Individual Counselling and Psychotherapy
People seek counselling for many reasons including stress due to life events, difficulty with employment, interpersonal conflict, physical injury or illness, struggles with depressed moods or high anxiety, and more. Counsellors have different training and competencies, such as individual, youth, family, or marital/couples counsellors. Elizabeth provides individual counselling for adults, including young adults.
Psychotherapy is a talk-based therapy, where you work with a counsellor to develop skills and strategies to bring about positive changes in your thoughts, feelings, and behaviours. Specific goals for counselling are unique to each individual, as it is important that counselling focused on the issues that are most important to you.
All services provided by Elizabeth Stoakley, R.P., follow the established professional standards for Registered Psychotherapists. These standards are available at https://www.crpo.ca.
Distance and Online Counselling and Psychotherapy
Individual counselling is available by telephone or via secure online video conferencing. These are good options for those seeking services in remote or under serviced locations, if there are physical or other barriers to attending in-person meetings, or if there are significant scheduling challenges.
Distance counselling is not for everyone, and the benefits and limitations of these options can be explored during your initial consultation. Some important considerations include your preferences, comfort level, and the reasons for engaging in therapy. Other considerations including access to private and secure internet and/or phone services, as well as an adequate quality internet connection or clear phone line.
Secure video sessions are carried out through VirtualCare, more information can be found at https://virtualcare.thinkresearch.com.
Biofeedback
Stress and emotional distress have an impact on your body. When you are dealing with stress or anxiety your body may experience a fight-or-flight reaction, where your body quickly prepares itself to confront or escape a threatening situation by increasing your heart rate and respiration, altering blood flow, tensing muscles, and causing the palms of your hands to perspire and feel cold. Biofeedback is a way to measure and learn to manage your body’s response to stress and anxiety. Sensors placed on the hands can measure sweat gland activity and temperature, and this information is used to help you change the state of your body in order to feel relaxed and in control. Biofeedback can help you learn to manage your emotions, to cope with generalized and specific anxiety, with recovery from trauma, and management of chronic pain.