​

Intro

 

Hi, I’m Viktoriya.

My guiding principle and deepest desire in counselling therapy is the creation of safety in our relationship. More than any technique I can use, my hope is that you feel deeply understood and seen in our interactions. This is the basis of our work together.

 

Training

I hold a Masters of Counselling Psychology from UBC, and am a Registered Clinical Counsellor (RCC - registration number: 15781) in good standing with the British Columbia Association of Clinical Counsellors. For the last decade, I have worked in various mental health programs across Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH) and Fraser Health including adult and family therapy, crisis intervention, group-based programs, and residential care. I have training in EFFT (Emotionally-Focused Family Therapy), EFT (Emotionally Focused Therapy), DBT (Dialectical Behavioural Therapy) and Crisis Intervention. In order to help folks in the process of healing from trauma, I am trained in EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Therapy) and FFTT (Forward-Facing Trauma Therapy).

 

I believe therapists should be life-long learners as well as engaged in their own work and therapy. I am committed to pursuing ongoing training to enhance my knowledge and technique, especially around areas of trauma and recovery. I regularly engage in personal individual and group therapy and tie these experiences into my work.
 

Modalities

I work with people from all areas and stages of life who want their lives to look different from their current reality. I draw from systemic approaches (meaning we’ll likely talk about you in relation to your family, community and society as a whole); from Emotion-Focused Therapy (helping you identify, process, and cope with difficult emotions, or emotions you were not “allowed to have” as a child), and Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT, which can help shift your thinking, target distress tolerance, and build a life worth living). As every human is unique and our difficulties arise from various factors, I aim to tie in principles and theory from various roots in a way that I believe makes sense for you personally. Most importantly, I am a Trauma-Informed Therapist and heavily rely on the principles of empowerment and choice in my work.

​

Areas of Practise

 

Please click here to read more about the types of issues I can help you with.

​

Other

 

Combining my knowledge of psychotherapy with my background in Martial Arts, I also teach empowerment-based self-defence seminars and run groups for survivors of assault and violence. For more about my self-defence work, click here.