counselling
We Treat
Anxiety / Burnout
/ Stress
Trauma &
PTSD
Anxiety / Burnout
Trauma &
Life Changes /
services
How We Help
Individual Counselling
Discover support and guidance in a safe, non-judgmental space through our individual counselling services.
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Relationships / Couples
Nurture healthy connections through understanding, open communication, and empathy.
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Virtual Counselling
Experience the warmth of counselling from the comfort of your space with virtual appointments.
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Vicki Scott, Registered Clinical Counsellor
B.Ed., Masters of Counselling Psychology, RCC, Meditation Facilitator Being human is hard sometimes. We all face challenges—relationships, grief and loss,...
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Steve Dolson, RCC
Masters of Arts in Counselling Psychology, MACP, RCC, Clinical Counsellor, Group Facilitator, Practicum Supervisor Life can present us with a...
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Shayla Piccini, RCC
Master of Arts in Counselling Psychology, Registered Clinical Counsellor Shayla believes everyone deserves a safe space to better understand themselves,...
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Marie Gagnon – Registered Clinical Counsellor
Marie has experience supporting youth, couples, adults, first responders, and the elderly. As a retired police officer, veteran, and mother, Marie...
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latest courses
6 week Mindfulness Stress Reduction and Resiliency course
Next Course Coming Spring 2026
Receipts will be available if you want to use your benefits for this course.
We offer a 6-week Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction course that helps individuals gain insight, skills and resilience to live a life that is more meaningful and fulfilling.
This course will help you:
- Improve resilience to stress
- Strengthen empathy, compassion, and communication
- Enhance concentration, decision making, and impulse control
- Enhance self compassion
- Understand your thoughts
- Identify and manage your emotions
blog
Our Thoughts and More
How to Set Healthy Boundaries Without Guilt
Learning how to set healthy boundaries is often misunderstood. Many people associate boundaries with walls, distance, or pushing others away. In reality, healthy boundaries do the opposite, they create space for deeper connection, honesty, and mutual respect.
Learning how to set healthy boundaries isn’t about controlling others or shutting people out. It’s about honouring your own needs, values, and capacity so you can show up as your most grounded and authentic self. When we ignore our limits, resentment quietly builds. Over time, this can strain relationships, drain our energy, and leave us feeling disconnected from ourselves.
What Healthy Boundaries Really Are
Healthy boundaries are a form of self-respect. They communicate, “My needs matter too.” When we clearly express what feels okay and what doesn’t, we protect our emotional and mental well-being. This protection allows us to engage with others from a place of intention rather than obligation.
Why Setting Boundaries Can Feel So Hard
For many people, setting boundaries bring up guilt, fear of conflict, or worry about disappointing others. But boundaries don’t have to be harsh or confrontational to be effective. In fact, setting boundaries with kindness often strengthens relationships rather than damaging them.
How to Set Healthy Boundaries Without Guilt
Communicating boundaries clearly and compassionately reduces confusion and creates a sense of safety in relationships. When others know what to expect from us, trust can grow over time.
Examples of healthy boundaries might sound like:
- “I’m not in the headspace to talk about this right now, but we can revisit it later.”
- “I don’t check emails on weekends.”
These statements are honest, respectful, and focused on your capacity — not on controlling someone else’s behaviour.
How Boundaries Support Mental Health
Healthy boundaries also help preserve energy. They prevent burnout by reducing overextension and emotional exhaustion. By recognizing our limits, we make room for rest, joy, and meaningful connection rather than operating in survival mode.
Ultimately, boundaries are not barriers to closeness; they are bridges to healthier, more sustainable relationships. When we respect our own needs, we invite others to do the same.
Getting Support With Boundary Setting
If setting boundaries feels uncomfortable, confusing, or guilt-provoking, you’re not alone. It’s a skill that can be learned and strengthened with practice — and it’s one of the most powerful acts of self-care you can offer yourself.
Counselling can provide a supportive space to explore patterns around people-pleasing, guilt, or burnout and to practice new ways of showing up in your relationships. If you’re ready to explore this work, support is available. Connect with us at [email protected].
