*** NOTE AS OF NOVEMBER 2024:  Michelle is currently on leave until early 2025.  Please see your healthcare provider for a counselling/hospice referral.  Consider searching sites such as Psychology Today for a suitable counsellor.  Thank you.

Grief and loss inevitably play a major role in all of our lives.  Past trauma may often sit under the surface of awareness, unrecognized.

By building on innate resiliency, many people can begin to work to understand their emotions and recognize triggers (reminders of your past).  Exploring, talking through and feeling these feelings takes away the power of the unknown and unrecognized, and people can begin their healing and post traumatic growth through self-reflection.  Recognizing where trauma manifests in our bodies, can help us integrate the memories that have settled inside of us.

End of life care & support is an integral part of some people’s dying experience.  People living at the end of their lives and their families often need help navigating through this, at times, overwhelming process.  Although everyone will die, it tends to be something we don’t talk about or openly acknowledge.  For those who need end of life care, there is the potential opportunity to have dying be a natural part of living, with family and friends surrounding them.

For families and friends who experience the trauma of their loved one’s sudden death, grief and bereavement is upon them without warning.  For those whose loved ones are not necessarily at end of life, but are living with a slow and debilitating diagnosis (i.e. Alzheimer’s, ALS), grief and bereavement may be a slowly evolving process.  There are opportunities to learn to live with loss and create a legacy to honour your memories.

I utilize virtual sessions (using Google Duo, a confidential platform) offering psychoeducational tools & strategies.  My philosophy is integrative and based on Motivational Interviewing which involves Acceptance, Compassion, Collaboration, and Curiosity.  Continuing Bonds Theory is the approach to I choose to help clients work through their losses.  Together with a trauma-informed approach, modalities/perspectives include a combination of the following:

• Grief, Loss, Bereavement & Resiliency Counselling:  As it relates to emotions & mourning, trauma, self care, continuing bonds, and meaning-making.
• Client-centered, Strengths-based:  A supportive, non-judgemental environment where you are guided toward self-reflection, focusing on resiliency.  Your “story” unfolds as you develop your “narrative”.  Learn to manage problems and understand that self-efficacy allows for flexibility and adaptation.
• Interpersonal:  Exploring how mental health intertwines with relationships.  Understanding and challenging mindsets through values clarification.
• Examining how your thoughts, feelings, and behaviours affect each other:  Emotional regulation and self-soothing (connecting with your senses) are encouraged, to increase Emotional Intelligence.  Awareness and radical acceptance allow for identification and potential reframing of thoughts.
• Mindfulness:  To cultivate self-awareness and self-acceptance, focusing on the present and awareness & acceptance  of the past (which may include bitterness, regret, or resentment).  Staying in the present moment rather than the future (which may manifest as anxiety).  You are inspired to focus on the breath and recognize your feelings on a physical body level.

Rates are $75 per session with a sliding fee scale available on a limited basis for a small number of grief clients.  Please check with your insurance provider for coverage.

$75 per visit – HOME Palliative or End of Life Care visits.  A free 30 minute consultation/intake session over the phone/virtual platform is provided, to determine whether Contemplative End of Life services may benefit you and your family.

MANULIFE & SUNLIFE, among others offer counselling coverage through some of their packages.

Please check with your employer or extended health benefits company to see if you qualify.  Submit my Ontario College of Social Work and Social Service Workers Registration Number:  #820505 to determine if you have coverage with any of the third party insurance companies.  NOTE:  Some clients report online Sunlife submissions don’t work initially and forms need to be mailed in.

DISCLAIMER:  I’m a counsellor and death doula by profession, however unless we have entered into a current clinical relationship, I’m not your counsellor/doula.  Please note that all content on my website, including blogs, are for informational and educational purposes only.  

 

DISCLAIMER:  I’m a counsellor and death doula by profession, however unless we have entered into a current clinical relationship, I’m not your counsellor/doula.  Please note that all content on my website, including blogs, are for informational and educational purposes only.