All of us will go through crises. It is a matter of when, not if.
Examples of this are getting a new health diagnosis, losing a loved one, relocating your home, experiencing a trauma, career loss, a change in your sense of identity, the end of a relationship, financial issues, and feeling like you just can't cope.
Counselling can be a good short-term support for crisis, and can help you plan to move towards solutions.
If you are a First Nations person, you may be entitled to free counselling for crisis, provided by the First Nations Health Authority. A counsellor like myself can support you for 20 weeks fully funded, and can increase your sense of stability and connection to other resources, should you need them. This benefit can also be a stop-gap service, if you are in between one service ending, and are waiting for longer-term support.
Contacts me for more information about working with crisis, and any questions about benefit eligibility.

Anger is a universal emotion, designed to give us much-needed information. There are many helpful ways to think about this common emotion; one stands out to me today. Facilitating a support group whose focus was 'Exploring Anger’ last Fall, we discussed how anger can be an indication that one of your boundaries is being tested or violated.

Are you feeling anger (or it’s other faces: frustration, resentment, and hatred)?

What events have preceded the feeling? How does the anger feel? Where is it? What does it tell you about your needs? If the anger wants something, is that thing a boundary? Is the boundary within yourself, or within a relationship with someone else?

If you have taken an action, like setting a boundary, check back in with yourself. How do you feel now?

Our mentors, by definition, are a great influence on us. Some of us have a natural mentor in a parent or a relative. If we’re additionally lucky, we can follow the teachings of these elders for many years.
As life treads on, we more actively discern who it is that we want to emulate.
 
Recently I sat in a circle with three of my mentors and another therapist, all clinicians like myself.  We met with the goal of receiving clinical supervision from a clinician with whom we had a standing monthly meeting.
 
The supervision tradition in counselling psychology is an old one. Jeffrey K. Edwards locates the origins of clinical supervision in the field of medicine, and later the progenitor of all psychological therapy: psychoanalysis (2013). A truth in our field is that all things are worthy of exploration, including, and of great ethical importance, the practitioner’s work.
 
Counsellors creatively provide care, respect, and guidance to our clients, and what this looks like varies widely. We all benefit from another person’s impression of how we can improve or continue to do what we’re doing. To this end, bound by the stringent guidelines for privacy and confidentiality, therapists meet with an elder in the field and we talk.
 
Sitting together, the topic of fantasy arose. A fellow therapist voiced confusion about how to support her client, knowing that there was a facet of this client’s life which he was unable to acknowledge. The practitioner felt challenged; she had brought up what she thought was an important point that would benefit him; he didn’t see it. So should she just ‘let it go’? Isn’t it important to see our clients’ lives through their eyes alone? Why should she feel the need to convince this man of anything? But she was unsure of how to proceed, having the intuition that her client, for whom she cared deeply, could be postponing the wellness he desperately craved.
 
Our supervisor’s feedback on this quandary was so simple it makes me chuckle.
‘It is a fantasy. He’s living in a fantasy, and this fantasy is what will keep him unhappy and hurting. You must pop the bubble!’ Do it nicely, she added.
 
I thought about all the clients I have met over the years, some of the pieces of their lives which were very hard to identify, to name, and to face. How diligent my attempts to create an environment of safety to encourage these revelations. And it landed on me like a pile of bricks: we all do this! That day alone I had probably retreated into incorrect ‘fantasies’ about my life four or five times! Oh my.
 
Let me clarify that fantasies are negative and positive and anything in-between. They are simply a divergence from reality. Speaking for myself, I have a huge range of fantasies; from getting everything I want from life to possible catastrophes. The less-familiar position of this binary, the negative fantasy, can have such a great impact on our behaviour that practitioners of Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy (CBT) work with these beliefs almost exclusively. For example, if I believe I am uninteresting and therefor will never have a close friend, this is a negative fantasy about who I am and what the future holds. If you have ever felt that way, or currently do, you know that the stakes are high when negative fantasies are concerned. If I believe this about myself I may retreat, or become unsure when I’m shown normal social behaviour.
 
Another fantasy that some of us may relate to is Melvin Lerner’s ‘Just World’ (1980). If I am good, do good things, and live correctly, good things will happen to me. Same as for others. This, however, is a fantasy. Bad things do happen to good people, the evidence for which is a click away, on the sidewalk, or in the mirror, you name it.
 
We all often think in fantasy, and we are completely unaware. It is not usually of our choosing, we think it is reality, that is arguably the reason our fantasies stubbornly persist. And yet, life can burst our bubbles, other people can point out our blind spots, and we can seek to know this part of ourselves through self-reflection or working with a counsellor.
 
