Therapeutic Counselling - General
This might be for you if… you’re carrying something heavy and you’re ready to set it down for a while — with someone who gets it.
Life is a lot. Whether you’re navigating a major transition, managing the invisible weight of a chronic condition, figuring out who you are in a body that keeps surprising you, or simply feeling like you’ve lost the thread — you don’t have to sort it out alone.
I offer a warm, unhurried space where you are welcome exactly as you are. As a Counselling Student at the Orca Institute completing my supervised practicum, I bring genuine curiosity, up-to-date training, and a deep commitment to showing up fully for the people I work with. I also bring lived experience — as someone who is neurodivergent and navigating chronic illness myself, I understand in a real way what it means when your inner world and the outer world don’t always meet you where you are.
How we work together will be shaped by you — your pace, your nervous system, your goals. I draw from a trauma-informed, person-centred foundation, weaving in attachment-informed relational approaches, self-compassion practices (informed by Kristin Neff’s work), parts-based approaches, nervous-system-informed pacing, and practical tools from CBT, SFBT, and Motivational Interviewing. We’ll close each session with intention — a moment to ground back into the present, and to leave you not just heard, but holding something real: a tool, a next step, a knowing, or simply a little more tenderness toward yourself than you arrived with.
I have a particular passion for working with people navigating chronic illness, neurodivergence, perimenopause, and the emotional complexity of life in a body that needs extra tending. And while these are populations close to my heart, I welcome anyone who is ready to do meaningful work.
Ready to take the first step? Book a free 15-minute discovery call — no pressure, just a conversation.
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Kimberley Handley
Book NowFinancial Therapy
Best for: Anyone whose relationship with money feels heavy — whether that’s an entrepreneur navigating business anxiety, a retiree quietly terrified of outliving their savings, or someone who simply carries shame about debt, avoidance, or never feeling financially okay. If you’ve ever wished you had someone to talk to about the feelings around money — not just the numbers — you’re in the right place.
Traditional financial advice has a blind spot. It tells you what to do with your numbers — but it has nothing to say about why you avoid opening your bank statements, why you undercharge for your work, why a strong month triggers a spending spiral, or why building the business you actually want feels so terrifying.
That gap — between knowing and doing — is where most people get stuck. And it’s exactly where this work begins.
A combination you won’t find anywhere else
I bring three decades of corporate financial experience as a Chartered Professional Accountant and Certified Financial Counsellor into a warm, person-centred counselling space. I am Trauma of Money Certified, have spent three years specializing in compulsive overshopping, and am completing my supervised clinical practicum at the Orca Institute — where the counselling training that holds all of this together is grounded.
That means you get someone who genuinely understands the mechanics of cash flow, business structure, and financial planning — and who also understands the shame, avoidance, and anxiety that make those mechanics feel impossible to touch. Most financial professionals can do one or the other. This is both.
What we actually work on
This is a fluid, collaborative space — not a lecture, not a budget review. People come here navigating things like:
Business setup anxiety and decision paralysis Cash flow stress and the emotional weight of financial instability Administrative avoidance — the emails, invoices, and statements that pile up untouched Lifestyle inflation and the spending patterns that follow income growth Self-sabotage that keeps showing up right when things start going well The quiet dread of never feeling financially secure — no matter what the numbers say
How we work
At the heart of this work is the understanding that your relationship with money tells a story — one that usually started long before you earned your first dollar. We begin there: with curiosity, not judgment, exploring the money scripts and lived experiences that shaped how you think, feel, and behave around finances today.
The approach is person-centred at its core — you lead, I follow, and nothing moves faster than your nervous system can handle. We weave in parts-based work to make space for the internal conflict between the part of you that knows what to do and the part that can’t quite do it. Nervous system awareness helps us work with the anxiety and avoidance in real time, not just talk about it. Motivational Interviewing keeps the conversation honest and pressure-free. ACT helps you reconnect your financial choices to what actually matters to you. And practical cognitive tools give us something concrete to work with when patterns need examining.
We work to understand what’s driving the behaviour — not to shame you, but to give you a genuine choice where, right now, there feels like none.
You don’t need to have it together before you come here. That’s the whole point.
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Kimberley Handley
Book NowCompulsive Overshopping Counselling
Best for: People caught in cycles of impulse buying or compulsive spending — especially those carrying spending shame they’ve never said out loud, and anyone who has tried to “just stop” and couldn’t.
Compulsive overshopping is not a moral failing. It is not weak willpower or poor character. It is a coping mechanism — one that probably worked for a long time before it started costing you more than money.
Shopping can temporarily quiet anxiety, fill loneliness, create a fleeting sense of control, or simply make an unbearable afternoon feel bearable. The behaviour makes complete sense when you understand what it’s actually doing for you. That’s exactly where we start.
What this work looks like:
I have spent three years specializing exclusively in compulsive overshopping — training extensively in Dr. April Benson’s renowned Compulsive Overshopping Method through 14 months of full-time immersive work with her protégé — and have adapted it into a flexible, trauma-informed model built for the reality of today’s world: one-click purchasing, infinite scroll, and a retail environment specifically engineered to bypass your better judgment.
This specialized therapeutic counselling is offered as part of my supervised clinical training and moves entirely at your pace. We do the deep work together — live, in session — so you’re never left to wrestle with the hard stuff alone. If structured reflection between sessions feels right for you, we can incorporate that too.
That means uncovering your unique Shopping Story — the history and meaning behind the behaviour — mapping the full landscape of your triggers, and working toward your Future Idealized Self: the version of you who shops with intention, not compulsion. We do this in real conversation, with real tools you can reach for the moment an urge hits, at a pace your nervous system can actually work with.
How we work:
At the heart of this model is narrative and identity work — understanding the story you’ve been living and beginning to author a new one — woven together with a parts-based approach that makes space for the part of you that shops and the part of you that wants something different. Nervous system awareness runs through everything: your body is a source of information, not a problem to manage, and we use it to help you regulate in real time.
Motivational Interviewing shapes how we talk — no pressure, no shame, just honest exploration of what you want and what’s getting in the way. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy helps you defuse from the thoughts that drive urges and align your spending with what actually matters to you. And Cognitive Behavioural tools give us a practical layer for examining the thought patterns underneath the behaviour.
You’ll leave sessions with tools you can actually use — including Practicing the Pause (a skill for meeting an urge before it becomes a purchase) and the Daily Mirror (a simple daily practice of tracking your spending, necessity scores, and the feelings and triggers underneath them).
The goal isn’t to take something away from you. It’s to help you figure out what you actually need — and find better ways to get it.
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Kimberley Handley
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