Leanne
Cuddington
Somatic Psychology & Registered Clinical Counsellor in Kitsilano
I offer individual and couples counselling with a focus on healing and personal growth. Whether you're navigating trauma, anxiety, depression, or relationship challenges, I can to help you live a more peaceful and fulfilling life.
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Individual Counselling: Trauma, Anxiety, Depression, Stress
Couples Counseling: Marriage Support, Conflict Resolution, Communication
Specialized Therapy: Trauma, Grief
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​If you're ready to start your healing journey, contact me for a free 20-minute initial phone consult or to arrange an in-person appointment.
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Improving relationships with ourselves and others for
positive choice and change.
Why therapy?
We seek therapy for a variety of reasons. You’re not alone.
Sometimes we find ourselves in a situation we cannot seem to solve on our own. This is where an experienced therapist can help to unravel a problem and facilitate approaches that enable us to function more effectively.
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Negative experiences—loss of a loved one, relationship distress, rejection, accident or injury, abuse, job loss, chronic injury or ill health, bullying—can leave emotional scars that, if not processed, become trauma. Trauma can make it harder to cope and lead to reactive thoughts and behaviors. Therapy can give us insight into unconscious processes and give us the tools to change unhelpful behaviours and thought patterns.
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​Entering counselling can seem like an admission of failure, when actually it is a courageous step toward positive choice and change.
How is a body-centred approach different?
Recent advances in neuroscience show how deeply connected our brains, nervous systems, and bodies really are. Somatic therapy, or body-based therapy, focuses on the link between your physical sensations and emotional experiences to help you heal.
Rather than only talking about your issues, a somatic therapist also pays attention to how your body responds during sessions. This might include noticing tension, posture, or breath changes -- things that often reveal emotions or thoughts you're not fully aware of. By tuning into both your words and your body's signals, a somatic therapist can help you uncover unconscious feelings or experiences that might be affecting your mental health.
This approach helps you access deeper levels of awareness, bringing more clarity to the roots of your challenges and offering a holistic path to healing.
What is trauma?
Many people think of trauma as connected only to major harmful events like a violent attack or a catastrophic accident.
However, trauma can result from any number of negative life experiences in the past or present, such as:
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Physical, emotional, or sexual abuse
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A painful relationship breakup
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The death of a loved one
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Negative parenting or relationships
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Emotional or physical abandonment
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Witnessing physical or verbal violence
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Accidents or injuries
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Acute or chronic illness
What is Trauma?
Therapeutic Approach
​Using a blend of body-mind (somatic), cognitive, and emotional therapeutic approaches, my role is to help you achieve authentic insights and new understanding about the interplay between trauma and negative life experiences to the relationships with yourself and others.
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Mindfulness, the awareness of one's body, feelings, and consciousness, is the key to unlocking the joy and vitality that is our natural state of being. By becoming more aware of our physical and emotional responses and habitual defences to life events, we can reclaim control over how we relate to ourselves and others, and emerge as fuller, happier human beings.
Practice Areas
I help individuals and couples overcome trauma and other challenging life experiences, such as:
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Anxiety, worry or fear
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Depression
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Relationship problems
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Marital or family distress
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Problems sleeping and/or nightmares
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Grief
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Panic attacks or phobias
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Low self-esteem
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Self-defeating behaviours (social isolation, anger and irritability, impulsiveness, poor boundaries, trouble asserting yourself, hypervigilance)
Services
My work with individuals emphasizes body psychotherapy (somatic) rather than cognitive or emotional approaches (though these are blended in where beneficial).
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My overarching treatment philosophy, whether working with individuals or couples, is rooted in helping clients overcome trauma and other challenging life experiences to achieve authentic insights and new understanding by integrating all parts of the self -- body, mind, and emotions -- in our work together.
Healing is a process that takes time and commitment. I encourage you to consider a commitment to 8 to 10 sessions to develop the insight and self-care skills you need to address and move past the issues constraining your life.
For details on session fees, sliding scale options, and insurance coverage, please visit my Rates page. I'm committed to making support accessible.
