"Life is not a problem to be solved but rather an experiment to be lived. Let's live it with joy and as comfortably, peacefully and abundantly as we can". -shauna paynter
Canadians Finding Personal Meaning In Their Lives
We live in a country that is for the strong and the free! I am so very grateful to live here and have so many abundant opportunities available to me and my children. Not all countries allow their citizens the freedom that we have. For this am am grateful.
On a personal level, we still deal with issues that affect us deeply, whether this is generalized anxiety, divorce, loss, difficult relationships or PTST. Yes, we live in an amazing country and we are still humans that are deeply affected by our personal relationships. Working through these can take time, specific learning, dedicated practice and proper action.
Sometimes we may choose to enlist a therapist for support. Learning is part of the counselling process. New life begins to grow in our dismal places as we intentionally engage in this process of discovery.
Life is not a problem to be solved but rather an experiment to be lived. Let's live it with joy and as comfortably, peacefully and abundantly as we can.
MY APPROACH
My therapeutic approach is simple. I come from a humanistic, transpersonal perspective, where we work together to reveal and ultimately boost your own personal resources in order to grow and better your life.
I am trained in ACT, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, which is an empirically studied and evidence-based approach. It is well researched and is particularly effective with generalized anxiety disorders. How is ACT different than CBT, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy?
What Happens in an ACT Session?
The main components of ACT are psycho-education about the key mechanisms of the treatment theory, mindfulness, cognitive diffusion, and value clarification. Note: Values are different than goals.
Sessions can include the practice of mindfulness exercises designed to foster nonjudgmental, healthy awareness of thoughts, feelings, sensations, and memories that have otherwise been avoided. Once the content of your innermost experience is identified, I use discussion and cognitive exercises to help you reframe or make different sense of the narrative and then accept it as your personal experience.
Here are a few topics we cover throughout our counselling sessions:
- Educating and Practicing "how to be present".
- Opening Up, to what is (and what is not).
- Doing what matters based upon our identified values.
- Testing our barometer within and after crisis situations.
Consistency between your actions & personal values is what makes for a meaningful life.
I will help you discover incongruence and engage you in a conversation about your values and the actions that might move you closer to them. Within this, we do our best together to create forward motion. We may incorporate Expressive Art Therapy as a means of delving into our values or core issues. Having an experiential session is important for transformation and growth.
As an ACT therapist, I may assign homework to practice between sessions, such as mindfulness, cognitive behavioural techniques, or value clarification exercises. The homework is agreed upon between us and can be modified to make it as personal and useful as possible.
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shauna paynter
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