As you distance yourself from others during the COVD-19 pandemic, you find yourself at a threshold of change. Amidst uncertainty, you seek help in reconnecting with your life’s purpose and your deepest work of healing. I’m Clayre Sessoms, and I’m here to help.
As Focusing Oriented Therapy creator and philosopher Dr. Eugene Gendlin once said, “What is split off, not felt, remains the same. When it is felt, it changes.” In the work that I do I’ve found that most of us don’t know this. Instead, we think that by ignoring unpleasant feelings that we’re OK. What happens is that these unwanted feelings become static and stale. “A few moments of feeling it in your body allows it to change. If there is in you something unsound, let it inwardly be and breathe. That’s the only way it can evolve and change into the form it needs.”
Eventually there may exist in you a felt sense of what’s possible. This feeling part of yourself is what we find as we sit with all that is here in the present moment. The felt sense doesn’t come from outside of you. It comes from within you. It comes as you consider your worry, your sadness, your joy, or your deep hurt or chronic pain. It comes not through force but through a quieting mind or through a softened gaze or through a gentle rhythm of your breath.
Does this mean you have to sit and wait for it? Isn’t there a technique that makes healing quick and painless? While I may rely on training in Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, EMDR, and Focusing Oriented Therapy to help you find a felt sense of how thoughts and feelings show up in the body, I cannot promise a quick fix or a pain-free journey. It’s important to note that I do not serve as your guide, rather I support your comfort as you find your own way. I offer psychoeducational tools that aim to keep you safe and sound during our time together. And I’m here to bear witness to the healing that emerges from within you. I do this by listening to you, offering support when you ask for support, and holding space for you when things seem too big to hold on your own.
I’m Clayre Sessoms (she/her), clinical counsellor and professional art therapist in private practice in Vancouver, BC, Canada. I’m a woman, a white settler who identifies as trans, queer, and partially blind. I work well with older youth and adults of any age. My approach explores heart-centred work rooted in feminism, queerness, social justice, and neuroscience.
There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature—the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter. —Rachel Carson
Want to feel better? Hope to lessen day-to-day worry? Ready to reconnect with your sense of purpose? Thinking of starting out on your deepest work to heal from abuse, hurt, loss, sexualized violence, shame, or trauma in your body? Let’s talk…
Art therapy uses creative methods to help you explore emotions, improve self-esteem, relieve stress, improve symptoms of anxiety and depression, and cope with pain.
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is an intervention developed by Dr. Francine Shapiro in the 1990s. EMDR helps alleviate distress.
Focusing Oriented Therapy is a body-centred and person-centred approach to healing developed by Dr. Gene Gendlin in the 1960s. Focusing helps you use your felt sense.
Motivational interviewing is a directive, client-centered counselling approach that helps you move past hesitation to find enough motivation to lessen harmful behaviour.
This is a trademarked body-centred approach by Dr. Pat Ogden. It blends sensorimotor processing with cognitive and emotional processing in the treatment of trauma.
Often all you need is a warm cup of tea and a good listener, and I’m here to provide the quintessential milieu for therapeutic conversations over tea.
Qmunity is a Vancouver-based services- and advocacy-focused organization for LGBTQ2IA+ youth, adults, and partners. Services may include advocacy and outreach, healthcare clinics, peer support groups, and counselling.
View my growing list of LGBTQ2IA+ resources in BC.
Vancouver Women’s Health Collective (VWHC) is a voluteer-led charity for all self-identified women with a resource centre and wellness program that includes nurse-led primary care, counselling, art therapy, and yoga classes.
View my growing list of LGBTQ2IA+ resources in BC.Online therapy sessions occur on a trusted telehealth platform. The first session is booked by contacting me. Follow-up sessions are booked online.
Cancellation or rescheduling must be made 24 hours prior to your session’s start time. Failure to give notice will require a $75 fee before rebooking.
My fees are $150 (includes GST) per 50-minute session for individuals and $200 (includes GST) per 50-minute session for partnerships or families.
