How We Work
Person-Centred
Person-centred counselling starts from the idea that you are the authority on your own life. Our role is to provide a compassionate, nonjudgemental environment that supports your values. In practice, this often means:
- Following your direction and working on your goals
- Being genuine with you
- Offering nonjudgemental care no matter what you share
- Checking in with you
Somatic Work
Somatic work, including somatic trauma therapy, pays attention to what is happening in your body — tension, breath, temperature — alongside what is being said. In practice, this often means:
- Noticing your internal sensations
- Working in small amounts
- Offering optional suggestions that can help release tension
- Respecting your boundaries
- Leaving the pace entirely with you
Creative and Expressive Work
Creative and expressive work in counselling uses images, movement, sound, writing, or making as part of the work. It can be useful when words have started to feel like they are not the right tool. In practice, this often means:
- Offering creative methods as one option among several
- Leaving any meaning-making to you, rather than interpreting your work
- Focusing on the process rather than the result
- Not requiring any artistic experience or skill
- Leaving the pace entirely with you
Narrative
Narrative counselling starts from the idea that we make sense of our lives through stories, and that the story we have settled on is rarely the only one. It is usually the one that was most often repeated. In practice, this often means:
- Treating a problem as something with a history and an influence, rather than as a fact about who you are
- Noticing where a story originated — a family, a diagnosis, an institution, a system
- Leaving decisions about which stories to keep with you
Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT)
EFT starts from the idea that our deepest distress usually comes from disconnection — a partner who feels far away, a relationship caught in the same cycle of conflict, or difficulty trusting that anyone will be there when it matters. In practice, this often means:
- Focusing on the pattern underneath an argument rather than its content
- Naming the cycle, so it becomes something you are up against together rather than each other
- Working with the vulnerable feelings that sit under the reactive ones
- Using this with couples, polycules, or individuals looking at their own attachment patterns
Internal Family Systems (IFS)
IFS is based on the idea that we all carry different parts within us, each trying to keep us safe in its own way. The part that gets furious, the part that withdraws, the part that is critical. In practice, this often means:
- Getting to know those parts with curiosity
- Finding out what each one has been protecting you from
- Working with protective patterns rather than trying to override them
- Paying attention to patterns that have not shifted no matter how much you understand them
What happens in the consult
When you book a consult, we will spend about 15 minutes getting to know one another and we will talk about what brings you to counselling. We use video call on the same secure platform we use for sessions, so you can find out whether this feels like a fit before you make any financial or emotional commitment. Here is what happens:
- You pick a time online. There are no forms to fill in beforehand and no payment details required. Booking takes about 2 minutes.
- We ask what brings you in, what you are hoping counselling might do for you, and whether you have tried counselling before. You share as much or as little as you want to.
- You ask us anything — how we work, what experience we have with what you are bringing, fees, availability, scheduling, or anything else that matters to you.
- If you would like to go ahead, we book a first session and email you the intake paperwork.
Meet Your Counsellors
The Last Best Place Counselling is an online counselling clinic. We work with people who are physically located in British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Newfoundland and Labrador, Yukon, the Northwest Territories, or Nunavut, and who are looking for ethical, affirming, and supportive care.
We work with adults who are physically located in one of the regions we serve.
Our work centres queer, trans, and gender-diverse people. Many of the people we see are also navigating disability, neurodivergence, racism, migration, or other systemic pressures.
We do not currently work with children, and we are not a crisis or emergency service.