Kristen Bailey Counselling (She/Her)

I am an Integrated counsellor, which means I draw upon different modalities in my work. I have leanings toward Humanistic Therapy, which supports compassionate processing and understanding of people's life stories, trauma and pain with Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). ACT is also compassionate, but blends in more psychoeducation and tools in managing difficult thoughts, feelings and behaviors and getting clear about what is truly important to you that your current struggles are getting in the way of you doing. I value acceptance in this work because from my both my own experience of struggling with mental health and my work with clients. People come to therapy out of wanting to feel differently or be different- which is completely understandable. However, what truly pushes people forward is acceptance- acceptance of what comes in their mind and the way they feel, acceptance of what has happened and how this has impacted them. It is a common misconception that acceptance means it is true or that you have given up, but it actually just means you drop the struggle which frees us us up to be in the moment and allow things to be as they are and have been, Non acceptance is what leads to stress and suffering. Reflection and intention - one of the most powerful parts about therapy is its ability to foster and encourage reflection - when we honestly reflect (not just criticise ourselves or vent) we are giving ourselves the opportunity to make meaningful changes, if we do not take the time to do this, we wont notice when we are changing or notice when we are not acting in accordance to our true values. this takes us out of autopilot, it can feel really hard and sticky to change, but when we can honestly reflect and then take that reflection into intention then we are paving the way for change. Compassion- compassion for one's self is where i meet the most resistance - people are afraid that if they are compassionate to themselves they wont change, or they feel they do not deserve it - but compassion is where healing grows. If we continue to only take a critical stance toward ourselves then we are essentially being the purely punitive "parent" and that is shown time and time again to not be the way to help growth. When we can look at our own story and how it has impacted us and have compassion for why we have developed in certain ways then we can change in the most meaningful way.