Why Winter Feels Heavier for Some People
As the seasons change, so can our mood. For many people, shorter days and colder weather bring a dip in energy or motivation. But for others, these changes can have a much deeper impact. Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) is a form of depression that follows a seasonal pattern, the most common emerging in the fall and winter months. Some people experience symptoms in the spring or summer, although it is less common.
SAD can look different for everyone, but common symptoms include:
- Persistent low mood or sadness
- Loss of interest in activities once enjoyed
- Low energy or fatigue
- Difficulty concentrating
- Changes in sleep (often sleeping more)
- Changes in appetite or cravings (especially carbohydrates)
- Feelings of hopelessness or worthlessness
- Social withdrawal or wanting to “hibernate”
Why does SAD happen?
There isn’t a single cause to why SAD happens but there are several factors that are believed to contribute such as:
- Reduced sunlight can disrupt your body’s internal clock
- Lower serotonin levels, which affect mood regulation
- Changes in melatonin, impacting sleep and energy levels
- Lifestyle shifts, such as less outdoor activity and social connection in colder months
SAD doesn’t just impact mood- it can affect work performance, relationships, motivation, and self-esteem. Many people feel frustrated or guilty for “not handling winter better,” which can add another layer of emotional distress.
It’s important to remember: SAD is not a personal failure or a lack of resilience. It’s a mental health condition influenced by biology and environment. The good news is that SAD is highly treatable. Support and small changes can make a meaningful difference.
Helpful strategies may include:
- Light therapy (using a light box)
- Spending time outdoors during daylight hours
- Maintaining consistent sleep routines
- Gentle movement or exercise
- Nourishing, balanced meals
- Reducing isolation and increasing connection
- Counselling
Everyone’s experience is different, so finding the right combination of supports matters.
How Counselling Can Help
Therapy provides a safe space to explore how seasonal changes affect your mood, thoughts, and behaviours. A counsellor can help you:
- Develop coping strategies for low-energy periods
- Challenge negative thought patterns
- Build routines that support mental health year-round
- Prepare proactively for seasonal shifts
- Feel less alone in your experience
You don’t have to wait until things feel unbearable to seek support.
You’re Not Alone
If winter feels heavy, exhausting, or emotionally draining, you’re not imagining it—and you’re not alone. Seasonal Affective Disorder affects many people, even if it’s not always talked about openly. Support is available, and feeling better is possible. If you notice seasonal changes impacting your mental health, reaching out for professional support can be a powerful first step toward relief and balance.
We’re here for you through it all. To connect with one of our caring counsellors, reach out to us at [email protected]
A Gentle Check-In for the New Year
As a new year begins, there’s often a lot of talk about resolutions, goals, and “fresh starts.” At Branches Counselling, we like to offer a softer invitation.
The new year can be a meaningful time to pause and check in with yourself:
- How are you really feeling as you step into this season?
- What has the past year asked of you?
- What parts of you might need more care, patience, or support right now?
Reflection doesn’t have to mean changing everything. Sometimes it simply means noticing — your emotions, your energy, your needs, and the ways you’ve been coping. It’s okay if you feel hopeful, uncertain, tired, or all of the above.
If you’re finding that this time of year brings up questions, emotions, or a desire to talk things through, you don’t have to do that alone. Counselling can be a supportive space to reflect, make sense of where you’ve been, and consider what you’d like to carry forward.
However this new year finds you, we hope you’ll meet yourself with compassion and curiosity. Growth often begins with a gentle check-in. Email us at branchescounselling@gmail to connect with us.
Holding Space for Every Kind of Grief
When we hear the word grief, we think about losing someone we love. But grief isn’t limited to death or bereavement. It’s a deeply human response to loss —any loss —and it can show up in many forms that aren’t always recognized or understood.
Grief can quietly shape our lives, influencing how we cope, connect, and move forward. Sometimes the pain we carry shows up through behaviours like overworking, gambling or other ways we try to fill an emptiness we don’t quite understand. The unsolved grief from the past often lingers and continues to affect how we experience the present.
