our relationship matters.

If you’ve made it here, I imagine you might be doing a bit of therapist shopping. Which is both a brutal and annoying process (there are just so many profiles to sift through!) and it’s important. One of the biggest components to progress in therapy is actually the therapeutic relationship itself, so, yeah, it makes perfect sense that you want to find someone you vibe with.

So, first off, kudos to you for putting in this work. It’s not easy to do, especially when life feels dumpster-fire-esque

You’ll hear me say this until I’m blue in the face: you are not broken. You are a human being worthy and deserving of respect and care. Which is precisely how I aim to approach our work together.

Headshot of therapist Andrea Diaz Soonets. She's looking at the camera and smiling.

vibe check.

As we’ve covered, feeling like you click with your therapist is important. Here’s the scenario where I have the most success with clients:

I bring

Warm, compassionate vibes (Think: hot tea curled up on a comfy couch. I’m almost always sipping on some infusion and will invariably invite you to partake as well if you wish)

A deeply curious approach that seeks to challenge you to feel your emotions (like really feel them, with your whole body) and to dig deeper into your beliefs. I do this gently and within the window of what feels tolerable for you while hoping to increase your resilience.

Therapy that aims to be tailored to you. I pull from a variety of approaches and we try and see what resonates the most with you (for those interested: existential, somatic, dialectical, and mindfulness-based are my go-to's).

you bring

Understanding that my job is not to give advice, but rather to teach, guide, and explore with you.

Motivation to remain engaged with our therapy content in between sessions. I hardly ever give out things like worksheets as “formal homework”, but from time to time I’ll invite you to practice skills we learned in session on your own, or to reflect on some of the topics we talked about.

Dedication to the work. While I’m here to support you in whatever capacity you need, I find the clients I have more success with come to see me regularly. A rhythm of starting weekly, then moving on to biweekly, and then every 3-4 weeks after a few months tends to work well.

my approach to healing

Though many of us may have similar issues, our circumstances are rarely the same, and as such I aim to tailor our sessions to your needs. 

To do so, we work on finding the balance of bottom-up vs. top-down that works best for you at that moment in time (because we also have to honour that your needs may change as we go along).

what does that mean?

A lot of talk therapy tends to be fairly top-down–working with the logical, thinking part of you. There’s a big focus on your thoughts and beliefs and how they impact your life. 

Alternatively, there are also bottom-up therapies, working more from your body and your emotions. Here there’s more of a focus on what it means to feel safe in your body and how that can impact your life.

Depending on what resonates the most with you, and what your needs are each session, we’ll integrate elements from both the top-down and bottom-up approaches to try to find what is most helpful for you. 

And if you’d like to creep me a bit further…

  • Registered (Qualifying) with the College of Registered Psychotherapists of Ontario

    Master of Arts in Counselling Psychology

    Supervised by Nadia Hovencamp, MSW RSW

    Continued education in Trauma-Informed Mindfulness Facilitation & completed training for certification as a mindfulness-informed practitioner

    Continued education in neurodivergent-informed practices and interventions with pending certification as an ADHD Clinical Services Provider (ADHD-CCSP)

    Continued education in somatic therapies, with pending certification in Integrative Somatic Trauma Therapy

    Trained in suicide risk assessment and management

  • Holding a safe space for you is at the core of our work together. I reflect frequently on my many intersectionalities and value furthering the learning and unlearning processes that come with such reflection. I strive for my work to be grounded in anti-oppression and social justice, and I aim to consistently recognize the systems we live in that can often be catalysts for our decreased subjective well-being.

  • I’m an immigrant from Latin America and have lived in Canada for 16 years. At this point, I’m very much a citizen of the world. I have a (rather cute) pup that keeps me busy. I love plants (though they sometimes like to die on me), reading, and going for long walks. Like many of us, I watch lots and lots of Netflix and am always accepting show recommendations if there’s anything particularly good that you’ve recently watched.

QUESTIONS? LET’S CHAT.

Have questions or want to see if we’re a good fit? Book a free consultation with me.

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