About me
I am a Registered Therapeutic Counselor (RTC) living in Tsawwassen, BC, with my loving partner and baby boy. I am committed to providing compassionate and effective therapeutic support to individuals suffering from anxiety, depression, or any other unwanted effects of past trauma.
My personal journey towards becoming a therapist began at the age of 19, when I found myself grappling with the debilitating effects of panic attacks and depression. In those difficult moments, I felt an overwhelming sense of shame and isolation. Little did I know then that seeking help would become the pivotal turning point on my path to healing.
If I could turn back time and offer a message of reassurance to my younger self, it would be this: "You've done nothing wrong, and it's okay to ask for help!" It was through this crucial realization that my healing truly began to take shape. Opening to support eased my shame and helped me connect with strengths I never knew I had.
My goal as a therapist is to provide my clients with the support they need in order to connect with their innate strengths and find the healing they seek - however that may look. I also aim to help each client learn the skills of self-compassion and Somatic Experiencing (a nervous system based approach to healing, which includes the body). I find that the combination of these two competencies is both gentle and powerful in effecting genuine and lasting change.
I look forward to supporting you.
Background & Licensure
Bachelor of Arts Degree in Political Science from University of Calgary
Diploma in Transpersonal Counselling Psychology - Clearmind International
Registered Therapeutic Counselor ID#3139 - ACCT
Somatic Experiencing® Advanced Certification
What is Somatic Therapy?
Somatic Therapy is an umbrella term for therapeutic approaches that include the body and nervous system in the healing process.
I am trained in a specific modality called Somatic Experiencing®, which was developed by Dr. Peter Levine, and is designed to naturally heal past trauma.
Somatic Therapy is a process that involves the untangling of your current physiology (fight/flight/freeze responses) from past events and experiences. Incomplete survival responses from the past can appear in the body now, showing up as tension, anger, anxiety, panic, disconnection, or depression. Sometimes we can consciously pinpoint the incomplete experiences from the past, and sometimes we can’t - both are workable.
In our sessions together, we make gentle contact with your body’s present-time nervous system state. This means that we slow down enough to observe the thoughts, sensations, and gentle movements that may be happening. I will guide and support you so that what is being held inside can slowly and safely unravel and complete itself, which is often felt as a huge relief. This process is also relational in nature. Often, the painful places of holding and stuckness inside are precisely the places where we didn’t receive the support we needed in the past. As we gently and skillfully connect with these places now, in a more supportive context, the body and mind can release what has been held for so long.
What is Self-Compassion?
1
Self-kindness
Entails being warm and understanding toward ourselves when we suffer, fail, or feel inadequate, rather than ignoring our pain or punishing ourselves with self-criticism.
Self-compassion contains 3 key ingredients:
2
Common Humanity
Self-compassion involves recognizing that suffering and personal inadequacy is part of the shared human experience – something that we all go through rather than being something that happens to “me” alone.
3
Mindfulness
Mindfulness is a non-judgmental, receptive mind state in which one observes thoughts and feelings as they are, without trying to suppress or deny them.
We will regularly use these 3 skills during our time together. The goal is to practice this way of relating to yourself and to re-pattern your nervous system so that care and compassion for yourself is the habitual response to the challenges of life, rather than self-criticism or self-rejection.
“Cameron is a counselor I trust. Through his support, I've strengthened my emotional resilience, deepened my mind-body connection, and learned to navigate stress more effectively. His multi-faceted approach, grounded in the body and enriched with kindness, including expertise in trauma work through Somatic Experiencing, has been an invaluable asset throughout my journey.
I wholeheartedly recommend Cameron to anyone seeking guidance and support for their inner growth, well-being, and trauma recovery.”
MICHAEL - Client
