An Integrative Approach To Healing
At The Resiliency Effect, I offer integrative psychotherapy that supports the whole person. My work combines evidence-based cognitive, emotional, and body-based approaches to address anxiety, depression, trauma, and patterns of self-criticism and shame at the level of the mind, body, and nervous system. Treatment is tailored to each individual, with a focus on meaningful, lasting change and a greater sense of stability and well-being.
How Our Thoughts Shape Feelings and Behaviour
Our thoughts play a powerful role in shaping how we feel and behave. When stress or overwhelm builds, thinking can become rigid or self-critical, reinforcing emotional distress and unhelpful patterns. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) helps interrupt this cycle by identifying and gently challenging unhelpful thoughts, allowing emotions and behaviours to shift in more supportive ways.
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy: Restructuring the Mind
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) helps break that cycle by identifying unhelpful thoughts, testing their accuracy, and reshaping them into more balanced, realistic perspectives—a process known as cognitive restructuring.
As negative thinking softens, emotions become steadier and behaviours naturally align with personal goals. Decades of research show that CBT can significantly improve well-being.
When Self-Criticism Gets in the Way
For many people, particularly those with trauma histories, self-criticism and shame can make change difficult. Compassion-Focused Therapy (CFT) helps build emotional safety and self-acceptance, supporting a kinder and more balanced inner response. Mindfulness is woven throughout the work to increase awareness and regulation of emotional and physical reactions.
Compassion-Focused Therapy: Cultivating Safety and Self-Kindness
Compassion-Focused Therapy (CFT) helps create a sense of emotional safety, especially for individuals who struggle with shame, guilt, or harsh self-criticism. Through a polyvagal-informed lens, this work focuses on calming threat responses in the nervous system and strengthening feelings of safety and connection. Mindfulness is woven into this approach to build awareness of thoughts, emotions, and bodily reactions, supporting greater regulation and self-acceptance over time.
Brainspotting and the Mind–Body Connection
From a polyvagal perspective, trauma can leave the nervous system stuck in survival states such as fight, flight, or shutdown, even when present-day danger has passed. These patterns are often stored below conscious awareness and show up as chronic tension, emotional reactivity, or numbness. Brainspotting works directly with these subcortical survival responses by using specific eye positions that access the brain–body pathways involved in threat and regulation. Within a relational, attuned therapeutic setting, Brainspotting supports the nervous system in moving out of defensive states and toward greater regulation, safety, and connection.
An Integrated Path to Healing
At The Resiliency Effect, I integrate CBT, CFT, mindfulness, and Brainspotting within a polyvagal-informed framework. Therapy is guided by an understanding of how the nervous system responds to stress, threat, and safety. This whole-person approach supports both cognitive insight and body-based processing, helping clients move toward greater emotional balance, resilience, and long-term well-being.