Sensing the Change
Tony Zerbin, MC | Registered Psychologist #8218
You’re coping, but not the way you want. You’ve reached the end of your resources, and the old ways aren’t working anymore. Either you have a clear picture of how you want your future to look with no clear path, or you lost the picture and are drifting. This is where psychotherapy comes into the picture.
I am a registered psychologist in Southwest Edmonton, and have been in practice for four years. For the past ten years, I have been training in somatic psychotherapy, which is a way of including movement, sensation, and experience with traditional talk therapy strategies.
My goal in therapy is to make myself obsolete by teaching you skills and ways of applying them in therapy, and encouraging you to use and integrate those skills between sessions. Insight is easy, the application that changes us (and renders me obsolete) is the hard work.
Booking: Click here
Somatic Psychotherapy
I have experience working for people from all lifestyles, but if physical activity is already a part of your life through sports, massage, meditation, and the like, you already have some of the building blocks of how we will be working.
The somatic way of working is often a good place to start when you feel you’ve reached the end of traditional talk therapy. My emphasis is on restorative experiences for the whole person rather than primarily on reasoning. We can work together in intentional ways with the parts of experience that words struggle to grasp.
This way of working is also useful for regaining quality of life from the inside out after traumatic experiences have made life feel small, unfamiliar, and unsafe. I focus on rallying the resources you already have to meet challenges where resources aren’t developed yet. I believe that all change is incremental, and change through support is the fastest way to grow. I am trained in the Bodynamic system.
The value of a strong working relationship
In therapy, the quality of the working relationship is linked to the quality of outcomes for clients more than any other variable like training and theory. I am a good fit for many people, but not for everyone. Choosing a therapist can be overwhelming, and I want to make that process simpler for you. In any relationship, knowing when it’s not a fit is just as important as knowing when it is a fit.
My focus is on what emerges in the room each session as we collaboratively discern, develop, and revisit your goals. We’ll establish an overarching goal for therapy, and then each separate session is also framed through a session based goal that we collaborate on at the start of the session. A lot can happen between sessions, and this level of flexibility works well for some people, and not for others.
Depending on your needs, some sessions are purely conventional talk therapy, some sessions are mix of talk therapy and experiential work, and some sessions–rare, but meaningful when the need arises–are almost entirely experiential with as minimal talk as needed. This is a collaborative process. As I normally say during my in-person intake, “I work for you, you call the shots.”
If what you’ve seen so far connects with you, but you’re still uncertain, you can book a 15 minute free phone consultation with me where we can chat about your concerns for therapy.
General Mental Health
While I’ve worked broadly on many issues with many people, no one is expert in all things. Here are some ways that I’ve found working with people particularly meaningful:
- Depression and anxiety
- OCD and ADHD
- Grief and loss
- Relationship and attachment issues
- Self-esteem and self-worth
- Regulating emotions
- Recovery after infidelity
- Cognitive performance and sleep issues
Specialized Training
My primary training over the past decade has been in the Bodynamic system. From that lens, I’m looking at all challenges through the themes of functions and developmental milestones. This allows for a deep level of precision to our conversation and experiences, and is a different system than the DSM which is used for formal medical mental health diagnosis.
The DSM describes and categorizes your relatively stable struggles, and the Bodynamic system allows for a detailed map and treatment plan for the different functions that make up formal DSM diagnosis. Are we dealing with ADHD? Then we’re often looking at developing concrete, context-based skills related to managing physiological energy and focus. To read more about how I make sense of the challenges you bring, click here.
Faith and Spirituality
I’ve grown up within a Christian context, and have working familiarity with the major Christian expressions, including but not limited to Protestant (Anglican / Lutheran), Evangelical (Reformed and Arminian), Roman Catholic, and Eastern/Oriental Orthodox traditions. There are a dizzying amount of variations there, and I assume also that each person ascribes to their variation by degrees. I also have familiarity with Mennonite, Latter-Day Saints, and Jehovah’s Witness communities. Beyond Christian faiths, I also have experience working with Muslim, Hindu, and Baha’i faiths.
I am not a clergy person, but if your faith is important to you (or to your family of origin)–or you’re wrestling with deconstruction/converting–all of this is welcome in our work upon your request. As a professional, my commitment is to work with you right where you are, on your goals, with the skills and knowledge that I have acquired, no matter your beliefs, values, or group affiliation. Your dignity is in your right to choose, whichever choice you choose, day by day.
“Let us acquire reverence, dignity, and meekness towards all people, as well as precise knowledge of them, so that we may avoid over-familiarity which is the mother of all evils.”
– Abba Moses
Contact:
- Booking: Click here
- Email: tony@tzpsych.com
- Phone: (780) 235-1710
If you have questions about what is appropriate to include in your contact, please review my Contact Policy.
Note: I am offering free 15 minute consultations to let us ask each other questions to see if we’re the right fit for each other. You can select them through the booking link above.
Location
I am practicing out of 111 Haddow Close NW, Edmonton, AB T6R 3W3, and taking on new clients at this time.
- Parking can be found in front of Pizza 73, or follow the access road beside Pizza 73 to the back parking lot.
- Look for the blue “Terwillegar Counselling Center” sign in the plaza, next to the Alberta Denture Clinic.
- Note: The front door is buzzer access only. Buzz the bottom-most buzzer to ring my office (Currently labelled for Barbara Zerbin). Please buzz ten minutes or less prior to your session time.
- There is no admin, this is a solo practitioner run office space.
I look forward to connecting or reconnecting with you in a new setting.