Jonathan's Approach

Respectful. Confidential. Nonjudgmental. Practical.

First and foremost, you are important and worth the time to work on yourself. Everyone has things to work on to become their better self. Jonathan is here to walk and work with you, not to judge. 

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Person Centered:

Counselling, to Jonathan, is a collaboration between you and a trained therapist. What works best for you is what is important, not following a set of instructions or trying to fit yourself into a prescribed way of life. Counselling, is working together on what you want to work on. By working together, Jonathan can help you discover and identify problem areas, challenges, strengths, weaknesses, supports, and possible solutions that can help you work towards a better you.

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Trauma-Informed:

Whether you have experienced a major traumatic incident or just feel unsettled about something that happened to you, trauma takes on many forms and is processed differently by everyone. The impact and processing of trauma affects how one lives their life, shapes their behaviours, and influences their way of thinking. Some may say, "this is stupid that it is bothering me" or "it doesn't make sense"... the facts are, if it is bothering you, then it is bothering you and it doesn't have to make sense. 

Working through any type of trauma is an important aspect of counselling and Jonathan is here to support you in a way that works best for you. 

A vital first step to working through trauma is developing skills for self-care and accessing appropriate support systems. Identifying and developing these skills and supports may take one session or could span over many sessions depending on the impact that trauma has in your life and your current ability to manage with the impact of the trauma. When you, with help, have developed a stable state to work on trauma, the actual trauma work can begin. A few approaches and techniques to work through trauma may include Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), and Prolonged Exposure Therapy (PE).

Solution-Focused:

Perhaps you are just wanting to figure out a way to accomplish something or get to a certain place in your life; we can work on finding solutions together. With a Solution-Focused approach, we would concentrate our efforts on finding solutions that are practical, realistic and attainable for you.