Trauma & PTSD Counselling in Squamish & Online Across BC
Trauma isn’t always obvious. It’s not only about what happened — it’s about what stayed with you.
You might notice it as:
- reactions that feel bigger than the situation
- shutting down, pulling back, or going numb
- patterns in relationships that keep repeating
- a sense of being on edge, even when things are okay
Often there’s a quiet feeling underneath it all — I know this doesn’t fully make sense… but it keeps happening.
What trauma can look like
Trauma can come from a single event — or from experiences that built up over time. Overwhelming or frightening moments, ongoing stress or unpredictability, or relational experiences where something important was missing or never quite felt safe.
The impact often shows up in the present — as anxiety or hypervigilance, emotional overwhelm or shutdown, or difficulty feeling settled, connected, or at ease in yourself or your relationships.
This includes what’s often described as PTSD and complex PTSD — as well as trauma responses that don’t fit a neat category but are still very real in how they affect your daily life. If something happened and it’s still with you, that’s enough.
This work isn’t about pushing through
Trauma work isn’t about revisiting everything at once. In fact, going too fast can make things feel more overwhelming — and less safe.
Instead, we follow the pace that feels manageable. That usually means building awareness and stability first — developing a sense of what’s happening in your body and your experience before going anywhere difficult. We stay connected to what’s happening in real time, rather than pushing toward a particular outcome.
This creates the conditions for something to actually shift — in a way that lasts.
How I work with trauma
My approach to trauma therapy is relational, experiential, and grounded in the body. We’re not just talking about the past — we’re working with how it’s showing up now, in your reactions, your relationships, and your nervous system.
Depending on what comes up, we might work with:
- EMDR therapy — an evidence-based approach for processing specific experiences that feel stuck, widely used for PTSD and complex PTSD
- Somatic awareness — tracking how trauma lives in the body and what it’s still holding
- Present-moment exploration — paying attention to what’s happening between us as we talk, which can itself be part of the healing
- Dreams and nightmares — trauma often shows up at night. If that’s part of your experience, we can work with it directly — not to interpret in a fixed way, but to listen to what it might be carrying that hasn’t found words yet
Being trauma-informed isn’t really about a model or a set of techniques. It’s about how we pace the work — approaching difficult material in small enough doses that your system can stay present rather than shut down or get flooded. We touch in, and we move away. We build your nervous system’s trust that it won’t be overwhelmed before we go anywhere difficult. That’s what actually allows something to shift.
If you’d like to explore some of this before booking, the free Name It to Tame It anxiety course covers foundational skills for working with the nervous system responses that often accompany trauma. The Clearing a Space workshop with Angela Cara ($20) is also a gentle recorded introduction to the kind of body-based, present-moment awareness we draw on in trauma work.
What begins to change
As the work unfolds, people often notice:
- less reactivity to the things that used to trigger them
- more ability to stay present — in their body, in relationships, in daily life
- a greater sense of safety in themselves and with others
- more choice in how they respond, rather than just reacting
These shifts tend to happen gradually — and in a way that lasts.
You might also find this article useful: Trauma and Time Travel — why trauma pulls you back to the past and how therapy helps.
Support for First Responders + Emergency Workers
First responder work involves a particular kind of occupational exposure — not always a single critical incident, but often the cumulative weight of what you’ve witnessed, responded to, and carried on behalf of others over years. Operational stress injuries don’t always announce themselves. More often they show up gradually — in sleep, in relationships, in a growing sense of distance from things that used to feel normal.
In first responder culture the term Post-Traumatic Stress Injury (PTSI) is increasingly preferred over PTSD — and for good reason. “Injury” acknowledges that what you’re experiencing is a natural consequence of the work, not a personal disorder or weakness. Like any occupational injury, it can be treated and recovered from. That framing matters.
The culture of first responder work makes it harder, not easier, to address this. The expectation is to push through. Reaching out can feel like admitting something others on the job haven’t had to admit. That’s a real barrier — and it’s worth naming.
My 10 years with Squamish Search and Rescue gave me a real sense of what this world involves — the culture, the demands, the way critical incidents sit differently than other kinds of difficult experiences. If this is part of your world, you won’t need to filter what you share or explain the context. I’ll understand what you’re talking about.
I work with:
➜ First responders — police, fire, paramedics, search and rescue, emergency dispatchers
➜ Emergency room and frontline medical staff
➜ People in high-exposure occupational roles carrying cumulative operational stress
➜ Those navigating the identity shift of transitioning out of first responder roles
➜ Critical incident stress that hasn’t resolved on its own
➜ Moral injury — the particular weight of situations where there was no good option
EMDR and body-based approaches work particularly well with operational stress injuries — they don’t require you to talk through everything in detail, and they work with how stress is actually held in the body and nervous system rather than just talking about it.
I’m listed as an occupationally aware provider on the First Responder Health directory — a resource specifically for first responders seeking healthcare providers who understand their occupational world.
When you are ready
If something here resonates, you’re welcome to reach out — whether you’re ready to book or just want to get a sense of whether this might be a good fit.
You can book a session directly, or start with a free 15-minute phone consultation — no commitment required.
I see clients in-person in Squamish and also welcome clients from Whistler, Pemberton, the Sea to Sky Corridor — and if you’re elsewhere in BC, or your prefer, online sessions are also available.