What Can I Help You With?

Break-ups, whether painful or amicable, signify major life transitions with deep emotions to process, from grief to relief. These changes offer a chance for personal growth and relational discovery, often revealing unresolved issues. Healing involves honouring the relationship’s end, exploring new aspects of yourself, and reconnecting with your inner compass. It's a time for self-compassion and rebuilding your identity and purpose outside the relationship.

Addiction can manifest as substance abuse or compulsive behaviors like spending, sex, or relationships. It often arises from unresolved pain or trauma, serving as a temporary coping mechanism that deepens cycles of shame and disconnection. Addiction is tied to emotional wounds and unmet needs, such as numbing pain or seeking validation. Healing involves more than stopping the behavior; it requires addressing underlying issues, restoring self-regulation, and developing healthier ways to meet emotional and relational needs.

Often stemming from nervous system dysregulation; they can be triggered by chronic stress or unresolved childhood trauma, which keep the body's fight-or-flight response in overdrive. When the nervous system is overwhelmed, even minor stressors can provoke panic, leading to physical symptoms like rapid heartbeat, shortness of breath, and dizziness. Addressing the underlying dysregulation and trauma is key to reducing the frequency and intensity of panic attacks.

Most common are attachment issues developed in childhood due to unavailable caregivers, neglect or abuse. Dr. Ed Tronick is most well known for his work in Infant Mental Health. This youtube video shows one of his most famous experiments The Still Face Experiement

Nervous system regulation is vital for successful psychedelic integration because it helps anchor the profound experiences these substances can unlock. Psychedelics often bring deeply buried emotions, memories, and insights to the surface. In essence, regulating your nervous system enhances your ability to integrate psychedelic experiences, promoting sustained healing and growth.

Pediatric medical traumatic stress, according to the National Child Traumatic Stress Network, involves reactions to pain, serious illness, or invasive medical procedures. These reactions can affect both mind and body, causing anxiety, irritability, unwanted thoughts, or nightmares. Children and families may avoid medical settings or lose interest in social activities, impacting their performance at school or work. Coping with these changes often depends on individual thoughts and feelings about the illness or hospital experience.

• Adoptions

• Attachment Disorder

• Developmental Trauma

• Medical Trauma

• Post Traumatic Stress

• Trauma

• Abuse and Abandonment Issues

• Grief and Depression

• Physical Aggresion/Anger Management

• ADD/ADHD

• Oppositional Behaviours

• Anxiety/Phobias/Panic Attacks

• Social Skills

• Bed-wetting/Enuresis/Encopresis

• Brain Injury

• Parent/Child Bonding

• Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

• Bullying

• Low Self-esteem

• Grandiosity

• Pre-Adoption Guidance

• Stress Management

• Separation Anxiety

What are Primitive Reflexes?
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Primitive reflexes are automatic movements that provide essential responses through the birth process and after birth.  When the birth and the early months go right, these primitive reflexes integrate into the system and are replaced with more adult reflexes to assist in maneuvering the world safely.  The brainstem directs the primitive reflexes and require no cortical intervention or thought to show up and later integrate.  These primitive reflexes are vital for survival in the new frontier called life.  As the higher and more sophisticated centers of the brain come online and develop, these early reflexes that don't integrate or show signs of retention become ruptures in the natural development of the child and can carry over into adulthood.

• Fear Paralysis Reflex: The first to emerge and integrates in the first trimester, if this reflex is left active all situations are seen through the perspective of fear. Some signs of retention include: motion sickness, learning disorders, difficulty breathing, underlying anxiety or negativity, extreme fear of failure, phobias, aggressive or controlling behaviour, feeling stuck in life and constant overwhelm
  

• Moro Reflex: This reflex acts as the baby’s “fight or flight” response to the world. This important reflex usually integrates into the adult startle response by four months. Some signs of retention are emotional immaturity, lack of impulse control, hypersensitivity or hypo-sensitivity, sensory overload, and social immaturity.

• Rooting Reflex: Stroking a baby’s cheek will cause the child to turn and open the mouth. This is the automatic response to turn towards food.  This helps with breastfeeding. Usually disappears by four months. Some signs of retention are thumb sucking, picking eater, speech and articulation problems, and dribbling when eating/drinking.

• Palmer Reflex: This is the automatic flexing of the fingers to grab an object if the palm is stimulated. This reflex should integrate by six months. Some signs of retention are messy handwriting, poor manual dexterity, and difficulty with fine motor skills.

• Asymmetrical Tonic Neck Reflex (ATNR): This is intricate for the baby through the birth canal and to develop cross pattern movements.  The ATNR is seen when you lay a baby on its back and turn their head. The arm and leg on the side the child is looking at should extend while the opposite side bends. This response should end by six months. Without integration shows up as poor handwriting, trouble crossing vertical midline, poor hand-eye coordination, and poor visual tracking for reading and writing.

• Spinal Galant: This reflex assists babies with the birth process.  This reflex happens when the skin on the side of an infant’s back is stroked. The child should swing towards that side. The spinal galant should inhibit by nine months. Some signs of retention are poor concentration, unilateral or bilateral postural issues, fidgeting, poor short term memory, and bedwetting.

• Tonic Labyrinthine Reflex (TLR): The TLR helps with head management and prepares the baby for rolling over, sitting up, crawling, standing and walking. This reflex actually integrates slowly while other core systems mature and should disappear by three and a half years old. Signs of not integrating include motion sickness, poor muscle tone, walking on tiptoes, poor balance, and poor short term memory.

• Landau Reflex: Assists with posture development.  This reflex activates at 4-5 months and usually integrates by one year. When the child’s head lifts it causes the entire trunk to flex. When retained appears overall poor motor development.

• Symmetrical Tonic Neck Reflex (STNR): STNR or the crawling reflex divides the body along the midline to prepare and assist with crawling. You can view this reflex by watching the baby’s head drop towards its chest while the arms bend and the legs extend. Interestingly, the STNR appears briefly after birth and the reappears between six to nine months. It should dissolve by 11 months. If retained, there is a tendency to slump while sitting, inability to sit still and concentrate, poor muscle tone, and poor hand-eye coordination.

I offer a series of co-regulated exercise during the sessions to integrate any unintegrated reflexes.