Meet Melissa, MA Registered Psychologist

Accepting new clients

Therapy Format: Virtual across Alberta

You are carrying a lot. The people in your life are fed, driven where they need to go, checked in on. What has quietly slipped off the list is everything with no due date on it: the thing you read about and keep meaning to try with your kid, the time that used to belong to you and your partner, and anything that belonged to just you.

So by evening there is not much of you left. Your patience runs thin earlier in the day. Some days sit low and stay there. Somewhere in all of it you started keeping a running list of everything you are getting wrong, and it is the only list you never fall behind on. Your teenager has gone quiet and you are not sure when that started or how to reach them. Maybe you and your partner keep landing in the same argument, about the kids, about who is carrying more. Or maybe it is quieter than that, two people who love each other and mostly talking logistics now.

You have been working hard this whole time. Everything else in your life comes with a deadline and a reminder, and the things that actually keep you well come with neither. So those are what give way first, and they give way slowly enough that most people do not notice until it starts showing up as anxiety, as low mood, as a family where everyone is coping and nobody is thriving.

A lot of the parents I work with are raising neurodivergent kids and carrying a daily load of appointments, advocacy, and constant anticipation that would wear anyone down. They are rarely asked how they are doing. I also work with teens who are struggling and running out of ways to say so, with couples who want to stop having the same fight, and with adults on their own for anxiety, depression, trauma, and the slow erosion of how they see themselves.

Therapy with me is structured and practical. We start with whatever is loudest right now and work on it directly. Some sessions are about what to actually say when your teen shuts the door. Some are about what to do with the anger that arrives before you have decided anything. Some are about older experiences that are still shaping how you react before you have had a chance to think. You leave with something specific to try, and the following week we look at whether it worked and adjust. I see clients in the evenings and on weekends, so you can put the kids to bed and log on from your own kitchen.

As things ease, the change shows up in ordinary places. You have something left by 6:00pm. Your teen says something unprompted. The arguments get shorter and less loaded. The running list gets quieter. You start to recognize yourself again, and the relationships that matter most stop being what gets cut.

I am a Registered Psychologist with 15 years of experience working with children, youth, families, and adults across Alberta Health Services and Recovery Alberta.