Richard Nevin Counselling Services

We live in a culture where many expectations are placed on us. The stresses of everyday life can take their toll on your relationship. If your relationship has become an additional source of stress, rather than a source of support, then counselling can help you to move through the barriers that keep you separate, feeling isolated and unsupported.

Couples counselling can help you to discover new ways of being in relationships that are more loving and satisfying.

Relationship counselling can help you:

• remember who you are!
• resolve conflict and increase harmony
• develop open, honest, respectful communication
• accept each other
• increase trust
• create deeper intimacy
• encourage loving expression
• create shared meaning and purpose
• develop greater emotional closeness and invigorate your sex life
• become best friends and lovers again

As a Registered Clinical Counsellor, a married partner for 22 years, and a father of two boys, I have experienced many of the struggles that we go through as partners and parents. I have learned much from my personal experience, professional training, and helping individuals and couples like you navigate life's challanges. However most importantly, I have learned through the journey into my own heart how you can experience love and rich communion in relationship.

If you are serious about improving your relationship, then now is the time to get the support that a professional can provide. Invest in yourself and your relationship, you'll be glad you did!

People come to see me because they want something to change. They have been trying to change on their own, sometimes for decades and still feel unsatisfied.

Trying to figure out how to make the change we want to happen on our own often leads to frustration, disappointment, and settling for less than a fully satisfying life.

We may feel conflicted within ourselves, in our relationships, unsatisfied, empty at times, or anxious about situations. We may also be experiencing more severe symptoms related to traumatic stress from past abuse or traumas including auto crashes, surgeries, falls, or injuries.

Trying harder to change based on what we know and how we perceive our self in relation to what troubles us can be circular and unproductive. Through my practice of counselling and teaching I will provide a clear, objective and well-informed perspective on whatever it is that you would like to be different. As a counsellor I specialize in helping you to feel better physically, emotionally and cognitively.

Each person is unique and each person I work with receives my very thoughtful and specific attention. My intention is to work with you in a very specific way that suited to your unique orientation to yourself and life. I will work with your strengths and at a pace that matches your capacity to process and integrate new experience and learning.

As we work together to dissolve your specific symptoms of stress, distress and traumatic stress you will begin to feel more energized and clearer about who you are and what is important for you in this life. As your symptoms dissolve you will begin to connect with your true nature. What you will discover is that the love and peace you desire is already within you.

“For growth and development, any live organism and its supporting environment must be in intimate contact. However because of our cultural conditioning, as well as frightening and aversive events from the past, we have learned to block this organic flow.” Peter Levine, founder of Somatic Experiencing©

I have found that Somatic Experiencing is an effective and gentle appraoch for working with traumatic stress, deconstructing and reintegrating both the psychological and physiological conditioning that limits our innate capacity to fully inhabit our body and this life we are born into.

Sources of Traumatic Stress

Pre and Perinatal Distress, Surgery, Illness, Burns, Suffocation, Choking, Motor Vehicle Accidents, Falls, Chronic Stress, Physical, Emotional or Sexual Abuse, Loss, Major Life Transitions, Confusing Spiritual Experiences, Natural Disasters, War

Symptoms of Traumatic Stress or PTSD

In trauma we tend to either be overwhelmed by intense bodily sensations or shut down against them. The degree to which we cannot deeply feel our body’s interior is the degree to which we crave excessive external stimulation. Or conversely, if we are overwhelmed by internal bodily sensations we drastically limit our exposure to external stimulation.

The following are some common symptoms of traumatic stress:

Hyperarousal & Constriction

Increased Heart Rate, Restricted Breathing, Cold Sweats, Muscular Tension, Chronic Pain, Inability to Sleep or Relax, Anxiety or Panic Attacks, Hyperactivity, Angry Outbursts, Hypervigilance, Racing Thoughts, Worry, Flashbacks

Disconnection & Dissociation

Low Energy, Exhaustion, Numbness, Weakness, Poor Digestion, Poor Immune System Function, Depression, Inability to Focus, Apathy, Disconnection in Relationship, Addictions

Syndromes (Syndromes occur over time as the symptoms above affect healthy function of body systems.)

Migraines, Fibromyalgia, Autoimmune Disorders, Hypertension, Pain Syndromes, Irritable Bowel, Spastic Colon, Sympathetically Mediated Pain Syndrome