PSYCHODYNAMIC, EMOTIONAL & COGNITIVE THERAPIES
PSYCHODYNAMIC PSYCHOTHERAPY
MENTALIZATION BASED THERAPY (MBT) & MINDFULNESS THERAPY
MENTALIZATION BASED THERAPY (MBT) & MINDFULNESS THERAPY
🌱 Long-Term Change Through Insight
Unlike short-term, symptom-focused therapies, psychodynamic psychotherapy often leads to long-lasting change by addressing the root causes of distress—not just the symptoms.
🧠 Psychodynamic Psychotherapy is a depth-oriented, insight-focused form of psychological treatment that helps individuals understand the unconscious patterns driving their thoughts, emotions, and behaviours. This approach explores how early life experiences, relationship dynamics, and unresolved conflicts influence current struggles and psychological distress.
Psychodynamic therapy focuses on:
🧠 Uncovering hidden emotional conflicts and core beliefs developed in childhood
🧠 Identifying repeating patterns in relationships and life choices
🧠 Gaining insight into unconscious motivations that impact current behaviour
🧠 Exploring feelings of loss, self-worth, guilt, or shame
🧠 Strengthening the capacity for reflection, emotional resilience, and relational depth
🧩 This approach is particularly effective for:
- Depression and anxiety
- Relationship difficulties
- Personality disorders
- Grief and loss
- Trauma
- Identity issues
- Unresolved emotional conflicts from the past
MENTALIZATION BASED THERAPY (MBT) & MINDFULNESS THERAPY
MENTALIZATION BASED THERAPY (MBT) & MINDFULNESS THERAPY
MENTALIZATION BASED THERAPY (MBT) & MINDFULNESS THERAPY
🧠Mentalization-Based Therapy (MBT) is a therapeutic approach that helps individuals better understand their own thoughts, feelings, and intentions—as well as those of others. This process is known as mentalizing, a powerful skill that enhances emotional regulation, empathy, and meaningful relationships.
🔍 Mentalizing is the capacity to:
🌿 Understand and reflect on your own thoughts and feelings
🌿 Imagine what others might be thinking or feeling
🌿 Make sense of behaviours—your own and others’—in terms of underlying intentions and emotions.
While this ability may come naturally to some, others—particularly those who have experienced trauma, attachment disruption, or emotional neglect—may need support in developing it. MBT helps people become more curious and reflective rather than reactive, especially in emotionally charged situations.
🌿Improving mentalizing ability through MBT can lead to:
- Greater empathy and emotional connection
- Improved relationship skills
- Better emotional regulation
- Reduced interpersonal conflict
- Healing from conditions such as Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), depression, or attachment issues
🧩 A Learnable Neurological Skill
Mentalizing is not just a psychological skill—it is also a neurological process that can be strengthened with practice and guidance
DIALECTICAL BEHAVIOURAL THERAPY (DBT)
MENTALIZATION BASED THERAPY (MBT) & MINDFULNESS THERAPY
DIALECTICAL BEHAVIOURAL THERAPY (DBT)
🧩 Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT): Balancing Acceptance and Change
Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) is a structured, evidence-based treatment developed to help individuals who experience intense emotions, unstable relationships, impulsivity, and self-destructive behaviors. DBT is now widely used for a variety of mental health challenges, including:
- Emotion dysregulation
- Suicidal ideation and self-harm
- Eating disorders
- Substance use
- PTSD
- Depression and anxiety
🧠 Core Components of DBT
DBT focuses on teaching practical, life-changing skills in four key areas:
- Mindfulness – Learning to stay present and grounded
- Distress Tolerance – Managing crises without making things worse
- Emotion Regulation – Understanding and managing intense emotions
- Interpersonal Effectiveness – Navigating relationships and setting healthy boundaries
Through a combination of individual therapy, skills training, and coaching, clients are supported in building a life that feels more stable, intentional, and fulfilling.
