Cope With Any Struggles You May Have
At Jessa-Greig Psychological Services, we are focused on providing quality counselling and consulting services to anyone seeking individualized, tailored therapy based on their personal needs. We support those struggling with addictions, parenting, family conflict, domestic abuse, stress, depression, and much more.
Our psychologists have the right approach, skills, and knowledge to help you meet your needs, improve functioning, and develop coping strategies. Call us in Calgary, Alberta to learn more!
*As registered psychologists, services are generally covered by extended health benefits. We offer direct billing for Telus eclaims, Alberta Blue Cross, Greenshield, and CanadaLife Insurance.
Areas of Expertise
Areas of Expertise
- Stress Management
- Anxiety
- Depression
- Interpersonal Violence
- Anger Management
- Acculturation issues
- Parenting
- Men's Mental Health
- Adulting
- Overall Mental Health and Well-being
- Domestic Abuse
- Addiction Concerns
- Couple’s Issues
- Trauma Stabilization and Processing
- Supervision for Provisional Psychologists
- Tailored Workshops and In-Service Training for Organizations
- Psychological Health and Safety in the Workplace
- Teacher Mental Health
Trauma Counselling
Trauma Counselling
Accelerated Resolution Therapy
Aaron is trained in Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART). This therapy is an evidence-based treatment for trauma that uses a combination of eye movements and voluntary memory/image replacement. It changes how memories are stored in the brain.
In as few as three sessions, clients can expect to retain their factual memories of the targeted trauma experience with a significant reduction in the accompanying unpleasant emotions. ART is especially well suited for individuals who have experienced accidents or assaults and those struggling with debilitating phobias or performance anxiety regarding specific situations.
You may find ART to be helpful if you have witnessed a loved one in a traumatic situation, such as an overdose or suicide attempt. It can also be helpful if you find yourself reacting in an unhelpful manner whenever your loved ones do something that reminds you of a traumatic incident.
ART can help you reduce your own trauma response to such events. This way, you’ll be able to calmly support your loved ones in a more effective manner.
Substance Use and Behavioural Addiction Counselling
Zahra and Aaron have extensive experience in addiction counselling: Zahra's expertise in being with adults and Aaron's with youth.
Substance addiction (ranging from hard drugs to ice cream), and behavioural addictions (such as sex, video games, working too much, and gambling) have things in common. They can have profoundly damaging effects on a person’s physical, mental, emotional, relational, financial, educational, vocational, and/or spiritual well-being.
They are also rarely the primary issue. In almost all cases, addictions are misguided attempts to meet deeper emotional needs like avoiding deep emotional pain, blocking out traumatic memories, or simply lacking healthier ways to cope with stress.
Addiction Treatment
Addiction Treatment
Our addiction treatment focuses on the following:
We are happy to support you through an abstinence or harm reduction-based approach to meet your particular needs and preference. Please note that working with sex addiction that is NOT accompanied by substance use is a particular area of specialization we are not trained in.
If you require this specialized service, we would be happy to support you through a referral to a Certified Sex Addiction Therapist (CSAT) counsellor.
Identifying and addressing the reasons behind your addiction
- Assessing the effects of addiction on all areas of your life
- Developing healthier ways to cope with stress and triggering situations
Developing realistic strategies for reducing or eliminating substance use and providing ongoing accountability and fine tuning regarding your use of these strategies
- Helping develop strategies for reducing risks if you are not ready to quit
Helping parents and families better support their affected loved ones with a healthy combination of boundaries, compassion, understanding, and their own stress management skills
- Providing referrals to more intensive treatment programs or medical care as required
Triple P Parenting Program
Parenting can be tough! It's not like kids come with a manual or something, right?
The Triple P program helps parents develop positive relationships, manage misbehaviours, and plan for stressful events.
Zahra is an accredited Triple P practitioner with levels 4 and 5 in this evidence-based positive parenting program. Highly approachable and empathetic, Zahra has received positive feedback from caseworkers and families for helping them meet their goals toward greater family harmony.
This program consists of 10 sessions. It includes the observation of parent-child dynamics and parental monitoring of children's behaviours to gain a better understanding of the issues. Then, it is followed by psycho-educational sessions with practice opportunities for parents to use positive parenting skills.
Our skills-based coaching model helps parents develop healthy relationships with their children. These relationships will be built on fairness, consistency, and routines, which are designed to minimize conflict at home.
Collaborative Problem Solving
Aaron is trained in Collaborative Problem Solving which is an evidence-based parenting model based on neuroscience research and demonstrated to be effective for addressing behavioural concerns and reducing the conflict that often comes up when we as parents try to discuss concerns with our children. It focuses on identifying the “lagging skills” that lead to the problematic behaviour in the first place and then provides the young person, and just as important their parent, with opportunities to further develop these skills.
Collaborative Problem Solving takes much of the conventional wisdom about parenting, such as the use of punishment and reward, and flips it on its head, thereby avoiding many of the classic problems that traditional approaches do not address and sometimes make worse.
Collaborative Problem Solving is based on the following research-backed ideas:
- Kids and parents want to succeed and do well.
- Problematic behaviours are primarily issues of lagging skills, not will or bad attitude.
- When people have better knowledge, skills, and strategies, they tend to do better.
- Parenting interventions should not only change a current behaviour but teach skills in areas like problem solving, emotional regulation, and communication that lead to the behaviour in the first place.
- The specific collaborative process taught in this model reduces resistance, results in win/win outcomes, and supports kids AND their parents to build the skills that will reduce future problematic behaviours.
While most of Aaron's work with Collaborative Problem Solving has been in support of parents with teens struggling with concurrent mental health and substance use disorders, the model is effective for kids and parents with a wide variety of concerns at stages of development ranging from toddlers to semi-independent young adults. Aaron can provide specific coaching (even in-home on a case-by-case basis) in the use of Collaborative Problem Solving, and also weaves themes and skills from it into much of his general counselling practice.
Presentations for the Public
We offer presentations on a variety of topics including:
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Anger Management
- Stress Reduction and Coping
- Communication Strategies
- Addictions
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Parenting Teens
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Understanding and Enhancing Family Dynamics
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Gottman Method for Couple's Therapy
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Decision-Making Within the Framework of Your Values
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Bullying
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Building Resilience
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Problem-Solving and Conflict Resolution
Presentations for Professionals and Organizations
We offer presentations, lunch and learn, and half-day workshops on a variety of topics. Contact us for more information. Some of the presentations we have done are:
- Self-Care for Healthcare Professionals
- Addiction Basics, Assessment, Treatment, and Interventions
- Mental Health Basics for Teachers
- Helping Skills for Frontline Workers
- Psychological Health and Safety in the workplace
Zahra's extensive experience teaching graduate school and secondary school, combined with her psychology and social work experience, has led her to create presentations for various audiences on various topics.
Aaron has facilitated and developed psycho-educational groups for a number of years, and is teaching University courses currently.
We have extensive experience in developing, presenting, and facilitating workshops, including Teacher's Convention, Non-Profit Organizations, and Health-Care Organizations.
Contact us to discuss your needs.