Art therapy is a therapeutic service we offer at Expressions Counselling. Art therapy can enable children and adults to gain a deeper understanding of their challenges and resolve matters that may not be solved through talking. Your art therapist may guide you express your thoughts and emotions through drawing, sculpting, and painting. You may also express yourself freely through those mediums if you wish so. No prior art experience is needed. For more information visit our Art Therapy page.
Adults use words to express themselves and resolve their challenges. Children use play to make sense of their worlds and express their feelings. The play therapist keeps track of the themes that are expressed through the play. When appropriate, she guides the play to help children get unstuck and come up with resolutions. The play therapist also works with the parents and helps them to understand the world of their children and gives them tools to help their children regulate.
It really depends on many factors. Some clients are able to get results within 6 sessions, but most clients attend 12 sessions or more before they see significant changes.
You clinician assigns you homework after each session. Your homework will depend on what you are working on and where you are in your journey. Common counselling homework includes journaling, scheduled emotional check-ins during the week, engaging in self-care, or any other activity that is important for your mental health.
No. Your clinician goes as fast or slow as you want. Clinicians understand that you need to gain trust in them first before going deep. Also, clients can gain positive results by staying in the here and now with their clinician using Solution Focused Therapy and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. This being said, if you have significant traumas in your childhood, it is important for you to talk about them and for you to allow yourself to experience your grief process. Unexpressed grief can often lead to depressive symptoms, which can negatively impact your personal or professional life.
No counsellor can guarantee you that your problem will be resolved within a certain number of sessions. Therefore, if you have a limited budget, it is best to seek free counselling services. If you do not quality for those free services, your next best options is to attend counselling with a practicum student who is in training. At Expressions Counselling, counselling with practicum students are $60 per session. Let us know if you want to book a session with us today.
Oftentimes, teens feel uncomfortable talking about their personal matters with their parents. They also have trouble identifying and regulating their emotions. Our counsellors build a trusting relationship with youth through which they validate their feelings and we offer them advice and provide them with regulation tools for the times they feel overwhelmed. If needed, the counsellors also work with the parents in giving them the needed tools for supporting their children.
We recommend that you try counselling before going on medications. However, you need to consult with your doctor before making that decision. If you are experiencing suicidal ideation and urges, then medication can make you feel safe while you work on your challenges in counselling.
No. Counselling will help you manage your emotions. It helps you become more mindful of your emotions as they rise in order to be able to regulate them better. Most negative emotions are caused by some unmet needs. Your counsellor will help you to identify those needs and find some avenues for meeting them. Over time, you learn to stay mindful of your emotions, positive or negative, and you learn to find avenues to have your needs met. Once this happens, you start feeling less negative emotions and more positive emotions over time. However, this is definitely a process that can take 3 months or more on average.
It depends what your definition of success is. As long as you are committed to your therapy and you are willing to engage with your partner and the therapeutic process, then you are able to better communicate your feelings and needs to one another. However, by the end point, some couples become closer with one another and some couples decide to separate due to their reconcilable differences.
Our youngest clients can be 3 years old.
Most clients who have been in ICBC accidents experience elements of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. They often feel that “something bad is about to happen”. They often have trouble with concentration and sleep. They find themselves worried about their future and overwhelmed by their pain. If you are experiencing any of these symptoms, feel free to book an assessment with us.
Your children’s negative behaviours are simply their way of communicating to you about their unmet needs, their challenges with self-regulation, their anxiety, or their grief. Your counsellor will help you identify the challenges through play therapy and she will help the parents to create schedules that can reduce the unwanted behaviours and strengthen your child’s attachment with them. Each child’s counselling journey is unique and different.
We see clients on a weekly or biweekly basis based on the challenges at hand. Clients ask if they could attend monthly sessions. We only do monthly sessions after you have attended weekly or biweekly sessions.
Counselling can benefit a great deal of people who are dealing with any of the following:
We offer our services to children, teens, adults, seniors, and families. Our clientele has included various people and families of varying backgrounds.
Yes, we are happy to offer our services in Farsi in addition to English.
See our rates for more information.
No, you must make an appointment with us first.
Even though many clients prefer in person sessions, we also offer confidential secure virtual counselling for those to prefer to do their sessions from the comfort of their home. Learn more about our service here.
This will depend on you chosen clinician and the timing of the year. It can vary from a few days to a few weeks.
Individual sessions are 50 minutes. Couples sessions are 50 minutes as well, but we also offer an extended 100 minutes for couple sessions.
Yes. All of our counsellors follow the BCACC rule of confidentiality and your matters are 100% confidential. However, there are limits to confidentiality if you make your clinician believe that you may hurt yourself, hurt another person, or that a child or senior individual is being abused.
Yes. We also offer therapy to couples and families.
Each one of our counsellors will listen to what you have to say during each session. We offer support to help you get back on track.
We have offices in Port Moody, Burnaby, and North Vancouver. Please visit this page for more information.
It is best to take a preventative approach to counselling.
You need to contact your insurance provider and asked them whether they cover RCCs (Registered Clinical Counsellors). Your insurance may cover a number of sessions or a portion of the costs. However, clients pay for each session and then submit their receipts or reimbursement.
We accept cash, cheque, e-transfer, credit cards, debit cards, and Paypal. We also accept third party payments from ICBC, Autism Funding, Jordan’s Principal and various law firms.
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