Our Counselling Services
The team at Counselling Psychology Group brings decades of collective experience providing counselling and therapy for a wide range of areas ranging from anxieties and OCD, to depression and grief, separation or divorce, as well as child and youth challenges.
We can provide tailored counselling to individuals or families, adults or children.
​
We offer individual therapist or co-therapy (male+female team) options.
Visit us in-person in our Langley-based clinic,
or securely online from the comfort of your own home.
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) Therapies
OCD rituals temporarily help one feel in control – and yet, this is where the ‘disorder’ part of an Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder becomes most evident.
Response rituals can help you feel temporarily, ‘sort of’ okay – but you know that you are really not. OCD rituals are part of the disorder than imprisons you, and the compulsions consume huge amounts of your time and energy… just to keep going.
OCD often responds to interventions, including exposures or ERP (Exposure and Response Prevention) modalities and routines.
The types of OCD that we have worked on includes: trichotillomania (hair-pulling), contamination phobias, claustrophobia, hypochondria, scrupulosity (OCD for religious or moral obsessions) and several others.
Individual and group-therapy is available.
Individual Counselling
Individuals often benefit from discussing their issues and receive life coaching, guidance, and support from a therapist. Sometimes individuals want to see what can be done to purge some of the effects of childhood trauma – to let-go and be open to recovery, and learn about the options available for better problem-solving.
Sometimes there is value in challenging the ‘concept of self’ that emerged in childhood. Some of our clients have had suffered from a litany of emotional, physical or sexual abuse as children. Some have grown up in an emotional ‘wasteland’ of neglect – some carry great sadness and profound grief about a tremendous absence of care from incompetent parents.
Much of this is carried quietly, yet significantly, as heavy emotional baggage that affects adult functioning and tarnishes relationships. Some of our work in this realm is directed at resolving that past grief and coming to terms with the idea of being much more involved in creating an ‘okay’ you - someone that you like and love. The transitional journey seems to be from; being a helpless victim, to learning how to just survive; to eventually rebuilding your sense of self as a person of value and also deserving of care and respect.
Individual counselling acts to increase a person’s self-awareness, encourages self-exploration, identifies boundaries that need to be respected, enhances communication skills and coping skills. These benefits act to shift a person’s feelings of personal empowerment.
Anxiety Management
Stress and excessive anxiety are a mind/body phenomenon. It affects all of us. High anxiety leads us to feel out of control, and to affect one’s belief in being able to think things through and solve problems.
Excessive and debilitating anxiety is open to treatment, most commonly using Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT). We are all individuals who are composed interactively of what we think, feel and do. Stress and anxiety can affect all of those modes of you; and be a significant barrier to how you want to live your life. In addition to learning CBT strategies to diminish your anxiety, we focus on other active responses to it, to help you feel more in charge.
It is often useful to learn Stress Management and Relaxation Training techniques. Some of us have up to 40 years of experience in this area. This is one more tool for you to use, and a handout/resource sheet is available, simply by asking.
A traumatic event such as a motor vehicle accident (MVA) or other event that is perceived as possibly life-threatening can leave an individual experiencing Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). It can leave one in a hyper-vigilant state, always on the look-out for anything else that might be a threat – coupled with the fears that one is unable to cope or respond adequately.
As a result of a traumatic event, a person may have fostered a mistaken conclusion about themselves – or the world in general – that continues to trip them up. Therapy is directed toward helping individuals get back in control and to function with less fear.
ICBC supports counselling for accident trauma.
Health Anxiety
Health anxiety on its own is recognized as a significant problem to those who suffer from it. Hyper-vigilance about any possible symptom (a twinge, an ache, etc.) and a persistent form of thinking called catastrophizing can not only amplify distress, but also lead to demands for medical test upon test or trips to ER in search for an illusive diagnosis – yet that diagnosis is often not trusted when tests find nothing significantly wrong. Hypochondria is a feature of health anxiety.
Medical Distress & Cancer
Grappling with the bigger existential questions surrounding major medical issues (needed surgeries or transplants) whether it is from a cancer diagnosis or other significant health status change – needs not be done alone. Cancer coaching is support beyond family. It is also an opportunity to sort through treatment decisions, helping you be more active in the decision-making.
Depression Management & Treatment
Depression has many forms, from shorter-term situational, to pervasive and longer lasting. Therapies for depression include pushing back against the compounding feeling of helplessness and reaching out to be heard, to have your depression recognized and your situation accepted.
