Services
Counselling in Whitehorse
At Emerge Counselling Services, the work I offer is grounded in a simple belief: healing and growth happen most naturally when people feel safe enough to be themselves. My services are designed to support people in understanding their inner worlds, navigating challenges with compassion, and reconnecting with their own sense of clarity and direction.
Based in Whitehorse, Yukon, I offer individual counselling, group counselling, workshops and trainings, and supervision for student therapists. While these services look different on the surface, they are all rooted in the same values: authenticity, trauma-informed care, and deep respect for each person’s lived experience.
How I Work
I take a trauma-informed, permission-based, and relational approach to all of my work. This means pacing matters, consent matters, and nothing is forced. I don’t believe people need to be “fixed.” Our coping strategies, behaviours, and symptoms make sense when we understand the contexts, histories, and environments we’ve had to adapt to.
Much of our suffering comes from feeling like we have to be different — less sensitive, more capable, more put together. When people feel safe enough to show up as they are, nervous systems can begin to settle. From there, learning, healing, and meaningful change become possible.
While I hold strong professional boundaries and take ethics and confidentiality seriously, I also bring warmth, humour, and humanity into the room. I believe people learn and heal faster when the space feels real, grounded, and relational.
Areas of Specialization
I support people with a wide range of concerns, including:
Anxiety and depression
Trauma and complex trauma
Substance use and addiction
ADHD and neurodivergence
Life transitions (retirement, career change, loss, identity shifts)
Decision-making, clarity, and direction
Rather than working symptom by symptom, I view each person as a whole system. Many experiences such as anxiety, depression, addiction, or difficulty with boundaries are best understood as protective responses to past or ongoing stress. When we understand how these patterns developed and what they are trying to protect, there is often a natural softening and relief.
Group counselling is a central part of my practice and something I’m deeply passionate about. In my experience, few things reduce shame and isolation as effectively as being in a room with others who truly understand.
One of the greatest sources of suffering is feeling alone with our struggles. In group settings, this isolation is gently dismantled. People hear their own experiences reflected in others, often realizing for the first time that they are not broken or “too much.” Once shame begins to lift, healing can move forward more quickly.
Groups are intentionally small (generally 6–10 participants) and held in a warm, inviting space. I bring over 25 years of experience facilitating groups and design each offering with care, creativity, and psychological intention. Structure and predictability help people feel safe, while humour and playfulness help ease nervous systems.
Many people feel hesitant about joining a group. That hesitation is respected. I encourage people to listen to themselves and consider whether the hesitation is protective or whether there is also a quiet part that feels drawn toward connection. Group work often becomes one of the most impactful and meaningful experiences people have in therapy.
I offer several styles of groups throughout the year:
Group Counselling in Whitehorse
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These groups combine learning, reflection, experiential exercises, and structured sharing. They are ideal for people who want to understand themselves better, gain language for their inner experience, and build confidence in a supportive environment.
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These groups allow for deeper relational and emotional work. While there may be some teaching woven in, the focus is on creating a safe enough container for participants to explore patterns, emotions, and relationships in real time, supported by both the group and the facilitator.
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One-day or multi-day workshops may be offered for the public or for specific communities, including therapist-focused learning groups.
Workshops, Trainings, and Organizational Consulting
For years, I've had the opportunity to bring mental health education into some of the organizations doing the most important and demanding work in the North. I've designed and delivered workshops for the Department of Education, Canadian Mental Health Association, Whitehorse Correctional Centre, and Yukon Literacy Coalition. I've also worked as a contracted trainer for Crisis and Trauma Resource Institute (CTRI), delivering their evidence-based programming to organizations across the Yukon and Northern Canada. These experiences have shaped my belief that the best professional development doesn't just build skills; it helps people understand themselves better so they can show up more fully for the people they serve.
My approach to organizational work is the same as my approach to therapy: relational, trauma-informed, and grounded in the reality that we don't leave ourselves at the door when we come to work. Training is most effective when participants feel engaged, respected, and like the content actually speaks to their lives.
