Cancer Care/Survivorship Counselling

Being diagnosed with cancer, receiving medical treatment and adjusting to your life is as challenging emotionally as it is physically. The experience of cancer interrupts our life flow on a physical, emotional, psychological and spiritual level.

You are not alone. Most people have to revision their life and adjust to a new sense of self.

Do you wonder about, experience or struggle with:

• Loss of your old self, your old life 
• Feeling as if you have lost a sense of control
• Changes in your day-to-day living patterns
• Experiences of depression, anxiety and stress
• Coping with changes ans such debilitating conditions in your body as fatigue
• Feeling isolated and estranged from family and friends
• Living with ongoing fears, especially the fear of reoccurrence
• Challenges of career changes and financial changes
• Finding it difficult to communicate to your partner, friends or co-workers

Counselling and recovery for individuals

Although medical treatment may be over, the shadow of cancer continues to impact survivors and their families for months, even years.

Are you wondering if your life will ever get back to normal? How long will it take? Healing involves courage, commitment, faith, self compassion and time. No two journeys are the same, but the themes of survivorship are shared by many people. Recovery is the next step and is centered on helping you to heal challenges of cancer and create a new life vision that has wellness and fulfillment at its centre.

Individual or group counselling with me will help you...

• learn to be an active participant in creating your own wellness plan
• know that counseling, art therapy and group therapy are effective ways to help you feel the way you want to feel and create the life you deserve
• bring control back into your life by learning how to respond and not react to how cancer has impacted you
• learn how to trust your intuitive healer and make the right decisions for yourself
• recognize the link between your beliefs about healing and wellness and the choices you make
• increase your connections with friends/survivor pod members that know how to support you and that truly GET IT!
• develop a new connection with your physical self by learning how to sense your body and increase your body-mind awareness
• adjust to your "new normal" and shift from old self/old life to new self/new life.

Survivor Pods

The intention of this group is to create small survivor families. Pods are formed with 4-6 people living with survivorship issues. The aim is to create small support networks that  sustain themselves within the larger cancer community. Members receive individual and group counseling and also support one another. Group durations and times vary according to the needs of the group.

Serious life threatening experiences can be traumatic and they can also be life transforming. Learn how to name and express the emotions you have experienced in treatment and recovery. Most survivors often experience fear, uncertainty, depression, confusion, quilt, grief, anger, gratitude, love, and out-of-body experiences. Learn communication skills so that you can say what you need to say to get the right type of support. Learn to develop new boundaries so that you can take care of yourself, and not take on the roles family and friends want you to play. Address and explore how your spiritual or religious beliefs assist you in your recovery.

Counselling for caretakers and family members

Are you overwhelmed or burnt-out with care giving?
Do you need to express your concerns without the worry of upsetting the family member diagnosed with cancer?
Do you just want to have the space to explore how your life has changed? Caretakers often experience the following. YOU ARE NOT ALONE!

• Depression, physical and emotional exhaustion
• Emotional experiences such as helplessness, anxiety, feeling overwhelmed or guilty
• Ongoing stress, which often decreases physical and emotional well-being
• Ignoring or suppressing emotions or thoughts that may impact the patient/survivor

Counselling for caretakers or family members provides:

• Skills and techniques that help you to develop new ways to cope with ongoing stress and the unknown outcome of medical treatment.
• The ability to express your feelings freely without the need to protect or burden the patient
• New strategies to re-balance the care for self and the care for the patient/survivor.
• A safe relationship through which you will be able to express and learn about grief, mourning and bereavement. The counseling process creates a vision map that assures you and your family’s ability to walk into and through a healing journey together.