Trauma counselling · Vancouver, British Columbia
A room built for what you are carrying.
Some things are too heavy to put down and too heavy to keep holding alone. You do not have to explain all of it, and you do not have to start at the beginning.
Who you would be talking to
I am Ali Alsharahnee, a Canadian Certified Counsellor practising in Vancouver. I work in Arabic and English — by phone, on Zoom or Teams, or in person.
However you want to do this
Two ways in. You choose, and you can change your mind.
A session by telephone is not a lesser version of one in a room. Pick the one you could genuinely do this week.
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Without leaving home
Virtually
By telephone, on Zoom, or on Microsoft Teams — whichever of the three you would actually pick up. Anywhere in British Columbia.
You choose which of the three -
In the same room
In person
A room in Vancouver, step-free, with time built into the hour so that arriving is not a rush.
You choose when, and how often
You are not choosing once. Start virtually and come into the room later, or the other way round, or switch depending on the week. You never have to justify it, and nobody keeps score.
Why a reed
A single reed carries nothing.
In the marshes of southern Iraq, people have built the same hall for five thousand years. Reeds and nothing else. Every arch is a bundle, bent and lashed. One reed will not hold a roof up for a second; bundled, it holds one up for a generation.
It is called a mudhif, and it is not a house. It is the room a village keeps for receiving people.
Those marshes were drained on purpose. After 2003 the dykes were broken and the water came back — not all of it, not everywhere, but really. Reeds grew again.
That is a more honest picture of recovery than most of the ones on offer. Not everything returns. What returns is real.
What I work with
You do not need the right word for it.
Plenty of people arrive with no diagnosis and no tidy way to describe what is wrong. That is a normal way to begin.
- Trauma and post-traumatic stress
- The sense that it has not finished happening.
- War, displacement, and the years after
- What it costs to leave, and what it costs to arrive.
- Grief — including grief with no funeral
- People who died far away. People still missing.
- Disability and progressive conditions
- Diagnosis, deterioration, and other people’s reactions to your body.
- Anxiety, panic, and sleep
- An alarm system that has not been told the reasons changed.
My journey
I got here the long way.
I was born in Iraq and came to Canada as an immigrant. It is not here as a credential. It is here because when you tell someone what happened to you, it changes things to know in advance whether they will flinch.
Your first visit
Nothing happens that you did not agree to.
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You get in touch
By phone. No form to fill in.
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Fifteen minutes, free
Hear a voice and decide. No history-taking, no obligation.
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If it fits, we book
You choose the door, and the pace.
العلاج النفسي باللغة العربية
إذا كان الحديث عن ما حدث لك أسهل بلغتك الأمّ، فلنتحدّث بالعربية.
In Arabic
I offer sessions in Arabic. If it is easier to say what happened in the language it happened in, you do not have to translate yourself first — and you do not need to bring anyone to interpret for you.
Being straight with you
When I am not the right thing
In immediate danger you need emergency services, not an appointment — the numbers are here. I cannot prescribe medication, and some situations need a specialist team. The full list is here.