Empowering Counselling Services in Waterloo, Kitchener, and All of Ontario
It may seem that being overwhelmed is just a given. You're up to your eyeballs in dirty diapers and wet burp clothes. You can't remember the last time you had more than a few hours of rest. What even is breakfast? You run on a steady stream of coffee and fistfuls of cheerios. When you …
Continue reading "Postpartum Anxiety and Feelings of Overwhelm"
It's normal to feel a bit nervous when you're connecting with a new therapist especially when you're starting trauma therapy. This is the person you intend to tell your vulnerable history, and pray that they know what to do with all that information. The idea of opening up to share your lowest times can be …
Continue reading "Starting trauma therapy? Tips to support those initial fears"
If you have been searching for trauma therapy, chances are that you have come across the term "EMDR". While there are many types of therapy that can address trauma, EMDR has become well known in the counselling world as being an excellent and fast option for processing difficult life events. But how do you know …
Continue reading "Considering trauma therapy? How to tell if EMDR is right for you"
That first year with a baby is all about feeding, feeding and more feeding. For every parent, there is a time when he or she decides whether to breastfeed, exclusively pump, stick to formula, or use a combination approach. There are a variety of factors that push a parent towards one choice over the other. …
Cognitive-behaviour therapy has taught us that there are certain themes to our anxious thoughts. These themes are referred to as "cognitive distortions" or "thought traps" in CBT lingo. Anxious thoughts can happen to any of us, irrespective of whether or not we have a clinically diagnosed mental health issue. More often, they tend to pop …
Continue reading "Common anxious thoughts during the postpartum year"
Exposure therapy is a wonderful and challenging form of treatment that can improve phobias and anxieties. This treatment modality works off the assumption that, by slowly and continually facing a fearful situation, we become less scared. Gradual exposure involves creating a formal list of tasks that are completed in order to build confidence in facing …
One of the biggest struggles with COVID-19 is the uncertainty with this virus. How do we treat it? Will we become infected? How long will we need to maintain physical distance?Given that there is so much that is unknown right now, it is understandable that many of us are struggling with anxiety. The following are …
Continue reading "COVID-19: Working with the fear of not knowing"
I have talked about the "perfectionist" part of me in previous posts. When this part of me gets going, it wants to set high standards and throw all concepts of work/life balance out the window. You may have a similar perfectionist inside of you. This perfectionist may say harsh comments like: Why are you not …
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Many times in life we come across a problem that we cannot fix right away. During these times, therapists encourage a fancy term called "distress tolerance". But what exactly does this term mean? Distress tolerance is all about handling a stressful moment without making matters worse. Let's say you're expecting to have a difficult conversation …
There is an abundance of updates about the coronavirus pandemic, and it's hard to not let our anxieties overwhelm us. The following are some of my anxious thoughts over the last week, and how I used Internal Family Systems therapy to shift my relationship with these fears. There is a part of me that feels …
Continue reading "A conversation with my anxiety: Supporting fears about COVID-19"