Shame Counselling in Vancouver
We Know it Can Be Really Hard to Share the Things we Feel Ashamed About.
You're Not the Only One Who Feels This Way.
We’ve all felt shame before. Shame has a way of making you want to disappear: wanting to curl inward, or be swallowed up by the ground and disappear. Sometimes shame comes with a hot face, or a pit in the bottom of your stomach. It can be one of the most isolating feelings of all, partly because it convinces you that there’s something fundamentally wrong with you, and that you're the only one who feels this way.
You're not, and that's what therapy for shame and counselling can help with.
Keep reading to learn more about shame counselling.
Browse our shame counsellors further down the page.
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What’s The Difference Between Guilt and Shame?
A question that comes up often in therapy is “Is this guilt? Or is this shame?”
Often we think we feel guilty when we are actually ashamed, or we aren’t quite sure if they are the same thing. Even though they get tangled together all of the time, guilt and shame are actually two very different beasts!
Guilt usually carries the message, "I did something bad."
Shame usually tells us, "I am bad."
Guilt can actually be useful, as it shows us where our values are and sometimes points you toward repair, an apology, or ways you might want to act differently in the future. Shame doesn't really point anywhere specifically, and often doesn’t even focus on the thing that happened, it just tells you something's wrong with who you are as a whole. Shame is also often paired with fear of what that might mean (I’ll be left, I’m useless, no one will love me) which usually isn't true, but usually feels pretty convincing.
What Shame Can Sound Like
“If people really knew me, they wouldn't like what they saw”
Replaying things I said or did years ago and still cringing
Having a hard time accepting compliments or kindness. I don't fully believe I deserve it (even when I know, logically, that I do)
I need to hide parts of myself (even from people close to me), to be liked
“I'm too much”, or “I’m not enough”, depending on the day
I need to give to others, or take care of others in order to feel worthy of love
Getting stuck in a shame spiral I can't seem to think my way out of
Shame doesn't always feel like shame. It can sound more like self-criticism, perfectionism, people-pleasing, or the feeling that you need to hide parts of yourself.
Where Shame Often Shows Up
Like many intense feelings, shame can show up around specific areas of your life, or as a more general feeling of unworthiness or feeling small. For some, shame centres on challenges with body image, appearance, or weight. For others, shame is loudest around sexual experiences, relationships, or parts of their identity related to sex and sexuality.
Shame almost always shows up alongside trauma, especially experiences that were never spoken about out loud. Shame can gather around experiences of vulnerability, intense emotions, or needing help in the first place, creating the belief that struggling at all means something's wrong with you. It can also live in parenting, money, or the unspoken rules a family or culture decided were acceptable to feel, want, or be.
Shame can also show up strongly in relationships. You may worry that you're too much, not enough, difficult to love, or that being fully known will eventually lead someone to leave. You may also become afraid of being judged, rejected, or seen differently if people knew more about you. These patterns can make it hard to let yourself be seen, even by people you care about.
Shame researcher Brené Brown likes to remind us that all shame thrives in silence, secrecy and isolation. Wherever shame shows up for you, it tends to lose some of its grip once it can actually be said out loud and shared.
Meet Our Shame Therapists in Vancouver
Finding the right counsellor matters.
The following counsellors on our team have availability for new clients and bring different personalities, experiences and approaches to shame therapy.
We offer free 15-minute consultations so you can connect and ask questions first.
You can browse our counsellors yourself or have our intake team help you find a potential fit.
How Counselling for Shame Can Help
Shame is very rarely built alone. In fact, shame is typically born from our relationships with others, both in our personal relationships, but also the wider systems and cultures we grow up in. Shame can develop in a family with strict, unspoken rules about who you were supposed to be, a culture or religion with clear ideas about what was shameful, being punished for having needs, or being told, directly or indirectly, that some part of you was too much. For many, shame is also tied to identity itself: queerness, race, disability, neurodivergence, or living in a world that hasn't always made space for who they are.
Shame is NOT a reliable indicator that something is actually wrong with you. It just means that somewhere along the line, you learned to believe something that isn't true.
You might even know that already, but it can still take some time to unlearn.
