Hi, my name’s Špela.
I recently graduated with a master’s degree in counselling psychology from Yorkville University and am now taking on new clients as a Registered Clinical Counsellor at Alive Counselling in Kelowna. I offer Online Counselling throughout BC, In Person Counselling in Kelowna, and Walk & Talk Therapy in Kelowna, Sicamous, and Revelstoke.
My journey to counselling started over a decade ago when a close friend said, “hey, I want to help, but I don’t know how. Maybe you should talk to someone.” This was several years before the book with the same name came out. Anyways, I did go talk to someone, and while it took several tries to find someone that worked for me (you’re totally allowed to be picky about your counsellor!), eventually I found someone who did.
The experience had a huge impact on me (and my family). It changed my relationship to my thoughts and feelings and helped me have more compassion for myself and others. It also helped me identify more choices for how I respond to myself (and others), and it opened up conversations with my family and friends that, over time, strengthened and deepened our relationships.
I also found that the lessons I was learning as I dealt with my “stuff,” changed how I thought about the graduate research I eventually did (details below if you’re interested), how I related to my students when I taught first-year English at UBCO, and how I built communications strategies when I did marketing/public relations work.
Eventually, I realized that I wanted to do more. I wanted to show up for others the way that someone showed up for me when I needed them. I wanted to show up and help others hold all their messy, complicated, painful, and embarrassing “stuff,” so that they could untangle it, make space for it, decide what kind of relationship they wanted to have with all those parts, and then work through how they would like to show up for themselves and others in their lives.
Sometimes life is messy, and complicated, and just too much. I know what that feels like. And, I know it’s just a little bit easier when someone chooses to sit with you in those moments and says, “this isn’t too much, you’re not [insert terrible thing you fear is true about you], and you don’t have to hold this alone.”
My Modalities (Ways of Thinking and Working Through What Brings People In)
As a therapist, I don’t draw on any one modality. I blend and mix and match different strategies and approaches depending on who you are, what’s brought you in, and what works for you.
You know yourself and your life best. My job isn’t to give you advice or tell you what I think. It’s to sit with you and join you in getting curious about what works and what doesn’t; what’s helpful and what isn’t; what kinds of relationships you have with all the different aspects of you, others, and the world around you; how you’d like to be showing up; and what would help you get there.
Some of the things I might be curious about are:
- What are your best hopes for our work together and your life?
- In what ways are you already, and have in the past, overcome challenges and shown up for yourself in a way that aligns with the person you would like to be? How can we build on that?
- What thoughts and feelings do you have, and how do you relate to these?
- How do emotions feel in your body? How do your thoughts, actions, and external circumstances impact these – and vice versa?
- What stories do you hold about yourself and others? Where are these stories from? Do they work for you? Do they miss things? Would they look different if these missed things were included?
- What kinds of relationships do you have with yourself, your thoughts, your feelings, your body, and others? What would you like those relationships to look like? What steps can we take to get your there?
- What are your values?
- What are you doing or not doing to avoid discomfort? Is that helpful or not helpful? Both?
These questions are informed by strengths-based, solution-focused, narrative, cognitive-behavioural, acceptance and commitment, mindfulness, compassion, Gestalt, and emotion-focused approaches to therapy.
What Types of Challenges Do We Work Through?
Some of the challenges that we might work through together include:
- Anxiety
- Depression
- Emotional regulation
- Relationships
- Academic Stress
- OCD*
*A quick note on OCD.
One of the most effective ways of working through OCD is to do exposure work. I do exposure work with clients, and have done a lot of it myself, but I tend to gravitate more towards values-based exposures and sprinkle them in as experiments. When working with OCD, I rely more heavily on mindfulness and acceptance and commitment therapy (where you identify your values and commit to taking actions towards them regardless of how uncomfortable they may feel). I also take a relational approach. That is, I want to know what kind of relationship you currently have with your OCD and what kind of relationship you’d like to have to your OCD.
… and, finally, if you’re curious my educational and work experience, I have included these below:
Education
- Master of Arts (Counselling Psychology) | Yorkville University | 2020 – 2024
- Master of Arts (English) | UBC Okanagan | 2012 – 2014
- My master’s research looked at how a novel could be used to help communities unpack the impacts of intergenerational trauma and xenophobia (fear/dislike of an other) on families and communities. Because I am originally from Slovenia, and wanted to understand my history better, this research looked at a Slovenian novel.
- Bachelor of Arts (English) | UBC Okanagan | 2008 – 2012
Recent Work Experience
- Intern | Third Space Charity
- Academic Advisor | School of Engineering, UBC Okanagan
- Social Media Consultant | Argo Road Maintenance Inc.
- Sessional Instructor | UBC Okanagan
- Marketing Coordinator | Cheeky Monkey Media
- Events and Media Assistant | Faculty of Management, UBC Okanagan
