“Greetings! It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance and thank you for taking the time to visit my website.”
Based on Vancouver Island, I am a Registered Clinical Counsellor (RCC) and Certified Canadian Counsellor (CCC) dedicated to supporting the mental health and well-being of my community.
My path here brought body and mind together. I first earned a degree in Physical Therapy from Angeles University in the Philippines, then completed a Master’s Degree in Counselling Psychology from Adler University and a Certificate in Community Counselling from Vancouver Community College. That combination of physical and psychological training lets me view client care through a holistic, integrated lens.
I support individuals facing addictions, mood disorders, C/PTSD, personality disorders, ADHD, suicidality, and other mental health concerns. I specialize in assisting survivors of sexual abuse, individuals coping with grief and loss, and those processing traumatic experiences.
My practice is inclusive and welcoming — men’s health, the LGBTQQIAAP community, youth and adolescents, new immigrants, refugees, couples, and families.
How We’ll Work Together
My therapeutic approach is integrated — I draw on the methods that fit you, rather than fitting you to a single method. Approaches I integrate include:
- ACT
- Emotion-Focused Family Therapy
- Addiction Therapy
- Somatic Therapy
- CBT
- Trauma-Informed Practice
- DBT
- Depth Psychology
- Cognitive Processing Therapy
- Narrative Therapy
- Internal Family Systems (IFS)
- Couples Counselling
- Youth Counselling
- ADHD Treatment and Support
My philosophy
My philosophy is simple: you are the one steering your own therapeutic journey. My role is to build a relationship grounded in trust, openness, and honest communication — so the work we do together is truly yours.
A little about life outside the office: I find balance and inspiration in the natural beauty of the West Coast, sharing my home with my family and several cherished animal companions.
“Whenever you’re ready, I am here to walk alongside you on your path to healing and growth.”
Professional Memberships
I am a proud member of both BC’s and Canada’s leading counselling associations — membership that holds my practice to their codes of ethics, standards of practice, and continuing-competence requirements.
BCACC
Registration #19020
The British Columbia Association of Clinical Counsellors, founded in 1988, represents Registered Clinical Counsellors in BC. Registration gives the public confidence in a counsellor’s experience and qualifications — today, the association represents over 4,100 RCCs across the province.
CCPA
Member #10006346
The Canadian Counselling and Psychotherapy Association is a national, bilingual association of professionally trained counsellors, providing leadership for the profession since 1965. Its Canadian Certified Counsellor (CCC) designation marks training and standards recognized across Canada.
Education and Training
No counsellor arrives by a straight line — and I didn’t either. This is the road that brought me here: across an ocean, from the body to the mind, and then deeper, into the work I do today. Every step of it is in the room when we sit down together.
Chapter One · The Philippines
It began with the body.
Long before I ever sat in a counsellor’s chair, I was learning how people heal. At Angeles University in the Philippines, I earned my degree in Physical Therapy — years spent studying how the body carries injury, how it protects itself, and how patiently it can learn to move again.
That training never left me. It taught me that healing is rarely just physical or just mental — and that the body often knows things long before we have words for them.
“Before I had words for healing, I learned to listen with my hands.”
Chapter Two · Across the Ocean
Then the journey crossed an ocean.
Canada was a new country, a new coastline, and a new beginning. In Vancouver, I completed a Certificate in Community Counselling at Vancouver Community College — and the questions changed. It was no longer only how does the body heal? It became how do people heal — in their families, their communities, their inner lives?
Community counselling grounded me in the work as it is actually lived: close to people, close to their real circumstances, with few barriers between someone who is struggling and someone who can help.
Chapter Three · Vancouver
Then came the mind.
At Adler University, I completed my Master’s Degree in Counselling Psychology — the deep study of the mind, of relationships, and of what helps people change. Adler’s tradition holds that we heal in connection with others, and that idea sits at the centre of my practice to this day.
Put together — a physical therapist’s hands, a community counsellor’s grounding, a psychotherapist’s training — they became the holistic, integrated lens I bring to every client: body and mind, story and strength, all in the same room.
“The body keeps the questions. Counselling taught me how to help people ask them — out loud, and together.”
Chapter Four · The Specializations
The deep work.
A master’s degree was the trailhead, not the summit. Since then I have trained, deliberately and deeply, in the approaches my clients actually need — following each one down to where the hard, life-changing work happens.
Back to the body — Somatic Experiencing
The road, fittingly, circled home. As a Somatic Experiencing provider and therapist in training, I work directly with the body — where trauma is stored, and where it can move, little by little, toward resolution.
A different kind of brain — ADHD-CCSP
As a Certified ADHD Professional (ADHD-CCSP), I trained intensively in how the ADHD brain actually works — attention, motivation, and executive function — and how to turn that understanding into practical, everyday systems with clients who are 12 and up. There is a whole page on this work elsewhere on this site.
Skills for the storm — Certified DBT
Certification in Dialectical Behavior Therapy (C-DBT) gave me concrete, teachable skills for the moments when emotions run hottest: distress tolerance, emotion regulation, and the everyday practices that keep a life steadier, even in a storm.
Untangling trauma — Cognitive Processing Therapy
Cognitive Processing Therapy is one of the most rigorously tested trauma treatments in the world — endorsed by the US Department of Veterans Affairs and recommended by the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies and NICE. It helps people examine the beliefs trauma leaves behind, and gently test whether those beliefs still fit the life they actually want to live.
For two people at once — Gottman Method
Gottman Method Couples Therapy, Level 1 — decades of relationship research, distilled into practical tools for couples who want to understand each other better, fight fairer, and remember what drew them together.
Steady ground — Harvard Medical School
At Harvard Medical School, I trained in General Psychiatric Management for Borderline Personality Disorder — learning to bring structure, steadiness, and honest hope to the work of people whose emotions can feel overwhelming and hard to hold.
- Masterclass on Realizing Resilience
- Positive Psychology
- Solution-Focused Brief Therapy
- Emotion-Focused Family Therapy
- BCACC Regional Workshop
- ADHD Summit
- Suicide Prevention Conference
And Still · Always Learning
The road doesn’t end.
Training, for me, is not a credential on a wall — it is a habit. I completed my Cognitive Processing Therapy training in 2022, and clinical training with the BC Society for Male Survivors of Sexual Abuse and the Health Initiative for Men — work that deepened how I sit with men carrying experiences they have often never said out loud. Trauma Informed Practice training shaped the way every session here is held: safety first, always.
And underneath the milestones runs a continuing stream of workshops and clinical training across trauma, men’s health, addictions, and community mental health — because the people who trust me with their stories deserve a counsellor who is still learning how to hear them better.
