Charlene Hickey is a Canadian Certified Counsellor offering in-person and online counselling sessions for adults and couples and in-person only sessions for youth and teens as young as 11. Her areas of specialty include relationship issues, anxiety and stress, parenting and trauma, to name a few.
Charlene is passionate about working with clients wanting to focus on relationship issues. Charlene offers relationship counselling for both individuals and couples as she recognizes that it is not always an option for both partners to attend couples counselling. It is Charlene’s belief that relationship issues can still be addressed and worked on with only one partner present. Charlene is open to working with all issues that may affect one’s relationship. However, areas of specialty are infidelity, all forms of abuse (financial, physical, emotional, spiritual, sexual and psychological), substance abuse, recovering from narcissistic abuse, and relationships displaying a pattern of cycling (being on and off with your partner). I am comfortable and have experience working with clients where one or both partners are involved with the ministry and family and/or criminal court.
Charlene enjoys working with clients with a diagnosis or simply displaying some of the traits of either Borderline Personality Disorder or Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Both disorders can be very harmful to the self and others, most individuals suffering from either disorder experience a lot of emotional pain. Charlene has experience working collaboratively with clients to build a skillset that helps them manage their maladaptive coping skills and replace them with more effective skills. A large piece of this is aiding clients in identifying and strengthening the skills and resources they already possess to regulate their overwhelming emotions and impulses. Charlene believes that diagnoses are simply a label used to name a cluster of symptoms, and by no means define the person or their ability to change unwanted behaviors and thoughts.
Charlene has a wealth of knowledge and experience working in Indigenous communities on both a personal and professional level. Charlene is a First Nations woman from Saddle Lake Cree Nation in northern Alberta where her mother was born. Charlene’s grandparents on her mother’s side were both residential school survivors and her mother is a survivor of the Sixties Scoop. Charlene possesses firsthand knowledge on the negative effects intergenerational trauma can cause, which allows her to come from a place of compassion and understanding when sitting with clients. Charlene has been working in Indigenous communities and organizations in the Victoria area since 2019. Please note: we are not able to offer direct billing to First Nations Status Card holders or through First Nations Health Authority.
Charlene enjoys working with clients of all ages. However, Charlene does hold training and years of experience working with teens. Charlene has a very easy-going personality that is also professional yet genuine; this has allowed her to be successful working with even the most “hard to reach” teens. Charlene truly loves working with younger adults to overcome whatever issues are negatively impacting their lives. Some of the most common teen issues Charlene works with are relationship issues, gender and sexual identity, anxiety over school, parenting issues, parent separation, self-harm, being on either end of bullying, or self-harm. Charlene offers regular talk therapy for youth and teens as well as optional art therapy depending on the client’s interests.
Charlene does not have a one size fits all when it comes to her counselling approach. Charlene tailors her approach to meet the needs of each client session to session. Charlene is flexible and adaptive, always striving to meet her clients where they are at and using skills she believes will be the most effective and helpful to her clients, and that will bring about the most growth and desired change. Charlene pulls from a variety of approaches but mainly utilizes skills pulled from client centered, solution focused, cognitive behavior therapy and dialectical behavior therapy. When working with couples or relationship issues, Charlene practices from both emotion focused and Gottman couples therapy approaches as she feels combining the skills from both modalities has brought about the most success when working with interpersonal relationships. When working with teens or younger youth, Charlene often engages clients in movement or art therapy.
Client Focus: Adults, Couples, Youth 11 – 19 years of age
Types of Therapy: Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Dialectical Behavioural Therapy (DBT), Solution Focused Therapy, Gottman Couples Method, Emotion-focused couples therapy, Emotion-focused individual therapy, Play therapy