First Responder & Veteran Counselling
There are things you see, hear, and experience in service that can be difficult to explain to people outside of it.
Sometimes it’s one call, deployment, incident, or loss that sticks with you. More often, it’s years of exposure…the things you’ve seen, the responsibility you’ve carried, the sleep you’ve missed, and the expectation that you’ll deal with it and keep going.
Eventually, some of it can follow you home.
My Approach
I’m a Canadian Armed Forces veteran, former military Pharmacy Officer, and Platoon Commander. I’ve also spent much of my career working in healthcare. While my experiences may be different from yours, I understand service culture, rank, responsibility, dark humour, high expectations, and the habit of getting the job done even when things aren’t particularly okay.
You don’t need to spend the first three sessions explaining the culture to me.
My approach is practical and straightforward. We can work on the things affecting you now…sleep, anxiety, anger, relationships, work, or feeling constantly on edge, while also making room for experiences from the past that may still be showing up in your life.
Things We Might Work On
First responders, military members, veterans, and public safety professionals come to counselling for many reasons, including:
Operational and cumulative stress
Trauma and post-traumatic stress
Anxiety and depression
Sleep difficulties and feeling constantly on alert
Anger, irritability, and emotional regulation
Grief and cumulative loss
Moral injury
Relationship and family challenges
Burnout and exhaustion
Critical incidents
Identity and purpose outside of the job
Transitioning out of military or emergency service
Learning how to actually switch off when the shift is over
What to Expect
You don’t have to wait for a crisis or a diagnosis to come to counselling.
Maybe something happened recently and you know you need to deal with it. Maybe your partner has been telling you for months that you’re different. Maybe you’re sleeping terribly, avoiding things you used to enjoy, losing your patience more easily, or realizing that years of putting things in a box isn’t working quite as well as it used to.
We’ll start with what’s happening now. From there, we can decide together what needs attention and what you want life to look like outside of simply getting through the day.
Ready to Get Started?
You don’t need to have a perfectly articulated reason for coming in.
If something isn’t working anymore, that’s enough of a place to start.