I encourage you to take this for granted, rather than calling it an illness or pathologising it. The point is that we cannot ‘know’ everything, ever, life is not like this. However for my clinical practice and my own personal work, I have found a richness in this way of reflecting on what’s actually going on. I want to help my clients to burst bubbles that are keeping them in cycles that they ultimately want to exit. Or that make people other than themselves the authors of their lives. I want to burst my bubbles that have me preoccupied with living in the way I think I ‘should’ be living, instead of reveling in the reality of what is happening now.
 
A quote from John Kabat-Zinn: “This is it.” Right now is my life. This realization immediately gives rise to a number of vital questions: “What is my relationship to my own life going to be?”
 
So you see, a relatively short conversation with this clinical mentor has permeated my world-view and impacted me professionally and personally. I’m appreciative of how my mentors and I have found each other, and the sweetness of each of these relationships. As I write this I look forward to connecting with a new mentor in the coming weeks and beyond. I have begun learning from a Haida elder, and I wonder how I will reciprocate some of what she is gifting me.
 
Dropping out of fantasy and into reality doesn’t have to shatter us, although none of us can avoid pain (a good fantasy to demolish). Notice what is 100% factual about your experience, and then notice what else is left. Be gentle with yourself as you do this work; you can try something creative like joking or singing your fantasies away. Suerte!




Edwards, J. K, (2013). Strengths-Based Supervision in Clinical Practice. Sage: New York.
Lerner (1980). The Belief in a Just World: A Fundamental Delusion. Plenum: New York.

See the posters below for information regarding a series of talks featuring myself, Tracy Porteous and Paniz Khosroshahy.

1. Acknowledge your loved one's feelings, whatever they are, and do the same for you. If they are scared and feeling alone, name those emotions. When you can, reflect on your own emotional response. Refrain from sharing this right away with the survivor, unless you're sure it will increase how connected they feel to you.

2. Slow down. Rushing into problem-solving mode and suggestions can increase anxiety for a survivor and for you. If you have suggestions as to what to do, especially really important timely steps such as seeking medical help, make your suggestions in a calm manner, once your loved one has finished sharing.

3. Think about consent as you support your loved one. What they have survived may be creating a narrative in their mind about how little choice or power they have. Supporting them after assault ideally means providing them with as much choice as possible. Ask, rather than suggest, steps. Also take note of your choices in supporting them. What can you take on? If you yourself are a trauma-survivor, or are dealing with a heavy load in life, make sure you're consenting to the help you're trying to offer.

4. Emphasise self-care, for yourself and for your loved one. A large part of recovery is dependent on the types of choices that can be made around wellness. What's realistic for them? Calling a crisis line once a day? Seeing a counsellor? Having an extra-long shower after the kids are asleep? Whatever helps a person to feel calm and soothed is responding to the body's nervous system and is very positive for long-term healing. And for you too, what can you do to increase your feeling of resiliency?

Note: If an assault has been recent, funding for counselling and some personal items may be available from the Ministry of Justice. Ask me about how to access this program.

I hope some of these suggestions help you to feel equipped to be a caring and respectful helper. Remember, if you burn out you simply cannot help anyone (and if you do, self-care, self-care, self-care!).

Please take the word 'should' in the title loosely. I do not believe in telling trauma-survivors what they should do. However, when it comes to suffering in silence I have a strong opinion; don't do it.

Coming out about my sexual assault in a national campaign, #ShoutOut4Survivors, has had me thinking a lot about survivorship and all the twists and turns I experienced after my rape. In particular, I've been re-experiencing the time I told one of my best friends that a man I was dating had raped me a week before.

Like so many people I too carry the visceral knowledge of what it is to have survived rape. I have experienced countless incidences of gendered violence in my lifetime. I see it everywhere, and yes, I talk about it every day.

I continued to date my rapist after the assault. I was young and woefully ignorant of the realities of rape: I thought a rapist was a stranger, I thought a rapist was someone I would never date. I thought a rape was something horrifically physically violent and you'd know it happened because you'd be covered in injuries. When I was 18 and this man raped me, I had no idea that the myths of rape listed above would paralyse me from action. In my paralysis I became ashamed, self-blaming, and alone.

It wasn't long before the pain and dissonance of this got me away from him. It was very jarring on all levels, I was in a state of shock about who he was, who I was, what life was about. I felt deeply scarred and humiliated. My body felt strange, I had uncomfortable sensations often, which I know now are anxiety.

and were THERE. I see now from media coverage of rape cases, and from the social alienation some of my clients face that support systems are not always adequate to provide the caring response that I received.

