Mental Health Services in Prince Albert, SK

At Harvest Moon Counselling & Therapy, our integrated approach extends beyond traditional talk therapy, offering a blend of modalities tailored to meet each client's unique needs and preferences.

With a foundation in counselling psychology, our team integrates evidence-based practices with other specialized modalities to address a wide range of mental health concerns, including addiction, trauma, anxiety, depression, and more.

Whether you're seeking support for yourself or your child, our therapists provide compassionate guidance and support to help you navigate life's challenges with resilience and strength.

Somatic Experiencing® (SE) is a naturalistic approach, and is one of the approaches that can be used in counselling to help people resolve and heal from trauma. It was developed by Dr. Peter Levine and is supported by research.

Somatic means “of, or relating to the body” and Experiencing means “to encounter or undergo; to be affected by what one meets with”. So it is an approach that helps a person encounter or pay attention to the experience of the body to create healing.

SE is a holistic approach to dealing with trauma that brings the body’s experience into awareness, while also paying attention to thoughts, emotions, images, behaviour.

Here are some key points about using Somatic Experiencing in counselling:

• SE employs awareness of body sensation to help people “renegotiate” and heal rather than relive or re-enact trauma.

• SE’s guidance of the bodily “felt sense” allows the high survival energies to be safely experienced and gradually discharged.

• SE experience breaks down the release of trauma energy into small, incremental steps, rather than allowing large overwhelming flooding.

• SE has a number of benefits, such as relief of traumatic stress symptoms, increased resiliency and increased regulation

Mindfulness-Integrated Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (MiCBT) represents a comprehensive approach to mental health that combines the principles of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) with mindfulness practices. Grounded in the understanding that our thoughts, emotions, and behaviours are interconnected, MiCBT emphasizes the cultivation of present-moment awareness to foster lasting change and well-being.

In MiCBT, clients learn to observe their thoughts and emotions without judgment, developing a deeper understanding of the patterns that contribute to their distress. By integrating mindfulness techniques into cognitive behavioural interventions, individuals gain greater insight into their automatic reactions and can respond to challenging situations with clarity and resilience.

Through guided mindfulness practices and cognitive restructuring exercises, clients build skills to manage stress, regulate emotions, and cultivate a greater sense of self-awareness. By addressing both the cognitive and emotional aspects of psychological distress, MiCBT offers a holistic approach to therapy that empowers individuals to live more fully and authentically.

Art Therapy and Creative Exploration at Harvest Moon Counselling & Therapy offer a dynamic approach to healing and self-discovery, inviting individuals to express themselves authentically through artistic mediums. Led by our experienced art therapist, Julie Vacca, this transformative process provides a safe and nurturing space for clients to explore their thoughts, emotions, and experiences through creative expression.

Through guided art-making activities, clients can tap into their inner wisdom and unlock new insights, gaining a deeper understanding of themselves and their journey. Whether they're processing trauma, managing stress, or simply seeking to connect with their inner creativity, Art Therapy and Creative Exploration empower individuals to find their voice, cultivate resilience, and embrace their innate capacity for growth and healing.

By harnessing the power of art-making, clients can bypass verbal limitations and access deeper layers of the psyche, facilitating profound shifts in perception and self-awareness. From painting and drawing to sculpture and collage, the possibilities for self-expression are endless, allowing clients to explore their inner landscape and cultivate greater clarity, insight, and emotional well-being.

Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART) is a unique approach to psychotherapy. ART is unique because the ART Therapist guides the client to replace the negative images in the mind that cause the symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress with positive images of the client’s choosing. And this is done quickly, most often within one session! Once the negative images have been replaced by positive ones, the triggers will be gone. Nightmares and repeated intrusive thoughts will stop.

ART is also unique in that it combines the enormous power of eye movements to allow voluntary changes in the client’s mind with well-established therapies like Gestalt, Psychodynamic Therapy and Guided Imagery. Within the ART protocol, the eye movements, along with other ART enhancements, make these therapies work much faster and more effectively.

With these therapies, combined with ART’s eye movements and other ART enhancements, many mental health problems other than Post Traumatic Stress can also be resolved quickly. Among the things ART can deal with are OCD, Eating Disorders, Generalized Anxiety and Generalized Depressive Disorders. ART can deal with traumas often associated with Dyslexia but also go beyond that to improve reading! (The issues that have been resolved by ART are listed more fully below.)

Anxiety
Depression
Phobias
Panic Attacks
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
Post Traumatic Stress (PTS)
Addictions/ Substance Abuse
Performance Anxiety
Family Issues
Victimization/Poor Self Image
Victimization/Sexual Abuse
Relationship Issues/Infidelity
Codependency
Grief
Job-Related Stress
Pain Management
Memory Enhancement
Dyslexia Anxiety