Monica Bhatara , MA
Registered Therapeutic Counsellor (RTC) #2030
About Monica
Monica specialize in the areas of trauma (adult and children) and play/expressive therapies.
Adults often process issues by talking, children process by playing, particularly because play is the natural way children express themselves. Play and expressive therapies integrate the use of verbal counselling with play, sand play and art therapy and are very experiential. Play and expressive therapies allow children the opportunity to better work through and resolve their problems, release stress and anxiety around their worries, discover alternative healthier and adaptive behaviours to cope, and work through and heal their emotional wounds. (Click to read more)
Children may sometimes demonstrate challenging behaviours due to a variety of reasons. Monica provides a safe and supportive environment for her clients and their family to work on better understanding the underlying causes of the behaviour. Monica uses directive and non-directive approaches to help children work through and manage identified issues and concerns, and learn new coping strategies.
In trauma counselling, Monica prioritizes the development of a strong therapeutic relationship to increase her client’s comfort and sense of safety. She believes in the inherent sacredness of the client-therapist relationship and the ability of the therapeutic journey to provide restorative experiences. With remarkable insight, compassion and commitment to trauma recovery work, she helps clients navigate though the scariness of their lived experience and find a greater sense of meaning and well-being in their lives.
Monica uses a combination of somatic based and expressive therapies. She uses experiential modalities, which help clients connect to their deep inner wisdom which is much more than their thoughts and feelings. Monica’s work specifically focuses on working with implicit trauma memory which is integral to healing from trauma.