Experience Matters
Christy Arsenault is a seasoned therapist with extensive experience in a variety of settings. She excels in working with teens, young adults and adults with each group requiring unique approaches for their differing stages of life. She believes in the ability for individuals to learn new strategies for coping and brings to each session a sense of optimism and positivity. She is trained to facilite Adlerian STEP parenting groups and is passionate about working with family systems providing support and education based on the principles of Alfred Adler. The topics she most often sees in her practice are trauma, grief, chronic pain, anxiety, depression, sexual abuse, parent-teen conflict, LGBTQ2+, ADHD, teen/adolescence issues and clinical supervision.
Christy's Story
Christy began her counselling career in 2008 at a Burnaby child and family non-profit agency where she worked with a wide-range of issues and diverse populations until 2021 when she moved to Port Alberni. Due to the serious nature of this community work, Christy has spent hundreds of hours obtaining specialized training in evidence-based modalities such as EMDR, CBT and DBT. With this experience and training, she began to provide clinical supervision for Master’s level practicum students in her agency and became the clinic coordinator in the agency’s New Westminster office. Christy is currently an Approved Clinical Supervisor with the BC Association of Clinical Counsellors and now provides this service to colleagues and local non-profit and Indigenous agencies in addition to her regular private practice.
Over the years at the MCFD-funded agency, Christy’s experience with high-needs families resulted in direct referrals from social workers who requested her special set of conflict resolution skills, a robust parent education background and quick connection with youth who required a therapist that can understand their point of view. Through this family agency work, teens and high-risk youth became a special interest for Christy so she added part-time work with the team at the Burnaby Youth Clinic working closely with the nurses and doctor providing crisis and short-term counselling for five years. Christy then added to this special interest to provide outreach services to an alternate school in New Westminster from 2014 to 2020. Students reported to school staff that Christy understood the issues they faced from a young person’s perspective and her clients would regularly come to school on days they had an appointment with her. School staff noted that her authenticity and life experience allowed her to connect quickly with clients who were sceptical of counselling.
Christy also spent three years from 2008-2011 providing part-time support to university students at Quest University in Squamish as the only counsellor in their Student Services department. University-age young adults have unique needs as they strike out on their own but still need someone to share and review what they’ve discovered about their world.
In 2014 Christy joined a Richmond private practice where she amalgamated all of her skills and knowledge into a successful part-time practice. In this post-pandemic era, working with teens and young adults requires knowledge not only of unique developmental stages but also understanding career counselling, support for issues arising at school such as procrastination, academic issues, being savvy about current affairs and world politics, an ability to discuss existential concerns and philosophy, to be computer-literate, to understand social media and to be able to deliver all of these conversations in a manner that fits each individual’s learning needs.
Christy moved to Port Alberni (c̓uumaʕas) on Vancouver Island in 2021. When face to face counselling was allowed again by public health officials, Christy chose to continue her Richmond part-time practice online as her Lower Mainland clients found that video counselling enabled them to access mental health services more efficiently than taking several hours out of their day to transit to an office for a one-hour appointment. Parents also reported that video counselling enabled them to remain at work rather than taking a vacation day to drive their teen to an office. While video counselling will remain an option for clients who have difficulty accessing services, Christy notes the importance of face to face interactions on the neurological connection with clients and has chosen to return to in-person counselling in her new community.
Christy has worked with marginalized clients and brings an anti-colonial, feminist lens to her therapy. She has engaged with translators for new immigrant and refugee families and the deaf community and obtained extra training to ensure she is up to date with unique issues these individuals face. Christy remains concerned about the impact of colonialism on her clients and engages in continued diversity training and participating in community events that align with inclusion, equality and cultural sensitivity. In 2023 Christy attended North Island College’s Introduction to NuuChahNulth course which she found immensely helpful in learning about her new local community of Port Alberni (c̓uumaʕas) and the surrounding areas. She believes that language teaches us about culture and the intricacies and nuances of community and Christy wishes to bring this enthusiasm to her new office in Port Alberni.