Vanessa Lacoursiere

Hello! My name is Vanessa Lacoursiere, and I am a Master Social Worker, Addictions Specialist, and Trauma-Informed Professional Mental Health therapist on the Psychotherapy For You team. I look forward to providing you support the way that works for you. I can provide mental health consultations, treatment plans, and continuum of care service referrals for individuals, couples, and families, ages 15-up. A little about me, I believe, “You can't really know where you are going until you know where you’ve been!” Maya Angelou. This statement is a quote that I live by. It speaks to my passion and experience for self-exploration that I think is very necessary to find resolve and to solve for next steps toward achieving your goals. For example, it highlights the human need for the mental clarity that we all need to find a direction forward that best suit our chosen individual paths. When reflecting on my own personal and professional development process, I’ve been fortunate to overcome many adverse life experiences that, I believe, enables me a keen lens to help others. With the complex challenges simply living our lives can bring, I am passionate about my effort to provide both resolutions and solutions within a single session. Also, both personally and professionally, I value health, safety, and ‘wholistic’ wellness concepts; from a Dr. Gabor Mate’s perspective, we cannot heal anything without connection to loving supports and laughter! In terms of my professional experience, I have worked and provided support to clients with a spectrum of challenges consisting of intra/interpersonal relationships, romantic relationships, burnout, Domestic Violence, the Criminal/Family Justice System, Addictions (behaviour and chemical), and Indigenous Advocacy roles. It is important to note that all of my effort is towards working to tailor and collaborate on ‘Evidenced Best Practice’ approaches and treatment plans to focus on your wellness outcome goals. I have experience working with medical mental health symptomology and serious mental health disorders including depression, anxiety, panic, and other physiological stress response symptoms that is also experienced from many clinical diagnoses such as BPD, MDD, ADHD, Bipolar, Concurrent (Addictions and mental health diagnosis), Schizophrenia and Schizoaffective Disorders. Moving forward, my professional goal is to support the integration of a neurobiological model’s lens with a keen focus on environmental issues and bird’s eye view effort to reduce cultural oppression. Additional Qualifications/professional technical skills include: 1. Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) 2. Solution Focused Behaviour Therapy (SFBT) 3. Traumatic Incident Reductions Therapy (TIR) 4. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) 5. Narrative Therapy (NT) 6. Motivational Interviewing (MI) 7. Crisis Prevention Intervention (CPI Blue Card) 8. Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training (ASIST) Assessment Models include: 1. Transtheoretical Model of Change Assessment 2. Circumplex Model of Analysis 3. Anti-Oppressive Practice lens Academic Accomplishments: -Distinction -Golden Key International Honour Society Community Collaboration: -Matrix Project and Revisions