If you’ve been carrying shame alone, counselling can be a place to share some of this weight.
In therapy, you can begin to separate what actually happened from the story shame built on top of it, gently and at a pace that doesn't ask you to reopen everything at once. There’s a possibility that you've never actually shared how you feel inside out loud with anyone before, not a partner, not a friend, anyone. Since shame tends to grow in secrecy, it can convince you that staying quiet is safer, even when the opposite may be true. If you've been carrying this on your own for a while, counselling can offer a new experience of being met and understood by someone who won't flinch or reinforce the idea that you're too much or broken. Over time, this can give you a different experience of being seen, understood and accepted, while helping you build a different relationship with yourself.
Several of our counsellors also bring EMDR Therapy into this work, since shame can live in the body or be tied to specific memories in ways that overlap with trauma. Shame is also on the flip side of the coin to self-worth and self esteem, and may benefit from approaches such as Parts Works and attachment-focused therapy, particularly when it shows up most strongly in close relationships.
Shame isn't only something you think about. Shame can be felt in your body too, as a sinking feeling in your stomach, heat in your face, wanting to disappear, or the urge to pull away from someone. Working with shame isn't about getting rid of the feeling altogether. Therapy often moves through stages: understanding what shame is trying to tell you, recognizing where it came from, and developing more choice in how you respond to it. In the beginning, these new ways of feeling and responding can take effort. Over time, they can become more familiar and begin to feel more natural.
You make sense, and you’re not alone.
Whatever you've been hiding is welcome here, without judgement.
All of our counsellors offer a free 15-minute consultation. This offers you the chance to connect and ask questions about how they work, and get a sense of who you might feel comfortable with. It also helps us understand what you're looking for, so we can help you find a counsellor or therapist who feels like a great fit for where you are.
Our counsellors offer in-person shame counselling and therapy in Vancouver at our Kitsilano clinic (1682 West 7th Ave, Suite 300, Vancouver BC) as well as online for clients anywhere in British Columbia & beyond.
Frequently Asked Questions About Shame Counselling and Therapy in Vancouver
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Reducing shame usually starts with naming it out loud to someone, whether you think of it as shame therapy or just counselling, which is all about just naming how you feel.
From there, we help you understand where your shame originally came from and slowly begin build a different relationship with it. Shame work is both an internal job, and also focuses on how you can relate differently to and receive from others. -
Yes, shame is closely tied to self esteem, worth, and ones’ sense of self. Ongoing shame often erodes self-worth over time, and working on one tends to move the other too.
One of shames biggest markers is the impulse to hide, be small or defer to others. Building a solid sense of self through therapy (and of course, through working with shame), can support you in being more present and taking up more space in your own life. -
Very common, and a little ironic, Shame about being in therapy, or being seen, or even sharing why you came to counselling in the first place is often one of the first things that come up. We encourage you to share these feelings with your counsellor as soon as you feel comfortable enough to name it. We welcome and completely understand your feelings of embarrassment or shame we well. worth talking about!
RCC (They/Her)
Collaborative · Authentic & Human · Gentle Warm & Validating · Welcomes Humour · Challenges Clients · Client-Led · Skills & Tools · Mind-Body · Insight & Patterns · Emotional Focus
LAUREN’S BIO & BOOKING →
Lauren brings a collaborative, open and human presence to counselling. They allow time for you to settle in without pressure, and become comfortable, with space for harder and deeper conversations once trust is built. Lauren brings lived experience as a longtime performer and artist, queer and neurodivergent person, and brings social justice, compassion and body acceptance into her work. The strives to create a space where each person can be fully themselves without the need to filter or hide who they are.
SPECIALTIES Neurodivergence · LGBTQIA+ · Anxiety & Panic · OCD · Depression · Burnout · Attachment · Family Relationships · Inner Child Work · Life Transitions
APPROACHES Somatic · DBT · IFS · Fat Liberation & Body Acceptance · Mindfulness · Anti-Oppressive · Narrative · Emotion Focused · Attachment-Focused · ACT · Trauma Informed · Sex Positive · Neurodivergent-Affirming