SHANNON PATON

About Me

Counselling & Therapy in Vancouver BC and Online Across Canada

I believe everyone deserves a space where they can feel seen, heard, and truly supported. In our sessions, I aim to create a grounded, compassionate environment where you can explore your inner world—whether you're navigating grief, burnout, emotional overwhelm, or relationship challenges.  While therapy can be challenging at times, it can also include humour, hope, and be a comfortable place for you to learn and grow.  My role is to work collaboratively with you with presence, curiosity, and care as we work toward meaningful change. 

Over the past eight years, I’ve supported children, youth, adults, couples, and families in a variety of clinical and community settings. Today, I specialize in working with:

• First responders and veterans managing stress, burnout, processing trauma, or preparing for/ integrating psychedelic experiences.

• Creative women navigating burnout, people-pleasing, or harsh inner critics.

• Parents seeking reconnection and regulation with their children, teens, or adult children—through Emotion-Focused Family Therapy (EFFT).

• Anyone processing grief or loss—whether recent or long-held, clear or complicated.

My approach is integrative and emotion-focused, with an emphasis on helping clients move through stuck emotional patterns, reconnect with themselves and others, and find clarity in the face of life’s transitions.  I draw from Emotion-Focused Therapy (EFT), Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy (prep and integration), Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT), and the Gottman Method for couples.  I also bring lived experience from growing up in a first responder family that spent most of our time in the outdoors, moving through significant personal losses, and years spent in music communities—real-life experiences that continue to shape the way I hold space for others today.

I offer both in-person therapy in Vancouver and online, and I invite you to schedule a free 15-minute phone consultation to see if we’re a good fit.

Outside the therapy room, you’ll find me recharging with long walks in Pacific Spirit Park in Vancouver, yoga and fitness at the gym, snowboarding in Whistler, travelling, going to concerts, or training my sweet little Border Collie.