Existential Therapy

Kristel uses empathic positive regard and therapeutic support to better understand your world and the changes you wish to make. You are your own best authority on your life and what you need. Existential therapy does not shy away from the big questions surrounding topics of life, death, isolation, meaning, and purpose.

Kristel offers intuitive reflection and supportive engagement with these issues while also giving space for practical coping skills and ways to resource and empower during change.

Mindfulness

Drawing on the wisdom and evidence-based strategies of Jon Kabat-Zinn’s Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction (MBSR), Kristel often incorporates these techniques into her work with clients. The mindfulness practices help ground a client to the present moment with gentle focus on the breath, helping to cultivate a nonjudgemental awareness to their present state.

Becoming curious to our inner world in a moment of reflection, mindfulness strategies can enrich a deeper understanding of our experiences.

Trauma-Informed

Kristel believes in approaching her counseling work through a compassionate trauma-informed lens which means seeing the individual as a whole person and taking into account past traumas and the resulting coping mechanisms. Trauma-informed care means remaining sensitive to another’s experience and the resulting behavior/s, even if that behavior seems counter-intuitive to what one would expect.

Kristel strives to offer an environment of safety, autonomy and choices for the client, and empowerment in their therapeutic process.

As a white, cis-gender female therapist, it is Kristel’s responsibility to constantly check her privileges and to educate herself how systemic racism, mircoaggressions, and social injustices are constantly perpetuated against BIPOC, multicultural individuals, and LGBTQAI+ folks.

Oppression is real. Intergenerational trauma is real. Racism is real.