Therapy often includes taking some action to push back against the grip that depression has on your life. Sometimes the starting point is accepting it as an element of your life that might be around for a while - but making a commitment to carry on with it regardless. Emotions are a fact of life, we expect them to “come for a visit” – but we don’t want some of them to move in and take up residence! This is particularly true for anxiety and depression.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapies (ACT) are effective in dealing with depression and anxiety.
Grief & Bereavement Counselling
A loss of any kind deserves to be respected. Whether it is the loss of a family member or friend or even a long-cherished pet – grief needs guidance through the journey toward being more at peace with the loss. It also requires patience. Bereavement takes time. Stages of grief can be negotiated as one doesn’t simply “get over it" but rather makes room in your heart for the loss of the companion who is no longer here. Having a roadmap of the grieving and resolution process; and being able to talk it through are both helpful and reassuring.
Separation & Divorce Counselling
Separation is a time to explore the possibilities of mediation and problem-resolution. In addition to sorting out your options, it is also a time for a reckoning about what went wrong. This is a true crisis situation and a time of change (some chosen, and some thrust upon you). There is grieving involved. There can also be growth and learning and improvement in your own self-management. We always benefit when we each take responsibility for our own part, when we own our individual mistakes, learn what we need to learn, resolve to be better, and recognize the ways in which you can grow and improve from the situation. A crisis can be a chance to change – and a chance to grow constructively.
Divorce is also a time of grieving, and the journey through it - the process, can make us stronger from deliberately dealing with the tough stuff. We have, in the past, led divorce adjustment groups for adults and for children in divorcing families. Divorce adjustment takes time, and guidance, plus work on yourself, in order to feel stronger and more resilient.
Youth & Child Counselling
Learning how to navigate the challenges and hurdles of growing up, learning how to deal with difficult parents ☺, and learning that it is okay to speak up for what you need and to speak so others can ‘get it’ or ‘get’ you, are all parts of growing up well.
Drs. Lloyd and Taylor have extensive experience with youth in care, in foster homes and group homes, and those struggling to manage in their own family or at school. Dr. Taylor has considerable experience providing support to foster parents. He also has worked with children with sexual behaviour problems in family and school settings.
Parenting Support
Parents often deal with explosive acting out or implosive withdrawal (“Whatever…”) responses from their offspring. Easier parenting (as opposed to a more stubborn, conflict-laden interaction) can be focused on recognizing what they need and want, as well as parents learning to speak up and to talk about values and expectations. There are rewards from more cooperative living. We focus on the concept that kids act the way they do because they don’t have the skills to react otherwise.
Counselling in this regard can include coaching parents to guide children and teens in dealing with the transitions toward becoming responsible and responsive young adults. Finding new ways of having parent-child conversations is often important. Focusing on the idea that we need to change, rather than you need to change, is an element of structural family therapy.
Both Dr. Taylor and Dr. Lloyd have experience with the Collaborative Parenting Model.
Also, Dr. Lloyd and Dr. Taylor have considerable working with blended families, and helping parents navigate through the challenging phases of bringing two households together.
Couples & Relationship Counselling
Anger, frustration, resentment, conflict management, communication styles, and possible constructive change - these are the things we talk about in couples counselling. Instead of withdrawing, it is far better to focus on rebuilding friendship and learning how to be better together. Cleaning out one’s own emotional closet is usually a good thing to do.
Individuals in a committed relationship can benefit from letting-go of what needs to go; and holding onto the good things that nurture resilience and forgiveness and friendliness – all good things that help build bridges and strengthen partnerships.
Dr. Lloyd has training in Emotionally-Focused Couples Therapy (EFT).
Both Dr. Taylor and Dr. Lloyd have experience with an integration of the Gottman Method into our couple’s therapies.
Chronic Pain Management Counselling
Chronic pain is the pain that persists after the physical healing is done. It might be there to stay. It is also a challenge to deal with life adjustments due to pain being chronic. Working on the psychological issues of self-management of chronic pain (anger, anxiety, depression, perception of disability) are all important issues. Work on these issues creates the potential of ‘turning down the volume’ of both emotional distress and physical discomfort.
Dr. Lloyd has had 13 years experience as a psychologist in an interdisciplinary chronic pain management program.