Julie Hughes - Associate Counsellor

Julie is a graduate from theUniversity of Ottawa with a degree in Psychology and Sociology and is also a Registered Professional Counsellor and a member with the Canadian Professional Counsellors Association. With a passion for psychology and a career background that includes experience in community organizaions and non-profits, Julie brings with her an inquisitive mind, deep insight and a caring and compassionate heart.

Her passion and love for life has lead Julie into a counselling career, largely as the result of her personal experience with depression as a young adult, to her experience and lessons in dealing with grief after the loss of her mother at a relatively young age of 28. She understands that the grieving process is unique to each individual and not something to be rushed. As both a counsellor and educator as well as a community organizer for those in need, Julie has worked with individuals in an environment where the focus  has always been on higher quality of care, and the importance of establishing a support system to get through some of life’s more challenging moments.  Her goal being to help others reach a level of self-love and acceptance in order to achieve a fuller, richer and ultimately a happier life.

Julie’s counselling framework stems from the idea that pain is, at times, an inevitable part of our human experience. And that mental and emotional suffering is optional, although it may not always feel that way. Julie’s primary focus is to work with individuals and couples in revealing the negative thought processes and deep rooted beliefs that have led people to engage in dysfunctional and/or self-destructive behaviors. These behaviors tend to cause undo mental suffering rather than to help people achieve the very thing they want.  Julie believes in the idea that as humans we are responsible for our own inner experience, and that in order to heal from our past hurts and pain we must first begin by unfolding into a state of compassion and love for our selves rather than succumbing to self-judgment and limiting negative beliefs about ourselves and others.

As a counsellor Julie likes to focus on exploring the area's where people feel stuck in their lives. The idea being that where ever there is resistance or emotional pain there is also an opportunity and a stepping stone for further growth and expansion to occur. These painful experiences can be something to teach us and to help facilitate a process of expansion rather than to hurt us, or to cause us more suffering.  Shifting our perception around being victim to our circumstances to one of being explorer of our circumstances invites openness and curiosity to a situation or a struggle as a way to heal what needs healing inside of us.  This approach helps remove ourselves from a state of powerlessness and victimhood, to one of being internally directed and in having the ability to tap into and make use of our own personal resources. Where our biggest problems and struggles in life can be transformed into our greatest learning’s and gifts to ourselves when we chose to open to the healing that is waiting for us there. This is the basis of Julie’s working framework when dealing with clients. 

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Treatment Philosophy

"Every situation, properly perceived, becomes an opportunity to heal." ACIM

Some of the counseling frameworks Julie draws from have their background in Bowen Family Systems theory, Gestalt therapy, Jungian therapy, Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP), Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Person-centered therapy, A Course In Miracles, as well as a Transpersonal Perspective; which involves seeing the human experience as being all aspects of the emotional, mental, physical and spiritual and how these are all interconnected to form a greater whole. In general Julie will use the counselling techniques that are best suited for each session and each individual based on their unique set of needs.

Systems' theory gives us a framework for how the early relationships we formed as children with our care-givers and siblings contributes to the dynamics we play out in our present-day relationships, particularly with intimate partners. This way of seeing ourselves and how we relate to the world offers us a chance to change our perceptions, and essentially our behaviors by empowering ourselves to have the ability to chose who we want to be in the middle of a struggle. And often this choice involves doing the opposite of what our defense-based reaction is telling us to do. With enough awareness and a willingness to do our personal healing work, we are all capable of having healthy, fulfilling and loving relationships.

Counselling can allow us to become active participants in our own healing process by awakening to the truth of every situation, for which all thoughts are either governed by a state of love or fear, and that the freedom we can exercise comes in knowing that in every instant we can chose to come from a place of love over fear.

Continuing Education & Professional Registration

• Three Year Counsellor Training Program in Applied Transpersonal     Psychology from Clearmind International Institute (2008)
• Nonviolent Communication (NVC) Workshops & Training  (2003)
• Healing and Treating, Trauma Addictions and Related Disorders with David Burns (Sept 2011)
• Re-Evaluation/Co-Counselling Workshop (2012)
• Registered Professional Counsellor (RPC #3166) 

"Seek not to change the world, but choose to change your mind about the world. What you see reflects your thinking. And you're thinking but reflects your choice of what you want to see." ACIM

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