Our Team

Alayna is a dedicated Counselling Student Intern offering low-cost, affordable phone and video/virtual counselling services to clients across British Columbia and Alberta. She enjoys supporting adults (18+) of all gender and sexual identities to navigate challenges and explore what it means for them to lead an empowered and fulfilling life.

By creating a safe, authentic and judgement-free space, Alayna shows up with curiosity and humility to meet clients where they are at. Alayna recognizes that we are all complex human beings with unique backgrounds and individualized needs, and that an integrative, holistic and client-centered approach to healing is most effective. She draws on multiple counselling modalities, including narrative therapy, solution-focused therapy, cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT), and attachment and relational theories, and uses primarily an emotionally-focused therapy (EFT) lens. She also applies somatic-based and creative arts interventions for bottom-up approaches to care.

In a world rife with barriers and adversities, Alayna believes that everyone is deserving of a life of freedom filled with pleasure, joy and love. She supports clients regarding:

• Navigating life transitions, challenges and decisions

• Relationship and interpersonal issues

• Healthy relationship building, including enhancing communication, connection and conflict-resolution skills

• Sex and intimacy

• Personal growth and self-empowerment

• Identity exploration

• Dismantling shame

• Developing self-compassion

• Adult child-parent relationships

• Boundary setting

• Grief and loss

• Trauma

• Anxiety

• Depression

• Stress

• Over-intellectualization

• Coping with, and finding meaning, in our changing world

Understanding that adverse experiences can inform our lives in varied ways, Alayna’s practice is grounded in trauma-informed care. She has a background in supporting survivors of sexual assault, and has completed specialized sex and trauma training. Alayna also brings years of professional experience in child and youth psychology, and supporting neurodiverse individuals.

Alayna has a special interest in sexual health and wellbeing, and is pursuing the training and skills development needed to become a specialized sex and relationship therapist. Alayna’s experience working in sex education, sex positive and relationship-diverse research, and sexual and reproductive healthcare informs her counselling work.

With a strong academic background and commitment to lifelong learning, Alayna applies her experiences in the helping field and recent, evidence-based knowledge to provide quality client care. She holds a Bachelor of Arts and Science with a focus in psychology, and is currently completed a Master of Arts in Counselling Psychology through Yorkville University.

In her personal life, Alayna enjoys spending time in nature, cooking and connecting with friends and family over food, travelling near and far, and watching films.

Alayna gratefully acknowledges her privilege to work, live, learn and play on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the syilx/Okanagan people. She is committed to upholding anti-oppressive and culturally-informed care.

Our Counselling Student Intern program allows Gravitate Counselling Inc. to offer low-cost, affordable counselling to clients across Vancouver Island and the rest of BC. Alayna is a student member of the BCACC and is supervised by Andee Dale, a Registered Clinical Counsellor and Approved Clinical Supervisor with the BC Association of Clinical Counsellors. Learn more about Andee on her profile page.

Rate

$50+GST per 50 minute session