Deborrah Dunne

The decision to go for counselling often arises in the face of crisis and overwhelm. It can also come about because we are tired of dragging our issues along with us through days, weeks, months and even years. My goal as a counsellor is to midwife healing, growth, and change so that people can be freed to live more richly satisfying lives.

To facilitate this, I offer clients a safe place to express and lay down their troubling baggage. This in itself often affords a measure of relief because we can begin to see issues as things which can be contained, explored and addressed. Overwhelm and distress is replaced by an orientation of good will and curiosity toward ourselves and the challenges we face.

A wide range of possibilities emerge as we begin to explore these issues. It might be that some wounds need to be healed; perhaps it’s time to revise the way we think or feel or act in response to certain situations; there may be unconscious patterns that need to be brought to awareness and worked through; there may be trauma that requires gentle, specialized work with the nervous system; or a person can be struggling with an addiction that needs to be replaced by healthier coping strategies.

In the context of relationships, additional complexities abound. Relational issues from childhood might be shaping the way we experience and relate to other people (partners, our own children, friends, co-workers, employers); we might need help setting boundaries to promote safe contact with others; it may be that our expectations of others can be shifted to allow for new ways of experiencing them.

These are just some examples of what can unfold in that safe container. To help ground and shape my work, I draw from a number of theoretical orientations and practices. Gestalt and humanistic therapy, as well as psychodrama and group experience bring in vital elements of playfulness, imagination, curiosity, and fresh ideas for experimenting with change. A background in psychodynamic psychotherapy helps bring much-needed depth to understanding unconscious processes and developmental issues. And I have found that specialized training in neurobiologically-based therapy has greatly enriched my work, especially with survivors of abuse and trauma. Having said this, in my eighteen years of working with people, I have found that the close attention that I bring to my experience of each client, and the way that I integrate what I am noticing into the work, is what yields the most powerful changes of all.

I am a Registered Clinical Counsellor with an M.A. in Counselling Psychology from U.B.C, and a Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Toronto. I have been privileged to work in the field of counselling for over 18 years. I offer a sliding scale to make this opportunity more accessible to a wider range of people seeking healing and growth.