Practice information:

For over twenty years, Sara has helped people grow through turbulent times in their lives so that they can reclaim their full vitality and live the life they were born to live.  She strives to connect with people's innate drive to thrive, and to provide optimum conditions for personal advancement.  Her work is inclusive. 

When life's challenges exceed current coping abilities, Sara offers the counsellor advantage by providing developmental assists, resources, and an emotional environment conducive to growth and healing.  Drawing on comprehensive clinical experience, she collaborates with each person/couple to identify the core issue, and then provides information, practical exercises, community resources, referrals, advocacy, developmental theory, and perhaps most importantly, whole-hearted listening. She works with a variety of issues that hold people back from realizing their full potential, such as anxiety, depression, trauma, abuse, lack of assertiveness and self-esteem, codependent relationships, stalled or compulsive sexuality.  She works extensively with mid-life issues of meaning making, and remaining vital in the second and third chapters.  This includes exploration of deep intimacy and sexuality throughout the lifespan.  She subscribes to a strength-based, solution-focused model designed to elicit resiliency and reconnection.  

At the root of all her work is the understanding that it's really demanding to be a human being, that we all suffer from time to time, and that learning to befriend ourselves through the hard times and nurturing our spirit brings back deep fulfillment and meaning.  Her solid base in Interpersonal Neurobiology allows her to establish deep empathy and limbic resonance with those she works with so that they feel less alienated and can begin to attain secure attachment within themselves, with others, and with their world.  A sense of belonging is essential to human health.

Certifications

• Certified Forest Therapy Guide, and providing Walk and Talk Therapy in Stanley Park (in person)
• Certified Relational Life Therapist (Terrence Real)
• Intimacy Education Certificate 
• Guelph University Intensive Sex Therapy Certification
• Trauma Counselling and Clinical Intervention certificate from the Justice Institute.
• Advanced Certified Imago Relationship Therapist
• Advanced EMDR training (Level II and specialized courses)
• Level 2 of the Developmental Model of Couples Counselling with the Couples Institute in California.