COGNITIVE BEHAVIOURAL THERAPY (CBT)
BIPOLAR DISORDER - INTERPERSONAL SOCIAL RHYTHM THERAPY (IPSRT)
DIALECTICAL BEHAVIOURAL THERAPY (DBT)
🧠 We often incorporate Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) interventions known to be effective for a wide range of mental health challenges, including:
- Depression and anxiety disorders
- Substance use issues (alcohol and drug-related problems)
- Eating disorders
- Relationship and marital problems
- Severe mental health conditions
CBT focuses on identifying and changing unhelpful thought patterns, beliefs, and behaviours that contribute to emotional distress. It empowers individuals with practical tools and coping strategies to manage their symptoms and improve their quality of life.
🌟 See the World Through New Eyes
Therapy offers more than stress relief—it transforms how you relate to yourself, others, and the world. With guided therapeutic support, you can develop the tools to face life’s challenges with equanimity, compassion, and renewed awareness.
Begin your journey toward inner peace today.
A clearer, calmer mind is within reach. You deserve to live life to the fullest and find inner peace.🕊️
EMOTIONALLY FOCUSED THERAPY (EFT) FOR INDIVIDUALS
BIPOLAR DISORDER - INTERPERSONAL SOCIAL RHYTHM THERAPY (IPSRT)
BIPOLAR DISORDER - INTERPERSONAL SOCIAL RHYTHM THERAPY (IPSRT)
👨👩👧👦 Healing & Strengthening Family & Couple Bonds
Our closest relationships—especially within families and couples—hold deep emotional significance. These powerful human connections can stir intense emotions, fears, and unmet needs, often giving rise to relationship struggles, parenting challenges, or emotional disconnection. At Switzer Counselling & Psychotherapy Associates, we offer emotionally focused and experiential therapy for individuals, couples, families, and step-families to help:
- Understand and process strong emotions
- Address patterns of conflict, miscommunication, or emotional distance
- Support blended families navigating complex relational dynamics
- Rebuild trust, connection, and secure attachment
🧸For families with children, we often incorporate play therapy with the principles of attachment focused Theraplay®, which helps:
- Foster connection and joy between caregivers and children
- Support emotional regulation and secure attachment
- Promote healing from early relational trauma or behavioural difficulties
BIPOLAR DISORDER - INTERPERSONAL SOCIAL RHYTHM THERAPY (IPSRT)
BIPOLAR DISORDER - INTERPERSONAL SOCIAL RHYTHM THERAPY (IPSRT)
BIPOLAR DISORDER - INTERPERSONAL SOCIAL RHYTHM THERAPY (IPSRT)
🌙 IPSRT is a proven treatment approach for Bipolar Disorder, combining two effective methods:
- Interpersonal Psychotherapy (IPT), developed by Gerald Klerman and Myrna Weissman
- Social Rhythm Therapy, which focuses on stabilizing daily routines and circadian rhythms
⚖️ This dual focus helps reduce emotional chaos and improve stability over time.to:
- 🌙 Maintain consistent sleep/wake cycles
- 💬 Manage interpersonal stress more effectively
- 🛠️ Prevent relapse by building structure and resilience
⏰ Routines matters People living with Bipolar Disorder often experience mood instability linked to disruptions in: ⏰Sleep patterns
⏰Daily schedules ⏰Social rhythms
These disruptions can trigger or worsen mood episodes. Trained Therapists help clients Identify and regulate daily routines:
- Explore how life events affect those routines
- Understand how changes in routine connect to shifts in mood
🤝 Interpersonal events—conflicts, losses, role changes—often disrupt our daily rhythm. IPSRT addresses both: The emotional impact of life events and practical effects on routines.
INTERNAL FAMILY SYSTEMS THERAPY (IFS)
IFS is a parts-based, non-pathologizing therapy that helps individuals understand and harmonize their internal system of "parts" to promote healing, self-awareness, and emotional balance.
