Men's Counselling & Therapy

One of my passions is working with men who are seeking to improve their mental health. I'm here to help you face emotional and relationship challenges so you can overcome what's holding you back and find ways to move forward. 

Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) is a primary therapeutic approach in my counselling practice. EFT is an evidence-based therapy used with couples, families, and individuals. I find EFT is ideally suited for men who want to: 

• Face emotional and relationship issues and overcome what's holding you back
• Understand how negative cycles of coping can keep you stuck in mental health difficulties and hinder your growth
• Build psychological, social, and moral strengths 
• Make sense of your past relationships and what your relationships taught you about how to be a man and how to deal with your emotions
• Expand your capacities to relate with yourself and others

You can learn more about Emotionally Focused Therapy for individuals here. 

Many of our greatest challenges are psychological, social, and moral challenges. These are the mental barriers, the psychological battles, and the emotional struggles we face in our own mind. These are the relationship conflicts and social divisions we face with our loved ones and our communities. These are the moral dilemmas and ethical difficulties we face across various domains. 

Facing these challenges is difficult and uncomfortable, but incredibly worthwhile. Because there is great potential for positive change and growth when we work through psychological, social, and moral challenges. When we engage in this difficult work, it produces internal growth that builds our psychological, social, and moral strengths. And as we grow our internal strengths, this empowers us with greater abilities to engage in positive actions that increase wellbeing for ourselves and others. 

Our mental health and psychological maturity is also greatly determined by how we deal with emotional challenges. Emotional avoidance is a core feature in many mental health issues — including depression, anxiety, and PTSD — whereas emotional acceptance is a core feature of mental health and vitality. Modern neuroscience and psychology has identified core emotional systems we have as human beings, which include: 

• Fear
• Anger
• Sadness 
• Shame
• Joy
• Excitement
• Sexual excitement 

We don't get to choose whether or not we have emotions. We only get to choose how we respond to our emotions. Because as human beings, we're hardwired with these core emotions.  

Emotions are powerful internal forces. Emotions can take us down into dark places when they overpower us. And reactive behaviours can cause damage to ourselves or others when we lose control of our emotions. No wonder many of us are taught to ignore and stay away from emotions.

The trouble is the more we avoid our emotions, the more power and control they actually have over us because they continue operating and influencing us internally—outside of our awareness. No matter how hard we might try, we can't actually escape our emotions, even when we ignore and suppress them. And the more we ignore and suppress our emotions, the more they have a powerful "rebound effect" when they finally build up to the point of blowing up.  

The solution to emotional avoidance is building our emotional strengths. This involves directly facing our emotions, accepting that emotions are a part of our human make-up, and growing our internal strengths for emotional awareness and regulation. Engaging in this process supports us in dealing with our emotions in ways that increase our wellbeing and growth.

Building our psychological, social, and moral strengths supports us in growing a flexible, multidimensional mind. This is very beneficial because it gives us a broader range of internal strengths and capacities that can empower us to: 

• Focus ambitions, hard work, and productivity towards higher values and aims.
• Control short-term impulsivity and regulate strong emotions (without emotionally numbing) so we can stay on track with higher long-term goals. 
• Control and channel anger in healthy ways towards being assertive and self-controlled.
• Push ourselves to grow by intentionally facing our fears and confronting challenges that expand our limits. 
• Bring compassion, acceptance, and understanding to ourselves and others.
• Face losses and setbacks while allowing ourselves to emotionally grieve and move forward (without avoiding our feelings).
• Take steps to be emotionally real and honest with close friends and family so we can build stronger relationships. 
• Build capacities to overcome social isolation and avoidance, and engage in secure emotional bonding with close family and friends. 
• Directly deal with conflicts and disagreements in ways that promote mutual respect, empathy, and understanding. 
• Develop a clear vision of personal moral values and organize our activities around higher moral aims.

• Building capacities to control impulses and regulate strong emotions without resorting to numbing and shutting down emotions
• Addressing psychological defenses of emotional avoidance and constriction 
• Overcoming social isolation by learning to trust and open up to others
• Learning how to engage in secure emotional bonding with close family and friends
• Building capacities for directly dealing with conflicts and disagreements in ways that promote mutual respect, empathy, and understanding
• Accepting emotions and learning to be more emotionally real and honest 
• Developing compassion, acceptance, and understanding for self and others
• Learning to express healthy anger and assertiveness instead of out-of-control anger and aggression
• Growing an internal sense of healthy pride, humility, and self-esteem
• Building strengths of mental resilience, toughness, and perservence
• Clarifying personal values and living with purpose and moral integrity 
• Developing a clear vision of personal moral values and organizing activities around higher moral aims
• Discovering and staying engaged with something greater than ourselves to expand our sense of meaning and purpose