Do you often have difficulty with being truthful about your feelings? Have you been afraid to share certain things such as discomfort in a conversation, because you think you will hurt the other person’s feelings?
Being aligned with your true self and reaffirming your boundaries to others may feel impossible to do. However, this is far from the truth–help is available. At Expressions Counselling, we provide exposure therapy for assertiveness, social anxiety, and trauma as a means of finding your unique pathways on your journeys towards improved well-being and mental clarity.
Being assertive is often confused with simply saying ‘no’ more often to people, however this is not the case. Assertiveness is the practice of continually speaking your authentic truth without fear or guilt. When you are being assertive, you are not only saying, “This is what I think and feel” but also you are saying this with respect and kindness both to others and to yourself.
For some people, the idea of being assertive and clarifying boundaries is wonderful to comprehend intellectually. However, when the moment comes where it needs to be practised, underlying fears or anxieties may intervene with that person’s ability to express their true selves.
Exposure therapy is a helpful way to guide people into practising being assertive–not only reading about it. In some cases however, addressing the root cause (e.g. anxiety or trauma) may be a more suitable approach prior to initiating exposure therapy.
We encourage you to discover our assertiveness training service in addition to exposure therapy. You are more than welcome to incorporate one or both services in your counselling sessions as well as discuss treatment plans with our team.
We treat assertiveness as something that often needs to be practised, not just understood. Therapy can involve developing an individualized hierarchy of increasingly difficult assertiveness situations and gradually practising them through role-play, behavioural experiments, and real-life exposure.
We also explore what makes assertiveness feel unsafe—such as fear of rejection, criticism, conflict, cultural expectations, attachment experiences, or previous relationships. This allows us to combine practical skill-building with deeper therapeutic work when appropriate.
The goal is helping people communicate authentically while respecting both themselves and others.
To schedule your appointment with Expressions Counselling, you may:
Call (778) 229-0029
Email info@expressionscounselling.com
