Bernard Counselling Inc.

Erica Bernard is a Registered Clinical Social Worker. She has over 30 years of experience and began her social work career in 1992, and has been a psychotherapist since 2008 after completing her Master's Degree in Clinical Social Work at the University of Calgary. 

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Erica has worked successfully within the field of child, adolescent and adult mental health as clinician and consultant within the health and education community and has been in private practice since 2014. Her strength is to find the hidden potential and resiliency that occupies each individual, relationship and support system. For her, life is all about finding what works for each individual and family system, having balance, simplicity and exploring multiple perspectives. She helps adults and children to deal with distressing events and the challenges that create frustration, discomfort or pain. Like so many things in life, it requires effort to deal with difficulties. Relationships are intricately complex and our closest relationships often suffer the most as they reveal our sensitivities and personal challenges. 

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Although comfortable in a traditional in-office setting, she is grounded in a deep understanding of our connectedness to and interdependence with the natural world, and also offers therapeutic sessions to individual clients, families and groups in a non-traditional setting that includes nature based therapeutic healing, animal-assisted therapy, guided self-discovery and introspection for personal empowerment.

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Erica draws from cognitive-behavioural therapy, narrative therapy, interpersonal therapy, attachment theory, play and expressive/art therapy, mindfulness, trauma focussed therapy and mind-body practices. She has been trained and certified in EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing), ART ( Accelerated Resolution Therapy), and DBR (Deep Brain Reorienting), DBT (Dialectical Behavior Therapy) and IFS (Internal Family Systems).  For couples and families she draws from training in the Gottman method and family systems theory.

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Since reconnecting to my innermost being during times in nature, my energy has become limitless, my compassion for myself and others without judgement and expectation and my life meaningful beyond measure. I have come to love more deeply than I ever could have imagined possible. I have learned that if I am connected, I am the earth and I am the heavens. What more can I ever ask for? When I am connected, life flows easily and joyously and days are endlessly creative and full of vitality.