HOW I CAN HELP
Therapy services in Burlington
Most people arrive here because something specific has stopped working. Below is what I spend most of my time on, and who I spend it with. If what's going on for you isn't listed, book a consultation anyway. Fifteen minutes is usually enough to tell whether I'm the right person to help.
What I work with
Addiction & recovery
Drinking, drugs, gambling, gaming, and the behaviours that grow around them. I know how destructive it is, and I know what's on the other side of it.
We start where you actually are, whether you’re thinking about stopping, newly sober, or years in and finding it harder than you expected.
Anger
When it’s cost you a relationship, a job, or the trust of the people you care about. Or when it hasn’t yet, and you can see where it’s heading.
If you’ve apologized for the same thing more than once, the shame afterward is often worse than the anger itself. This is a pattern we can look at together. We’ll work on what’s driving it, not just on counting to ten or breathing more.
Trauma & PTSD
Hypervigilance, intrusive memories, sleep that doesn't restore, numbness that spreads into everything.
Sometimes it’s one event you can point to. Often, it’s built up over years of events that most people never see. We go at a pace that keeps you steady, and you decide what gets said out loud.
Anxiety, stress, relationship difficulties
These run through nearly everything else on this page. Alertness sometimes outlives the thing that caused it. Anxiety might surface once the drinking stops. And when relationships strain under the weight of all of it, that strain feeds back into everything else.
Most of the work we do together will touch these, whatever brought you here in the first place.
Who I work with
I work with adults eighteen and up. That’s the only real restriction. Within that, there are a few groups I enjoy the privilege of working with more often.
First responders
Police, firefighters, paramedics, corrections and dispatch.
Cumulative exposure, the alertness that won’t switch off at home, and the specific problem of carrying the job back with you. I’m in private practice and not connected to your service.
Late-diagnosed neurodivergent adults (or just suspected)
Adults who didn’t find out until their forties that there was a name for what they experience every day.
I don’t require you to have a formal diagnosis, or even to be sure of it yourself. I can’t diagnose, but I can help you work out whether an assessment is worth pursuing, and work with how it’s actually affecting you either way.
Partners and families of ND adults
The confusion of managing more than your share and feeling guilty about minding. Arguments that appear to be about the dishes and are not about the dishes. The particular loneliness of loving someone whose brain works differently from yours and not always knowing how to reach them.
This is familiar to me outside the office as well as in it. It’s individual work about your experience, not about fixing anyone.
People in the middle of a large change
A career that ended or changed shape. Retirement that arrived differently than expected. A divorce, or a degree started at fifty.
It can be terrifying, exhilarating and mind-numbing, sometimes all at the same time. When the thing that gave your life shape disappears, it’s worth having somewhere to work out what comes next.
If you don’t see yourself in any of this, that’s not a barrier to working with me. Many of the people I work with don’t fit neatly into a group. What matters is that we have good rapport and a mutual understanding of your goals. Reach out to me to see if we’re a good fit.
How I work
I use cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT), acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), emotion-focused therapy (EFT) and solution-focused brief therapy (SFBT). Which of those we use depends on you. I fit the approach to the person rather than the other way around.
In practice, that means we start by getting clear on what's actually happening, agree on what you want to be different, and then work at it directly. I'm candid. I won't spend six months circling something we could name in the first session.
Sessions are 60 minutes at $160. 15-minute consultations are free and there’s no obligation afterward.
As a Registered Social Worker, my services are HST-exempt, and I provide receipts you can submit to your insurer. You don’t need a referral.
I see clients by video anywhere in Ontario, or in person at my Burlington office near Appleby Line and the QEW. I’m a short drive from Hamilton, Oakville and Milton.
Not sure where you fit? That’s a normal place to start.