When I spoke to Charmaine de Silva on the Simi Sara show last week I wanted to show how imp0rtant it is to know the realities of rape. Our communities need to know what's really going on in order to both prevent and respond to sexual assault.

First: most of us know our rapist. It's our dad, our husband, our brother, or our friend. Knowing the person often entails have feelings for them that are not straightforward, which  causes immense difficulty in processing the reality of what happened.

Secondly: most of us go into survival mode during the assault and don't realise it. The most common survival response is not fighting back, and dissociating in some way from your body. Our bodies and minds act in ways that are not guided by our thinking or intentional action: this is the neurobiological reality of much trauma. It's after the fact, sometimes years later, that we piece together how survival kept us safe during the rape.

Thirdly: a huge proportion of rape and sexual assault is drug-facilitated. Rapists and molesters know that alcohol, some prescription drugs, and illicit drugs make it easier to control another person's body. They use this to their advantage.

Fourth: survivors experience a vast and endlessly diverse set of reactions after rape. Rape Trauma Syndrome describes this well. There is a lot of self-blame, a lot of chaotic feelings, confusion, or in some cases no feeling at all. In some cases survivors minimise what happened and question if it was consensual sex or not. This is all healthy and normal. It's rape. Things that are this horrific cause intense disruption.

When my boss asked me to be part of Faces of Courage #ShoutOut4Change I had mixed feelings: fear, excitement, responsibility, joy, curiosity, and the list goes on. What would happen if my trauma history was known to more people?

What has happened since I've come out? Two people in my life have come out publicly as survivors. Two people who told no one. It takes my breath away. I've gotten to thank the friends who heard me back when I was a teenager. I've gotten to open up about my survivorship to friends and family who didn't know, allowing them to understand me better and know more parts of who I am. And perhaps most importantly, I have had a larger arena in which to address the realities of rape.

The greatest gift that I've received from being part of this campaign? I see that I am resilient! I am capable of healing, year after year, in new and beautiful ways. If this campaign is any indication of what is to come, I have more love, respect, care, education, empowerment, and support to look forward to.

This is why you should come out about sexual assault. Pick the person well, maybe it's someone like me who works in the victim service's sector and knows how to provide the kind of care, respect, empowerment, love, education and support survivors deserve. Maybe you have a safe person to tell in your support network. Whoever it is, I want you to know that there is so much healing you can look forward to, especially if you have help. This has been my experience.

Sometimes certain themes come up in my life, one that has recently repeated is the theme of the relationship between 'who I am and who others think I am.' In particular, how other peoples' behaviour influences the receiving person's identity.

When we think about the type of person we are, we often use our name, our gender, our age, our profession, who our family is, and we name our geographical location. We say if we're partnered or not, parenting or not, where we went to school (or dropped out), how we relax and recreate, maybe the purpose we've identified for our life. Our greatest challenge. We talk about values, dreams, longings, nightmares. Identity is dynamic, layered and rich. Totally subjective, which is part of the intensity of the human experience.

I encounter wonderful people. Each one of my clients is a unique treasure, a being whose world I get to enter for a time. I have noticed that some of my clients experience a low-level suffering in their daily lives, which undermines their decision-making, their empowerment, their self-love, and their identity. I want to name this as 'taking how you're treated as a reflection of who you are.'

A fictional vignette: A young woman, widely skilled and educated, cannot find full-time work. She goes to WorkBC religiously for employment counselling, she wakes up every morning at 6 am to exercise and go online to apply for jobs. This goes on for six months, and she is called for interviews, but is not offered a position. The woman is frustrated, impatient, and frankly feels like she is going crazy. She has no savings, and is living in credit. She's afraid she won't make ends meet ever again.

After the sixth month of this hamster-wheel she starts to believe she isn't hirable. No one is hiring her. Other people have jobs. There is something wrong with her approach, and it is all she can do to continue applying for jobs. She walks around her community feeling vulnerable, as if people can tell her bad she is inside.

The world can be hard as hell. We have experiences which are very challenging to survive. And often there is an emotional impact when we're pushed to our edges. The woman above started feeling bad about who she is as a person, because the mirror the world seems to be showing her is that she is incompetent. But the truth is, she's not.

In this woman's case, she is living in an area where the labour economy is insufficient ot meet her needs.

Has this happened in your lifetime? Whether it is your sense of the world, or how people close to you behave towards you, has your identity been impacted by how you're treated?

What profound challenges you have with decision-making, empowerment, self-love and identity, and how have those challenges been informed by what's going on around you

What qualities about you can you identify that come from inside you instead?