In-Person & Virtual Counselling Services for Women
Mind-Body Re-Connection: Holistic Counselling for Stressed and Overwhelmed Women
Mind-Body Re-Connection: Holistic Counselling for Stressed and Overwhelmed Women
Kirstin McKinnon, Registered Clinical Counsellor (RCC) and Registered Nurse (RN) in Qualicum Beach
Welcome to Feminine Fortress Counselling. I’m Kirstin, a Registered Clinical Counsellor and a Registered Nurse in Qualicum Beach.
My practice is focused on helping women who feel stressed, overwhelmed, and in need of support. As a Registered Nurse and Registered Clinical Counsellor, I understand our stress response and how it impacts us. My Career began as a Registered Nurse, then as a Family Nurse Practitioner. My experience and training in these fields has given me a deep awareness of how other underlying issues, such as anxiety, depression, trauma, and health conditions affect our stress response, and vice versa.
Being a both a counsellor and a nurse allows me to take a whole-person approach in helping women improve their wellbeing. I believe that every person has within them the seeds to grow, to create meaningful change, and to re-connect with a sense of calm, joy, and confidence.
I love helping women who know they are strong, but are at the point of overwhelm. They made be overwhelmed with stress, trauma, or grief, or overwhelmed with trying to stick to a healthy lifestyle. My desire is to help women re-connect with a sense of calm, confidence, and balance, and to get unstuck from reactive patterns that are impacting their lives. I do this work so that I can join with women in helping them to feel better and to have a better life.
Together, we will take a holistic approach to addressing the stress and overwhelm in your life. This can include tending to other emotional health issues such as anxiety, depression, and trauma, helping you to calm and regulate a stressed nervous system, exploring internal and external factors contributing to the stress, making sustainable lifestyle changes to reduce stress, and re-connecting with your sense of calm, clarity, and confidence.
“I know that I am strong, but I am overwhelmed and unsupported”
This is something I often hear from women. So many women feel stuck in “fight or flight mode”, stuck in reactive patterns, or stuck in grief. Women tell me that they either tend to get hijacked by their emotions, or they push them down and suppress difficult emotions. This tends to have a negative impact on their sense of peace and joy, and on their sleep, eating habits, health, and relationships.
I help women create change in their lives primarily with the use of Emotionally Focused Therapy and Polyvagal Theory, and I also include some forms of Expressive Art Therapy. One of the benefits of integrating these modalities is that they take therapy beyond just talking! Each of these therapies make room for practices such as guided imagery, visualization, and connecting with inner supports which can make therapy feel more real and impactful.
Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) provides a trauma-informed, research-based framework that can help you to:
- Get unstuck from reactive patterns and unhealthy habits
- Create emotional balance and resilience
- Improve your relationships
- Strengthen the sense of who you are and what you are capable of
- Learn how to deal with emotions in a healthy way, instead of pushing them down, numbing, distracting, or getting hijacked by them
One of the first steps of EFT is helping people connect with their inner strengths and resources that support and encourage as you take your wellness journey. This empowering process can help you to reclaim joy, compassion, confidence, acceptance, and peace. EFT deepens your access to your inner wisdom to cultivate personal growth, resilience and inner transformation.
Polyvagal Theory is a trauma-informed, research-based model that:
- Provides a roadmap of the nervous system and regulates troubling symptoms, difficult emotions, and unhealthy patterns
- Provides clear framework that can empower you to understand how your nervous systems shapes your thoughts, emotions, and patterns, and offers powerful methods to create new patterns of calm, connection, and compassion
- Helps people to let go of negative self-talk and re-connect with more a more empowering narrative
- Enhance one’s ability to self-regulate difficult emotions
- Helps build resilience and reduce trauma symptoms
- Helps to create a greater sense of stability to engage more fully with life
Expressive Arts & Journal Therapy techniques can:
- Provide creative ways for reducing inner criticism
- Connect you with the part of yourself that is compassionate, connected, non-judgmental, calm, and confident
- Connect with the person you want to be
- Provide a way to express what cannot always be said with words
- Move you from your left, analytical/judging, brain and into our right, creative/compassionate, brain to find to find clarity and direction
- Provide a pathway to the restorative power of your imagination and inner wisdom
- Support you in feeling regulated, calm, and enlivened
Take the First Step
If you are considering seeking counselling, I welcome you to book a free 15-minute meet & greet call.
Counselling Services:
Counselling Services for Women in Qualicum Beach
Hi! I’m Kirstin McKinnon. I am a Registered Clinical Counsellor (RCC) and a Registered Nurse (RN) in Qualicum Beach.
I have a master’s degree in nursing, and hold both registrations as a Registered Nurse and Registered Clinical Counsellor. I also previously trained as a Family Nurse Practitioner, personal trainer and health coach. I have over 19 years of experience in working one on one with clients. I love working one on one with clients, and helping them from a place of compassion, understanding, and hope. I enjoy getting to know people, hearing their stories, and seeing their strengths. I am passionate about helping women feeling empowered to improve their lives and to enjoy their lives. My desire is to help women have a greater sense of calm, joy, confidence and meaning in life.
I have seen the complexities of life and relationships, and I strive to help clients form a place of empathy and understanding. My combined education and practice experience gives me a unique understanding of, and approach to, the interconnection of mind, body, and emotions. My knowledge and training in counselling and advanced practice nursing enables me to provide evidence-based, holistic care to support clients in creating greater well-being in their lives. I wholeheartedly believe in peoples’ capacity to heal, grow, and change. This ability within you, combined with evidence-based therapies, can produce meaningful change in your wellbeing.
Additional Training:
- Emotionally Focused Individual Therapy (EFIT) for Grief: Attachment-Based Interventions to Move Clients Through Loss into Growth and Resilience
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Level 2 Certificate Course in Emotionally Focused Individual Therapy
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Level 1 Certificate Course in Emotionally Focused Individual Therapy
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Fundamentals of Emotionally Focused Therapy
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Awakening Positive Emotional States: How Imagery, Movement, and Play Can Enhance Your Work
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Transforming Trauma with Emotionally Focused Therapy
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Emotional and Disordered Eating: Trauma-Informed Clinical Tools to Heal Your Clients’ Relationship with Food and Body
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Foundations of Trauma
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Visual Journaling: Drawing on the Healing Power of Self-Expression
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Polyvagal Theory in Action
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National Society of Health Coaches Health Coaching Program
Tending to the heart, mind, body and soul.
Dissolve unhelpful behavioural and emotional patterns, develop a stronger sense of self, and engage in life in a more meaningful way.
