was invited to participate on a panel on dating and relationships, and I decided to write about an unfair burden that’s placed on relationships and a few other things I’ve learned over the years about relationships, both personally, as well as in my role as a therapist.   I wasn’t born knowing how to ‘do’ relationships; few of us are. Most often, we learn by some sort of psychic osmosis by directly or indirectly observing our parents, or parental figures, interact

The title of this blog sounds like an oxymoron: peace and fear in the same sentence?  And, who wants to make peace with fear anyway? Don’t we just want to rid ourselves of it? Or, better yet, let’s not have it in the first place. Well, yes, the idea of not having it is a good one but, unfortunately, it’s not at all practical.     If you’re alive and breathing, you’ve likely felt it’s pull on your heart several times during your life thus far, despite your many creative attemp

Those who know me well will easily recognize the title of this post, since I've been saying it to almost everyone I’ve known in my life, both personally and professionally, for almost four decades. They aren’t just empty words. In fact, the reason they flow out of my mouth so easily, and so often, is because I’ve experienced for myself, and witnessed in others, the degree to which they are perhaps the most accurate words – and useful words – that I’ve ever come across.   Thes

From the moment we’re born until the day we die we are continually absorbing messages that tell us who we are, what we’re worth as human beings, what we should be doing at any given time, how we should look (and especially how we shouldn’t look), what we should eat, what we should buy, what activities or careers we should or should not engage in, and so on. Opinions come from near, they come from afar, but for sure, they come, and they never stop. So, it’s no surprise that by