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Counselling takes place when a counsellor sees a client in a private and confidential setting to explore a difficulty the client is having, distress they may be experiencing or perhaps their dissatisfaction with life, or loss of a sense of direction and purpose. It is always at the request of the client as no one can properly be 'sent' for counselling. By listening attentively and patiently the counsellor can begin to perceive the difficulties from the client's point of view and can help them to see things more clearly, possibly from a different perspective.

Counselling is a way of enabling choice or change or of reducing confusion. It does not involve giving advice or directing a client to take a particular course of action. Counsellors do not judge or exploit their clients in any way.

In the counselling sessions the client can explore various aspects of their life and feelings, talking about them freely and openly in a way that is rarely possible with friends or family. Bottled up feelings such as anger, anxiety, grief and embarrassment can become very intense and counselling offers an opportunity to explore them, with the possibility of making them easier to understand.

Naturopathic physicians are often the first professionals that patients have had that hear their "whole" story from birth to the present. They are also the best professionals to know what other health professionals would be the best to have on their health care team. We may refer to massage therapists, physiotherapists, physicians and clinical counselors if indicated. Using the functional medicine matrix all aspects of the persons health: mental, emotional, spiritual, as well as physical are addressed. The relationship is "adult to adult" rather than "parent to child" which is the conventional medical model approach. All of us are counselors while some of us have further training in Hypnosis, Neuro-Linguistic Programming and Energy Psychology