Stephanie Dugdale MA, CCC Counselling

Description

I am an individual and couple therapist with a practice in which I work with adults and older youth. I am a Canadian Certified Counsellor (CCC) with the Canadian Counselling and Psychotherapy Association and have a Master’s degree in counselling from St. Paul University in Ottawa. My professional time is shared between my private practice and a local family service agency.
It is my understanding and experience that a connected client/therapist relationship can help support and deepen the kind of exploration that brings change. Working collaboratively, I believe, is central to the creation of the comfort and safety required for this. So, as an ally, I collaborate with my clients and respect each individual’s own goals and intentions, choices, timing, and coping styles. I am deeply committed to honouring the diversity and plurality of our human experience. I welcome and work with people from all walks of life [i.e. different cultures and family heritages, lifestyles, sexualities, sexual identities, gender identities, religions, health challenges, and socioeconomic status]. THERAPEUTIC APPROACH In order to respond, as fully as possible, to a person’s whole experience I integrate different therapeutic approaches, such as: - psychodynamic and relational theories [to help explore, for instance, how the influence of early relationships and met or unmet childhood needs may affect and shape current relationships as well as one’s sense of self and self-worth]; - experiential approaches [to help explore, for instance, one’s lived and felt experience]; - psycho/neuro/biological approaches [to help explore, for instance, how our brains and bodies react to threat, both physical and emotional, in order to better understand how to calm and soothe nervous system reactions and patterns that arise from this]; - Cognitive Behavioural Therapy/ CBT [to help with, for instance, symptom alleviation]. TRAUMA WORK I have a special interest and extensive training in working with survivors of trauma [i.e. survivors of childhood trauma; victims of violent crime]. I participate in ongoing training in order to remain up-to-date with current understanding, research, and therapeutic approaches to working with trauma. RELATIONSHIP THERAPY I am trained in and integrate Emotion Focused Therapy [EFT], as well as other attachment-based and interpersonal neurobiological approaches, in my work with couples. These approaches are used as a frame to help understand and work with disconnecting patterns that arise in couple and other interpersonal relationships. All or a portion of the fee for sessions may be covered by some extended health insurance plans.