🔸 Core Concepts of IFS
- The Self 🧘♀️Your core essence—calm, curious, compassionate, and centered. The goal of IFS is to help the Self lead the internal system
- Parts 🧩 Distinct aspects of the psyche with their own emotions, beliefs, and roles. All parts are welcome—none are bad, only burdened or misunderstood
🔸Three Main Types of Parts
- Managers 🧠 Protective, proactive parts that try to keep you safe and in control. Often perfectionistic, self-critical, or people-pleasing.
- Exiles 😢 Wounded, vulnerable parts holding pain from past trauma or unmet needs. Often carry shame, fear, or sadness and are pushed away by Managers.
- Firefighters 🔥 Reactive parts that act quickly to distract from or soothe emotional pain. May use impulsive behaviors (e.g., substance use, bingeing, dissociation).
🔸 Goals of IFS Therapy
- Build a compassionate relationship between the Self and all parts.
- Unburden Exiles by allowing them to release old emotional pain.
- Help Managers and Firefighters relax and take on healthier roles.
- Promote inner harmony and emotional resilience.
POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER & TRAUMA THERAPIES
MEMORY RECONSOLIDATION & COHERENCE THERAPY
EYE MOVEMENT DESENSITIZATION REPROCESSING (EMDR) & SENSORIMOTOR TRAUMA THERAPY
EYE MOVEMENT DESENSITIZATION REPROCESSING (EMDR) & SENSORIMOTOR TRAUMA THERAPY
🌿 What Coherence Therapy Helps With
Coherence Therapy is effective in addressing:
- Chronic anxiety and panic
- Depression
- Low self-worth and shame
- Phobias and emotional blocks
- Relationship patterns rooted in early experiences
- Residual effects of trauma
💡 Why It Works
Unlike many therapies that focus on coping or cognitive restructuring, Coherence Therapy goes deeper to:
- Identify the underlying emotional schemas driving distress
- Access and activate these implicit emotional memories
- Create an emotional mismatch experience that rewrites the old learning
- Deliver lasting symptom resolution by changing the emotional truth behind it
🧭 A New Path to Emotional Freedom
Coherence Therapy invites you to explore your emotional mind with curiosity and courage. When outdated emotional learnings are brought into awareness and replaced with new, healing experiences, real transformation is possible.
Experience change at the level where it matters most—deep within.
EYE MOVEMENT DESENSITIZATION REPROCESSING (EMDR) & SENSORIMOTOR TRAUMA THERAPY
EYE MOVEMENT DESENSITIZATION REPROCESSING (EMDR) & SENSORIMOTOR TRAUMA THERAPY
EYE MOVEMENT DESENSITIZATION REPROCESSING (EMDR) & SENSORIMOTOR TRAUMA THERAPY
🧠 A Powerful Blend of Therapeutic Approaches
Shauna Switzer, RP, a Trauma-Informed Psychotherapist offers an integrative and compassionate approach to counselling and psychotherapy that includes:
🌿 (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) – for reprocessing traumatic memorieS
🌿Relational Psychotherapy – to foster deep emotional healing through secure therapeutic connection
🌿Internal Family Systems (IFS) – to work compassionately with inner parts and emotional conflicts
🌿Sensorimotor Psychotherapy – for addressing how trauma is held in the body
🌿Theraplay® – for playful, attachment-based work with children and families
This integrative model transforms painful memories and overwhelming symptoms into opportunities for healing, resilience, and growth—allowing individuals to move forward without the burden of fear, avoidance, or emotional reliving of the past.
DEEP BRAIN REORIENTING (DBR) TRAUMA THERAPY
EYE MOVEMENT DESENSITIZATION REPROCESSING (EMDR) & SENSORIMOTOR TRAUMA THERAPY
DEEP BRAIN REORIENTING (DBR) TRAUMA THERAPY
🧬 How DBR WorksDBR targets the brainstem-level responses that are activated in early, often unconscious moments of perceived threat or relational rupture. It works with the neurobiological foundations of trauma, addressing the somatic (bodily) residues of adverse experiences before cognitive or emotional processing begins. These pre-verbal and physiological patterns—often laid down in early attachment relationships—can persist for decades, contributing to recurring patterns in:
- Attachment styles
- Relational conflicts
- Emotional reactivity
- Chronic dysregulation or anxiety
🌿 Why DBR Is Unique
Unlike some trauma approaches that may activate intense emotional or cognitive content early in treatment, DBR focuses first on the orienting response—a subtle, often unnoticed neurological shift that occurs just before the emotional shock of trauma registers in the body and mind. By gently slowing down and tracking these brainstem sequences, clients can begin to undo the residual shock and horror associated with interpersonal trauma without becoming overwhelmed.