Certain moments in life can stir up grief we thought we’d left behind — reminders or something, or someone, we’ve lost. You might grieve the end of a relationship, the loss of a career, or the shift in identity. You might grieve a sport that you can no longer play, a dream that didn’t come true, or even a version of yourself that once existed. Grief can also arise when leaving a job, even one you were ready to walk away from, because it marks the end of a chapter in your life.
These forms of grief can carry as much emotional weight as losing a person, yet they often go unseen. When society doesn’t acknowledge them, people can feel alone or wonder why they’re struggling to “move on.” Grief and change go hand in hand; even the most positive transitions, such as graduating, moving to a new city, or becoming a parent, can bring a sense of loss alongside new beginnings. Every ending holds space for both grief and growth.
Signs You Might Be Grieving
Grief doesn’t always look like sadness. It can show up in many different ways, sometimes quietly, sometimes unexpectedly. You might notice:
- Irritability or anger
- Difficulty concentrating
- Fatigue or restlessness
- Numbness or detachment
- A sense of longing or emptiness
These feelings are normal responses to loss. They don’t mean you’re broken, they mean you’re human.
Healing Takes Time
There’s no timeline for grief, and there’s no “right” way to feel. What matters most is allowing yourself the space to acknowledge your losses, in whatever form they take. Speaking with a counsellor can offer guidance as you make sense of your emotions and begin to find meaning in what comes next. Grief isn’t something to get over; it’s something to move through. With compassion, support, and time, healing is possible.
We’re here for you through it all. To connect with one of our caring counsellors, reach out to us at [email protected].
"You can’t stop the waves but
you can learn how to surf."
Jon Kabat-Zinn
For anyone in Kamloops seeking professional guidance and support, finding the right counselling service is a crucial step toward emotional wellness. While many therapeutic approaches exist, Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) stands out as a powerful and evidence-based modality, particularly for those looking to improve their relationships and deepen their emotional connections. In Kamloops, a practice like Branches Counselling and Consulting Group offers a compassionate and skilled team dedicated to helping individuals, couples, and families navigate their personal journeys.
Understanding Emotionally Focused Therapy
At its core, Emotionally Focused Therapy is a humanistic, short-term therapeutic approach that centers on the power of emotions to create lasting change. Developed by Dr. Sue Johnson and Les Greenberg, it’s a modality rooted in attachment theory, which posits that humans are hardwired for close emotional bonds. When these bonds are threatened, we often fall into negative patterns of interaction – what EFT calls the “dance” of the relationship. This could be a cycle of one partner pursuing and the other withdrawing, or a dynamic of mutual criticism and defensiveness. These patterns are not the problem themselves, but rather, they are a protest against the underlying fear of disconnection and loss of a secure bond.
EFT works by helping clients identify these emotional “dances” and the deeper, often unexpressed emotions that fuel them, such as fear, shame, or loneliness. The therapist acts as a guide, creating a safe space for clients to slow down, explore these emotions, and express their true needs and vulnerabilities. The goal is to restructure the negative interaction patterns and create new, positive cycles of connection and responsiveness. This is not about blame or finding a “right” and “wrong” party; it’s a collaborative process of making sense of emotional responses and learning to turn towards one another for comfort and security.
Branches Counselling and Consulting Group: A Place for Healing
In Kamloops, Branches Counselling and Consulting Group embodies the principles of this powerful therapeutic model. With a team of compassionate and skilled practitioners, Branches offers a supportive environment where clients can feel heard, understood, and safe. They recognize that seeking help is an act of courage, and their approach is collaborative, trauma-informed, and respectful of each individual’s unique journey.
Branches understands that true healing and growth happen when a person feels a sense of autonomy and is empowered to make choices about their own path forward. Their practitioners are not just there to offer advice, but to partner with clients in understanding their experiences and accessing the wisdom they already possess. They offer a range of services, including individual and couples counselling, and their commitment to ongoing professional development ensures they are equipped with the most effective, evidence-based tools available, including a strong foundation in Emotionally Focused Therapy. For those in Kamloops looking to repair relationships or cultivate a deeper sense of self, Branches Counselling and Consulting Group provides a beacon of hope and a pathway to lasting change.
