About | Wild Hope Therapy

Hi there,
I'm Shannon

I am so glad you are here. At Wild Hope Therapy I am a human first. I believe in embracing individuality and exploring many different routes to healing. I work with clients towards building resilience and readiness to face their fears; to dig deep beneath the surface and embrace their inner strength—no matter how hard it gets. Together, we’ll move beyond the edges of your comfort zone and find the growth waiting just on the other side.

I have over 13 years of experience working with people from all walks of life.
I offer a combination of skills based modalities and the more humanist approach of 'talk therapy'
I work with adults, couples and families.
I offer both virtual and in person services in the Hamilton and Burlington area.

Offering virtual and in-person sessions in the Hamilton and Burlington area

MY STYLE

I get it. I may have even lived it. It is hard to talk about our stuff. Sometimes life brings us to places we never thought we would find ourselves. With many years of working with people from all walks of life, I've seen a wide range of life experiences—and I listen without judgment.

I offer a flexible, yet pragmatic and integrative approach to therapy. I draw heavily on years of clinical training in various modalities to provide evidenced based best practices because when indicated these therapies can be invaluable and life changing for people who are struggling.

That said - I do not believe in overly mechanistic or prescribed ways of approaching supporting human needs and tend to blend in more relational, humanistic and creative approaches - a focus on developing skills while also getting to the root of what is going on.

FAMILY SUPPORT

Families that support/ care for someone else's illness or addiction may avoid reaching out for help until they've hit breaking point. For the loved ones of of the person who is struggling - there are no clear cut answers on what to do, and often there are many people around them telling them what they should be doing.

Families are scared and sometimes carry a lot of shame, doubt and guilt. It is my goal to provide support to the family unit when appropriate with offerings such as couples or family therapy to help foster a sense of control in their lives and help to make informed choices for themselves and their loved ones.

Important Therapeutic Ingredients

* These are( in my humble opinion and experience) just some of the critical pieces to explore and unpack in the therapeutic relationship/process for transformative change to occur.

Understanding Cycles of addiction, abuse, self-harm

I understand the frustration that comes from trying to go at this alone. You swear you will change and you mean it. This time you will hold that boundary, you won't cave. When you say you never again to drugs alcohol or gambling, or to abuse or feeling taken advantage of - you really do mean it.

I understand cycles of abstinence, relapse, self-sabotage; self-harm, going back to an abusive situation, believing someone will change and the accompanying processes of minimizing, rationalizing, enabling, denying. Fear keeps us trapped, and shame keeps us going back.

There are layers of complexity to these issues and for healing to truly take hold we cannot be looking for easy solutions. Once we understand the underlying dynamics we begin to understand the whys. Why cant I leave? Why cant I stop? Once we break through the whys we can then start to look at the hows to's.

Understanding the Impact of Injustice and Shame

It is important to understand the way fear operates from a biological perspective and how trauma stores in the body and how it begins to shape our experience of reality.

Traumatic experiences, especially in situations where you could not protect or defend yourself or lacked personal power and resources can often lead us to believe it is our fault and that there is something inherently wrong with us, or that this is what we deserve,

The world can be a very unjust place and we need to acknowledge that. We must look at systemic factors and understand how historical injustice and transgerational trauma impact our ability to reclaim power and heal from present day experiences. Unchecked shame carries a lot of power. I practice and preach a wholehearted and radical form of self-acceptance to break free of shame so that we can finally find our inner strength and rediscover our own worth.

Stepping into your Power

Denial can be very self-protective. When our body believes we are under threat and that we simply cannot handle the truth , it relies on denial to keep us safe. This becomes a bigger problem for us whenwe are living in situations of chronic stress, we end up living in a permanent state of disconnection, disorientation and confusion.

With many years of my own life spent turning a blind eye and refusing to see the truth - I understand just how paramount it is to break through the haze and to wake up from the dream. And yet I also understand firsthand the strength of the self-protective mind and the reasons we cannot let go. I am not here to judge you or even tell you what you already know. I am here to guide you towards empowerment and agency. This is a process of learning how to recognize we have choices and and finding the courage to own our choices.

Treatment and recovery from severe addiction and mental health disorders must often treat the family as a whole.

Experience

I am a registered Social Worker and Psychotherapist, MSW, RSW registered with the Ontario College of Social Workers and Social Service Workers (OCSWSSW)

I have been fortunate to gain a wide breadth of experience and exposure to different areas of specialization and different therapeutic modalities. Some highlights include:

I am the current clinical lead providing clinical supervision to an outpatient psychiatric team that provides services to individuals and their families who are struggling with significant and severe psychotic and mood disorders
Extensive experience in both inpatient and outpatient psychiatric programs supporting people who are struggling with addictions, anxiety, depression, PTSD, borderline personality disorder, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.
Experience providing counselling and crisis services to students in a university campus student health and wellness department
Experience providing counselling services for women, gender diverse folks and children at a shelter for those fleeing abuse/violence
Experience managing a mental health program that offered art and horticultural therapy with a focus on nutrition and time spent in nature as key components to managing symptoms of illness and promting well-being

Hi there, I'm Shannon