💡 Clinical Benefits
- Reduces risk of re-traumatization and emotional flooding
- Addresses repetitive relational patterns from a neurobiological root
- Integrates well with other somatic and psychodynamic approaches
EMOTIONALLY FOCUSED FAMILY & COUPLE THERAPY
EMOTIONALLY FOCUSED THERAPY (EFT), COUPLES, FAMILIES & STEP-FAMILIES (EFFT)
👨👩👧👦 Healing and Strengthening Family & Couple Bonds
Our closest relationships—especially within families and couples—hold deep emotional significance. These powerful human connections can stir intense emotions, fears, and unmet needs, often giving rise to relationship struggles, parenting challenges, or emotional disconnection.
At Switzer Counselling & Psychotherapy Associates, we offer emotionally focused and experiential therapy for individuals, couples, families, and step-families to help:
- Understand and process strong emotions
- Address patterns of conflict, miscommunication, or emotional distance
- Support blended families navigating complex relational dynamics
- Rebuild trust, connection, and secure attachment
For families with children, we often incorporate play therapy grounded in the principles of Theraplay®. This evidence-based, attachment-focused approach helps:
- Foster connection and joy between caregivers and children
- Support emotional regulation and secure attachment
- Promote healing from early relational trauma or behavioural difficulties
CHILDREN & PARENT THERAPLAY®
🧸 We often incorporate play therapy grounded in the principles of Theraplay®. This evidence-based, attachment-focused approach helps:
- Foster connection and joy between caregivers and children
- Support emotional regulation and secure attachment
- Promote healing from early relational trauma or behavioral difficulties
🌱 Restoring Peace & Understanding at Home
Whether you're a parent, partner, or child, we understand how emotional wounds can affect your most important relationships. Through therapy, we help you build empathy, strengthen bonds, and establish peace and understanding in your home and your heart.
🌟 Healing Is Within Reach
Whether you are struggling with anxiety, trauma, relational challenges, or long-standing emotional pain, you don’t have to go through it alone. With the right support, healing is not only possible—it’s just around the corner.
Call us today to schedule a free 15-minute consultation. Take the first step toward a life rooted in calm, connection, and hope.
RELATIONAL & INTERPERSONAL PSYCHOTHERAPY
THE RELATIONAL BRAIN
Neurobiological research over the past decade or so has revealed the radical relationality of human consciousness. That is, our brains are inherently social and are constructed within our important and primary relationships. We know now that our brains can change, grow and mature over our lifetime, thus, the benefits of relational psychotherapy and counselling can be had at any age or stage of life.
THE RELATIONAL STORY OF PSYCHOLOGICAL PROBLEMS
💔Relational psychotherapists view psychological challenges as rooted in early experiences—especially relationships that were unhealthy, neglectful, or abusive. These formative experiences shape:
- 🧠 Our sense of self
- 💬 Our thoughts, beliefs, and feelings about who we are
- 🤝 Our expectations of how relationships should work
When relationships cause harm rather than provide safety, it can lead to deep and lasting wounds.
🌪️ Disruptions or trauma in early relationships often result in:
- Poor emotion regulation
- Repeated patterns of unhealthy relationships
- Symptoms such as anxiety, depression, or low self-worth
- Difficulty connecting with others in the present
These patterns don’t just live in the past—they show up in our everyday lives, affecting how we feel, relate, and function.
🧩 Relational therapy offers a path to healing by creating a safe, authentic relationship where new experiences of trust, attunement, and understanding can emerge.
