Mercedes Miller
Pronouns: She/They
Registered Clinical Counsellor (RCC)
Master of Arts Counselling Psychology
Trauma Informed Yoga Instructor
EMDR Practitioner
“It is important to expect nothing, to take every experience, including the negative ones, as merely steps on the path, and to proceed.”
-Ram Dass
As much as we might want to, it can sometimes feel difficult to proceed when life keeps throwing us challenges. I aim to walk alongside you, listen to you, make sense of your experiences, and forge together a path forward that feels more authentic and fulfilling for you.
Mercedes currently offers Clinical Counselling, emdr, psychedelic integration & Yoga integrated with counselling
Please note that Mercedes currently has a waitlist for new counselling clients
If you’ve found yourself scouring the internet for a therapist it’s likely that it's begun to hit home that the way things are just aren’t working.
At the very least, life might be feeling uncomfortable, or it could be bringing unbearable pain. You might feel like you’re floating aimlessly in the sea of life with no direction or purpose, or perhaps life has handed you a few too many unexpected and distressing experiences, and you might feel like you’re treading water just to barely stay afloat. Even more, the expectations and standards of society, or the people around you might be making you feel even worse, or defective. If you’re feeling any of these ways, please know that you aren’t alone, and despite what society might tell you: nothing is fundamentally wrong with you.
The first step in overcoming the challenges that life has tossed your way is finding a comfortable place to explore and understand those challenges, their history, and how you’ve learned to respond to them. I believe that everyone has the inherent ability within themselves to heal, grow, and flourish, and that ability is harnessed through community and connection. My goal is to provide that connection, encourage community, and walk alongside you as you navigate these rocky waters.
Common concerns, focuses & clients I love supporting:
psychedelic integration
substance use and addictions
grief and loss
trauma and ptsd
exploration of identity (such as gender, sexuality )
exploration of spirituality & spiritual identity
anxiety
depression
personal growth
life transitions (including loss, relationships, health, career etc.)
What to expect
Our work together begins as two humans connecting and coming together in pursuit of your hopes and goals. I approach everyone with compassion, love, warmth, and humour. I’ll listen to the difficulties you’ve been facing and support you in expressing and processing the big emotions that come along with those difficulties. I’ll also be listening for your strengths, values, and hopes and spending some time talking about those. We’ll work together as a team to ensure your life can be lived from a place that centers around those strengths, rather than the challenges or difficulties.
I work from the perspective that behaviours and responses that you’ve developed that might feel hurtful in your life now, were once helpful and even necessary to you in the past. Understanding where these behaviours and responses initially showed up and how they were once helpful to us can support a sense of self-compassion and be the first step in transforming how we show up with others and with ourselves. From this place, I am able to offer trauma-informed tools, skills, and experiences to cope and interact with the world in a way that feels not only more functional, but also more fulfilling.
I value making sure that you understand what it is we are actually doing in therapy and why - I’m not a magician doing any behind-the-curtain tricks! I’ll describe what we're doing with the goal of sharing education and knowledge, and empowering you in your healing and growth journey. This might sound like me discussing the brain, the body, trauma, and the nervous system to frame your experiences with the hope of increasing understanding and self-compassion. I aim to not only offer tools and skills to cope with life's challenges, but also to offer in-session processes and experiences that can support you in feeling more grounded, secure, whole, and confident.
My work is influenced by the hard work of anti-oppressive and feminist educators and advocates. This means that I consider your identities, your experiences, and the oppressive systems and structures that have impacted you throughout your life and how those could be impacting your present-day experiences. This also means that I consider how my own identities are interacting with yours in and out of the therapy room. As a white, settler, cisgender, queer woman on the unceded territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səl̓ílwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations, I am constantly learning more about what it means to participate in anti-oppressive work, and this is a lifelong learning and unlearning journey.
I received my Master of Arts in Counselling Psychology from Adler University, and I am a Registered Clinical Counsellor (RCC) with the British Columbia Association of Clinical Counsellors (BCACC). I have received training in psychedelic-assisted therapy through TheraPsil, and I am a trauma-informed yoga instructor, trained through Yoga Outreach.
I’m happy to integrate these modalities and approaches into our work together if it is appropriate and in service of your goals.
I welcome clients of all cultures, genders, sexual orientations, abilities and relationship styles.
Approach
My integrative and client-specific approach to counselling includes the following education and approaches:
Internal Family Systems (otherwise known as parts work)
EMDR (Eye-Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing)
Mindfulness and yoga-based techniques
Trauma-informed therapies
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
Anti-oppressive and Feminist Oriented
Compassionate Inquiry