Background

Hello! I'm Alan; I'm an intern counsellor at Avery Therapy, currently completing my Master's degree in Counselling Psychology through Yorkville University. The first thing I ever seriously wanted to be was a counsellor. Long before I considered it a realistic career path, I was the kid who liked to listen when friends had something heavy on their minds. I'd try to understand and empathize with their struggles, and look for the thread of strength or resilience already woven into their words. That inclination never really left, but it has been sharpened by experience, training, and a room in which to put it to use.

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My path to Avery has been shaped by more than one setting. Years spent serving tables and tending bar gave me the chance to hone my listening skills and slowly accumulate a burgeoning realization of just how many stories are out there - everyone's carrying dozens of them, and everyone has something to say. Alongside my studies, I also coach functional fitness, which has taught me a slower lesson: what it actually takes to help someone rebuild trust in themselves, one hard-won step at a time. These seemingly different settings converged on similar discoveries: the importance of communicating clearly, reading the room, and remaining calm, even in emotional or challenging circumstances.

 

Therapeutic Approach

I bring a warm, grounded, attentive presence to my work, guided by the belief that people often need to feel seen, heard, and understood before healing can truly begin. Much of the work is about creating a steady, emotionally safe place to reconnect with oneself - somewhere to listen to the stories you've been telling yourself, and maybe question some of their validity; somewhere to rediscover your own strengths as much as develop new ones; somewhere to release the tension we so often come to carry, by sharing it with someone who will look you in the eye and meet you without judgment.

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I believe - with some fairly good statistical backing - that trauma is far more common than we tend to give it credit for, and that its effects rarely stay confined to the moment it happened. I also believe that people's responses to what they've lived through, even ones that might look unhealthy from the outside, usually make (or made) a lot of sense at some point along the way. My approach is humanistic, strengths-based, and somatic - which is really just a formal way to say that I pay attention to the experiences in the body as well as the story that provokes them. From there, I draw on a handful of tools depending on what's actually useful at the moment - including narrative therapy, CBT, DBT, and AEDP.

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My online booking link can be found here.