Feeling overwhelmed, burned out, anxious, or stretched too thin? I provide mental health support for women navigating high expectations, emotional stress, identity challenges, and life transitions. Many of the women I work with are high achievers, mothers, caregivers, professionals, or athletes.
Often holding everything together on the outside while feeling depleted on the inside. Through therapy, I offer a space to pause, regulate, and move toward a life that feels more grounded and authentic.
I often support:
• Women experiencing anxiety, burnout, or emotional overwhelm
• High-achieving professionals holding a lot of responsibility
• Mothers balancing caregiving, work, and personal identity
• Athletes navigating performance pressure or burnout
• Teens and young adults managing stress and life transitions
I also work closely with athletes and families, providing support to both youth and adult athletes and to parents navigating the emotional demands of competitive sport.
As the mother of teenage athletes, I understand firsthand the pressure, sacrifice, and emotional load placed on both athletes and their families — from performance anxiety and burnout to identity, balance, and family stress.
This lived experience deeply informs my work.
With over 15 years of experience in mental health, including more than a decade working in inpatient psychiatry at BC Children’s Hospital, I bring a calm, compassionate, and highly informed approach to counselling. I have supported children, youth, and caregivers with complex mental health and behavioural challenges, and now offer this depth of experience in therapy. My goal is to provide thoughtful, practical mental health support to women, youth, and adults navigating stress, anxiety, burnout and life transitions.
My work is person-centred and strengths-based, drawing from CBT, DBT, Internal Family Systems (IFS), Attachment Theory, Solution-Focused Therapy, Emotion-Focused Family Therapy (EFFT), and Lifespan Integration Therapy. I provide mental health support tailored for individuals, including athlete counselling and women's therapy. Together, we focus on emotional regulation, self-understanding, coping skills, and creating meaningful change — not perfection.
If you’re feeling stuck, overwhelmed, or unsure where to begin, you don’t have to navigate this journey alone. I offer a free consultation to help you explore whether working together is the right fit. I invite you to reach out and take the first step.
A virtual consultation to explore fit, discuss athlete counselling, ask questions, and see how I can support you.
Virtual sessions make it easy to start your journey from home.
Want to chat but not sure where to start? I can reach out to you.
We respectfully acknowledge that we work and live on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territories of the Katzie (q̓ic̓əy̓) and Kwantlen (qʼʷa:n̓ƛʼən̓) First Nations.
CRISIS RESPONSE SUPPORT: Vanessa Thomson Counselling does not provide crisis response support. If you or someone you know is at imminent risk of suicide, call 911 or attend the closest hospital. In BC, if the risk is not imminent, call the BC Suicide Line at 1-800-784-2433 or the Mental Health Support Line at 310-6789.
HEALTH NOTICE: Counselling is provided by video conferencing or phone as requested for safe and accessible care.
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