THE POWER OF THE THERAPEUTIC RELATIONSHIP
🤝 Relational psychotherapy helps clients move toward greater integration and wholeness. Over time, clients develop a stronger sense of self, more satisfying relationships, and a deeper capacity to navigate life with resilience and meaning.Research consistently shows that the most powerful driver of change in therapy isn’t a specific technique—it’s the quality of the relationship between the client and the therapist. This bond creates the foundation for trust, insight, and transformation.
🌱 Relational psychotherapy places the therapeutic relationship itself at the heart of the healing process. Through an open and interactive exploration between client and therapist, meaningful change begins to unfold—not just in symptoms, but in the very way a person experiences themselves and others. As the therapeutic relationship deepens, clients often experience:
- 🧠 More clarity and self-understanding
- 🧩 A more coherent life story
- 🛠️ Relief from persistent emotional symptoms
- 💞 Healthier, more authentic relationships
🌱 These changes don’t come from advice or strategies alone—they emerge from new relational experiences that reshape how clients understand themselves and the world.
ART THERAPY
THE POWER OF YOUR CREATIVE IMAGINATION
Art Therapy is an integrative mental health and psychotherapy approach that enriches the lives of individuals, families, and communities through active art-making, creative process, applied psychological theory, and human experience within a psychotherapeutic relationship. Visual and symbolic expression gives voice to experience, and empowers individual, communal, and societal transformation.
Art therapy uses integrative methods to engage the mind, body, and spirit in ways that are distinct from talk therapy alone. The approach provides opportunities for kinesthetic, sensory, perceptual, and symbolic modes of receptive and expressive communication, which can circumvent the limitations of language.
WHOLE BRAIN TOOLS, HYPNOTHERAPY, SAFE & SOUND PROTOCOL
DEVELOP THE WHOLE BRAIN MENTAL EDGE
HYPNOTHERAPY & THE POWER OF YOUR CREATIVE IMAGINATION
HYPNOTHERAPY & THE POWER OF YOUR CREATIVE IMAGINATION
The Neethling Brain Instruments (NBI®) is a revolutionary battery of instruments that strives to develop whole-brain thinking and indicates your personal thinking preferences.
What will the NBI® tell me?
The NBI® gives an indication of how you:
• communicate, act towards other people or in certain situations
• do business, learn, teach
• would manage in a certain career
• solve problems, make decisions
The NBI® enables you to develop effective parenting strategies, and relationships, resolve conflicts in your personal and professional life, receive the best guidance in choosing a new career & best study practices
HYPNOTHERAPY & THE POWER OF YOUR CREATIVE IMAGINATION
HYPNOTHERAPY & THE POWER OF YOUR CREATIVE IMAGINATION
HYPNOTHERAPY & THE POWER OF YOUR CREATIVE IMAGINATION
You are still in control! We use hypnotherapy and the power of mental imagery to help individuals cope with negative emotional states, such as stress, anxiety, pain, fatigue & mood disorders. We also help them break bad habits or achieve other positive changes, such as weight loss. Mental imagery and soothing verbal repetition ease the individual into a relaxed peaceful state of mind. Once relaxed, our minds are more open to transformative change and counselling.
SAFE AND SOUND PROTOCOL (SSP)
HYPNOTHERAPY & THE POWER OF YOUR CREATIVE IMAGINATION
SAFE AND SOUND PROTOCOL (SSP)
We offer the researched and evidence-based Safe & Sound Protocol (SSP) music therapy of Dr. Stephen Porges to help individuals initiate and access a physiological state conducive to well-being, positive engagement with others, and growth in learning. The treatment, administered over five consecutive days, was originally designed to support those with autism, but is now used for a variety of mental health issues. We use it as a pre-treatment for ADD/ADHD counselling, enabling individuals to more effectively engage in therapies aimed at developing social skills and awareness, and often prior to trauma therapy. The SSP often leads to dramatic changes in one’s ability to engage socially with more openness and feelings of safety in connection to others. The SSP is administered at our office over the course of five consecutive days (one hour per day).