Mikaela Dahlman, RCC, C-AAIS

Feeling anxious, overwhelmed, disconnected, or stuck in patterns within yourself or your relationships can make it difficult to know where to begin. Mikaela supports young adults, adults, and families navigating anxiety, depression, trauma, attachment and relationship concerns, family conflict, self-esteem, emotional regulation, and significant life transitions. Her work focuses on helping clients better understand themselves, feel more grounded, strengthen their relationships, and move toward meaningful and lasting change.

One of the most distinctive aspects of Mikaela’s practice is her specialization in animal-assisted therapy and the therapeutic human-animal bond. For clients who feel a strong connection with animals, incorporating a therapy dog into counselling can offer another pathway toward safety, grounding, trust, emotional regulation, and connection. Mikaela is especially interested in the ways animals can support clients who have experienced trauma, attachment difficulties, anxiety, or challenges feeling safe and connected within relationships.

Mikaela brings warmth, authenticity, curiosity, and humour into the counselling relationship. Her approach is trauma-informed, person-centred, relational, and strengths-based. She believes meaningful therapy begins by creating a space where people can feel genuinely understood rather than judged, rushed, or expected to become someone they are not.

Rather than using a one-size-fits-all approach, Mikaela works collaboratively with each client. She draws from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Solution-Focused Therapy, Family Systems Therapy, Attachment Theory, mindfulness, and somatic approaches. These approaches can help clients understand patterns, regulate difficult emotions, develop greater psychological flexibility, strengthen relationships, and find practical ways of responding to life’s challenges that align with their values.

Mikaela holds an interdisciplinary master’s degree in Clinical Counselling and Human-Animal Interactions from Prescott College and is a Certified Animal-Assisted Intervention Specialist (C-AAIS). Her Registered Clinical Counsellor (RCC) registration is currently pending. Her passion for the human-animal bond also extends into her future research. Mikaela will begin doctoral studies in 2027 exploring the role of therapy dogs as potential attachment figures within counselling relationships, an area that brings together her interests in attachment, trauma, relational healing, and animal-assisted therapy.

At the heart of Mikaela’s work is the belief that healing does not have to happen alone. Through compassionate connection, increased self-understanding, practical strategies, and, when appropriate, the supportive presence of a therapy dog, Mikaela helps clients build greater trust in themselves and create relationships and lives that feel safer, more connected, and more authentic.