Relationship Counselling Vancouver
Relationships Can Be Complex!
We support individuals struggling with a wide variety of relational challenges, including difficulties in specific relationships and difficulties that somehow seem to appear across several relationships.
Connect With One of Our Counsellors Who Work With Relationships
Perhaps you, like many others we work with, find yourself struggling with:
Trusting others
Setting boundaries
Feeling angry or anxious for ‘irrational’ reasons
Communicating needs, fears or feelings to others
Feeling valued or worthy in your relationship(s)
Being authentic or yourself in your relationship(s)
Expressing sexuality within romantic relationships
Childhood peer and family of origin issues
Parental relationships during periods of transitions
Typically our approach to counselling focusing on relationships is twofold:
Developing skills to handle difficult conversations, feelings and situations
Exploration into the past relationships, and restructuring beliefs, perceptions and traumas that may be influencing your ability to form healthy, trusting connections with others.
For those wanting to work on their relationships as a team, several of our counsellors also offer couples and relationship therapy, for romantic partners and any other relationships with those who are important to you.
Our Relationships With Others Often Show Up in How We Feel About and Experience Ourselves… and vice versa
In relationship-focused counselling, you can hope to develop a better understanding of the root cause of issues in your relationships. Our hope is to help guide you towards becoming more confident in handling aspects of relationships that you are responsible for, while developing the self-compassion often necessary to face relational issues you cannot control.
A beautiful aspect of relationship-focused counselling is the powerful fact that with awareness and a little bit of work, we are able to both develop clearer boundaries with those that treat us in ways that are harmful or unhelpful, while at the same time learning to trust and form more open connections with those who support us and bring out the best of who we are.
Frequently Asked Questions About Counselling For Relationships & Healing & Growing the Relationships we Have With Others
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Yes, break ups are actually why many clients seek counselling support for the first time. Counselling can support you in grieving a relationship, clarifying values, re-investing in yourself, identity exploration and sorting through what feels important to focus on now; both for yourself and in future relationships as well.
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Counselling can absolutely support feeling anxious, a lot of charge and intense pull in relationships, and it’s something a lot of people work on in therapy.
As you might already know, anxious attachment often shows up as needing a lot of reassurance, fearing abandonment even when things are fine, or reading distance into small things. Counselling helps you understand where that pattern came from and slowly build a steadier sense of security that doesn't depend as much on your partner's every move.
You can read more about how our counsellors focus on attachment to support healthy relationships and security on our other pages as well! -
Counselling can support those who experience behaviours in their partner that trend towards being more disconnected, however, counselling is really counselling for you, even when it might make sense that your partner has some growth and change to do too.
Counselling can support you in understanding what avoidant patterns often mean (for example, usually a learned way of managing closeness, not a lack of caring), and can focus on exploring what you need and how to ask for it in a way that feels less like chasing. Counselling can also help create your own meaning and understanding of your own reactions to your partner, and potentially help you explore your own limits, compassion and values in relationships as well.
Many of our counsellors work from an attachment focused lens, that can be valuable in exploring all of these patterns and responses!
RCC, She/Her
Esther supports clients with self-worth, relationships, attachment, childhood experiences, neurodivergence, family dynamics and burnout, creating space for clients to better understand themselves and the patterns shaping their lives. Esther also has a background as teacher and school counsellor and loves supporting teens, other educators, caregivers and those with BIPOC experiences or who have lived outside of Canada
Main Approaches:Somatic · Mindfulness · Attachment-Focused · IFS · Narrative · DBT · Emotion-Focused · AEDP