Elizabeth Morelle, Counselling Therapist

Registered as a Clinical Counsellor with the British Columbia Association of Clinical Counsellors (#12137) since 2014

It all started when…

I went to see an acupuncturist in my teens. What fascinated me was not only the body’s energy system and the meridians in the body discovered through an empirical approach to medicine that was over five thousand years old, but also that Traditional Chinese Medicine acknowledged the importance of and also treated the emotional aspects of disease.

My personal healing journey to overcome the effects of childhood emotional neglect and the resulting trauma, anxiety and depression that plagued me as a young woman, led me to study many facets of complementary medicine. Along the way I undertook a decades long inquiry into the voice, the body, authentic movement and the emotions, and the inter-relationships between them and finding inner peace.

I was dissatisfied with conventional medicine and its drugs which offered side effects but little else.

Looking for answers through natural healing modalities led me to train in shiatsu therapy. It was here where I learned to listen deeply to the body, to its pain and its wisdom. I learned how to be “present” to another, without trying to “fix” them. I understood that we each have the capacity to heal ourselves and it is the compassionate attention of the “witness” which often allows healing to occur. Being deeply empathetic however gave me a tendency to “draw up” other people’s pain and sickness. I had to find an “off the body” approach which kept me healthy if I was going to continue to help others.

That is where counselling psychology and psychotherapy came in.

In fact I had already developed my unique somatic psychotherapeutic approach; I was having incredible results with people but I felt that ethically I couldn’t promote it without going back to school and getting my masters in counselling psychology.

Because of my many years’ shiatsu experience in being present with clients and listening deeply to them at the body level, I am nowadays able to take my counselling clients to a place deep within, where healing and transformation can come about effortlessly.

When you feel held within the container of non-judgmental and compassionate intention which I can hold for you, you experience a level of safety where you can touch the core of your being and find deep and permanent healing from the stuck patterns of old trauma.