Pandhi Counselling & Mediation

Ajay Pandhi is a trained capacity assessor.

Couples therapy:

Why do couples seek therapy?

Their concerns usually involve relational matters, such as emotional disengagement and waning commitment, power struggles, problem-solving and communication difficulties, jealousy and extramarital involvements, value and role conflicts, sexual dissatisfaction, and abuse and violence (Geiss & O’Leary)

Generally, couples seek therapy because of threats to the security and stability of their relationships with the most significant attachment figures of adult life (Johnson & Denton, 2002).

In couples therapy I work with individuals to build their trust and respect for themselves and each other and thereby improve their communication patterns. Starting from the premise of identifying what keeps couples wanting to be attached. Identifying common and important shared values and synchronistic identities. From this strong intrinsic foundation it becomes easier to deal with the exterior turbulence.

Family Therapy:

“In all cultures, the family imprints its members with selfhood. Human experience of identity has two elements; a sense of belonging and a sense of being separate. The laboratory in which these ingredients are mixed and dispersed is the family, the matrix of identity.” Salvador Minuchin

“In every conceivable manner, the family is a link to our past and a bridge to our future.” Alex Haley

I use structural and strategic family therapy models to help families become healthy again. Structural family therapy highlights the importance of clear and flexible roles for healthy family functioning. This sort of therapy involves changing the family structure by modifying the way people relate to each other. The focus is on the present using direct, indirect and paradoxical directives.

Fees:
Individual initial assessment and subsequent individual sessions up to $235 (50 minutes)

package deal for 10 sessions at $ 1700

Couples initial assessment and subsequent individual sessions $220 (50 minutes)

package deal for 10 sessions at $ 1700

Family therapy initial and subsequent individual sessions $220 (50 minutes)

Mediation $300 an hour

capacity assessments $500

Sliding scale available for those who need financial support

Payment:
Payment is accepted at the end of each session with cash, debit, e-transfer, Visa, or Mastercard. Clients will be given a receipt that they can later submit if they have health insurance coverage.

Insurance coverage:
Direct billing for Alberta Blue Cross and Sunlife is done.

If you have a health insurance policy or a benefit plan through a different provider, you are expected to pay the full amount for your sessions and send in your receipts for reimbursement through your provider. Your health insurance policy or benefit plan may cover all or part of the therapy fees.

“You have noticed that the truth comes into this world with two faces. One is sad with suffering, and the other laughs; but it is the same face, laughing or weeping. When people are already in despair, maybe the laughing face is better for them; and when they feel too good and are too sure of being safe, maybe the weeping face is better for them to see.” 
― Black Elk, Black Elk Speaks: Being the Life Story of a Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux

”Beneath the surface of the protective parts of trauma survivors there exists an undamaged essence, a self that is confident, curious, and calm, a self that has been sheltered from destruction by the various protectors that have emerged in their efforts to ensure survival. Once those protectors trust that it is safe to separate, the self will spontaneously emerge, and the parts can be enlisted in the healing process” —- Bessel A Van Der Kolk

First of all I want to thank and acknowledge that the traditional land on which I have made my home-is in Treaty Six Territory. I would like to thank the diverse Indigenous Peoples whose ancestors’ footsteps have marked this territory for centuries, such as nêhiyaw (Nay-hee-yow), Dené (Deh-neyh), Anishinaabe (Ah-nish-in-ah-bay), Nakota Isga (Na-koh-tah ee-ska), and Niitsitapi (Nit-si-tahp-ee) peoples. I also acknowledge this as the Métis’ (May-tea) homeland and the home of one of the largest communities of Inuit south of the 60th parallel. 

As a strong ally to first nations peoples I conduct therapy with first nation people using an anti oppressive and decolonizing lens. I have had the honour and distinct pleasure of living and sharing stories and eating and sleeping under the same roof with many first nation people across Canada (from the north to the south and from the east to the west) many of whom are my good friends today.