Affordable Counselling Program
What We’re About
People come in to see us at the Affordable Counselling Program with a myriad of difficulties that arise in their lives, when their sense of well-being and happiness has gone off track and reconnecting feels impossible.
They might be feeling:
- fearful
- stressed
- angry
- anxious
- depressed
- overwhelmed
- or any combination of these and/or many other afflictive emotions.
In Affordable Counselling we work from a holistic model of the individual that incorporates our biology, psychology and spiritual beliefs as they have developed over the years within the context of our family and culture of origin. The Affordable Counselling program facilitates this process through an experienced and qualified Masters level Counsellor to help people contend with the challenges in their life.
Who We Work With
- Individual Adults
- Couples
- Families
What We Address
- Stress, Depression and Anxiety
- Life Transitions
- Processing Trauma
- Personal Esteem Issues as a Support for Chronic Illness
- Developing Improved Coping Skills
- Coping with Grief and Loss Issues
- Addressing Workplace Issues
- Planning for the Future
- Gender Sensitive Issues
Couples Counselling can include:
- Learning to Communicate through Appreciative Inquiry/Listening-to-hear
- Finding/Supporting Behaviours that Foster Trust and Intimacy
- Using Strategic Timeouts that End in Emotional Repair
- Dealing with Parenting Concerns
- Dealing with the Loss of a Partner through Debilitative Illness or Death
- Dealing with Separation and Divorce
How Much Will I Pay?
- Individual Sessions Are One Hour Long: Cost Is $40/Session
- Couples Sessions Are 1 ½ Hours Long: Cost Is $60.00/Session
How to Connect with the Affordable Counselling Program?
Pacific Centre Family Services Association gratefully acknowledges the contributions of the Provincial Employees Community Services Fund to the Affordable Counselling Program.
More About the Affordable Counselling Approach to Counselling: In essence, the behaviours of who we are---what we call “our life”---are often the result of an unconscious relational interplay of these factors (biology, psychology, spiritual, culture and family) as they have developed over the years within the context of our family and culture of origin in the many, many present moments experienced since birth. According to the latest studies in the science of human neurobiology, these “forgotten experiences” are not forgotten. They are stored as emotions within virtually every cell in the body. Because of this we can access and “remember” them by paying attention to the felt sense of each emotion as it arises to awareness. In our counselling process we give special attention to those emotions that feel particularly difficult for the client. It may be helpful to remember that an emotion’s natural state is---to-be-in-motion. These afflictive emotions don’t feel good and they are the key to making positive changes to a person’s sense of well-being: they signal where to begin the work and provide the energy---the client’s own---for their eventual transformation. How Our Mistakes Transform Our Emotions… The process of transformation for each of us begins by simply noticing any feelings that occur in the body when a strong emotion arises to awareness. All of this happens without attitude or judgement, regardless of how it feels. Instead of trying to get rid of it, hide it, analyze it or judge it, we just let it be. We must accept where we are before we can get to where we want to be. This all occurs by paying close attention in the present moment, over and over and over…. It is simple and it is difficult and it is very workable---it just takes practice. Our mistakes are the compost for our growth and change, no problem here. “I’m not ok, you’re not ok and it’s ok!” The Collaborative Challenge… The challenge then becomes how best to support clients in safely accessing and effecting their desired changes within this tangle of troubling emotions and unconscious behaviours? Through deeply acknowledging and accepting the client’s emotional experience, the counsellor builds a relationship of trust that both supports and catalyzes beneficial emotional movement. |