Sharlene Petigara is a Registered Clinical Counsellor with a Master’s in Counselling Psychology. Her practice centers on resilience in the face of trauma, and she provides a safer space for BIPOC and LGBTQ2SIA+ folks. Some of the areas she can help with include relationship issues, trauma, gender identity and expression, personal/professional boundaries, self-esteem, anxiety, depression, work/life balance, immigration and adjustment, healing from oppression and internalized oppression, anger management, and developing self-care/compassion. Sharlene is trained in Trauma-Informed Stabilization Treatment (also known as “parts work”).  Her graduate work focused on Dialectical Behaviour Therapy, which provides practical techniques for managing emotions and tolerating distress. Sharlene’s clients often find themselves connecting to a self that feels more authentic, and learning what it feels like to start to expand their capacity to cope with life’s stressors. Clients find that after only a few sessions they’re able to slow down difficult moments, identify what’s going on within them, and grow a sense of self-leadership in which there’s much more possibility and choice in how they live than it seemed. People consistently describe feeling lighter and more capable after sessions. 

Cultural Identities/Lived Experience: Person of colour/bipoc/immigrant/southeast asian