I offer both pre-developed workshops and fully customized programming, delivered in person or virtually, for organizations of any size. Depending on who I'm working with, the focus shifts. Here's a closer look at what I offer each audience.
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Some jobs ask you to hold a lot, and not just professionally. Whether you work in health care, corrections, community services, or another role where you're regularly showing up for people in some of the hardest moments of their lives, the emotional weight of that work accumulates in ways that standard professional development rarely acknowledges, let alone addresses. You can be skilled, committed, and genuinely good at what you do, and still find that the job is getting under your skin in ways that are hard to name.
My workshops for these teams are grounded in what I've learned from doing this work alongside people in the North over many years. They build practical skills and create space to acknowledge what this work actually costs are not two separate things. We look at how to stay regulated and boundaried in high-pressure environments, how to recognize the early signs that the work is affecting you, and how to keep showing up for the people you serve without losing yourself in the process. Topics include being trauma-informed in the workplace, managing vicarious trauma and building resilience, DBT skills for navigating intense emotions, communication and healthy boundaries, and conflict resolution and de-escalation.
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For teams of clinicians, social workers, and mental health practitioners, I offer training on therapeutic modalities alongside spaces for reflective practice and professional growth. I've delivered introductory and intermediate training on Internal Family Systems (IFS) to clinical teams, provided ongoing clinical supervision to counsellors through CMHA, and facilitated professional development days for practitioners wanting to deepen their skills.
Whether your team is curious about a new modality or looking to strengthen the foundations of their practice, I can design something that meets them where they are.
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School counsellors, wellness specialists, and educators working with young people face a unique set of challenges; they need both clinical knowledge and practical, school-based tools.
I've delivered multi-day DBT training specifically designed for school settings, helping counsellors and wellness staff bring evidence-based skills directly into their work with students. I can also support school teams around trauma-informed approaches in educational settings, supporting students through emotional dysregulation and crisis, and building staff capacity for mental health conversations.
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Leadership training often focuses on strategy and performance, but leaves out the part that matters most: the fact that leaders are human beings who bring their full selves, including their histories, their triggers, and their relational patterns, into every interaction they have. I'm less interested in traditional leadership development and more interested in the intersection of the personal and the professional.
Using frameworks from Internal Family Systems and Integral Coaching, I support leaders to recognize how their inner world shows up at work, and to create teams where people feel genuinely seen and supported. This work can take the form of workshops, a series of sessions, or individual leadership coaching.
Hear From Past Participants
“Kaelin's workshop was perfectly timed, highly interactive, and very engaging. She knows her content inside and out and brings a vibrant energy and humour to the training. Looking forward to more.”
Recent workshop participant“Kaelin really knows her stuff and leads the group with confidence and energy. I'm so glad I took the course.”
Recent workshop participantIndividual Counselling in Whitehorse
Individual counselling offers a private space to explore what’s happening internally and how it’s affecting daily life. I offer both short-term and longer-term counselling, depending on a person’s needs and goals.
Short-term counselling may focus on support through a transition, developing coping tools, or addressing a specific challenge. I am trained in Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) and often draw on DBT skills to support emotional regulation, distress tolerance, and ADHD-related challenges.
Longer-term counselling allows for deeper self-understanding and healing. In this work, I primarily use Internal Family Systems (IFS), a respectful and de-pathologizing approach that helps people understand and build relationships with their inner parts. Rather than fighting inner critics or unwanted behaviours, we get curious about their protective roles and work toward greater internal harmony.
Sessions are collaborative, permission-based, and paced carefully. You are always in control of what you share and when.
Working with Indigenous People
I am of Irish/Scottish ancestry, and grew up in Ottawa, Ontario – the unceded and unsurrendered Algonquin Anishinaabe territory. I have lived in Whitehorse, Yukon, for 20 years on the traditional territory of the Kwanlin Dün First Nation and Ta'an Kwäch'än Council.
I want to say personally that I recognize the complexity of myself – a settler – offering therapeutic services to people of Indigenous ancestry. I believe that working with an Indigenous counsellor may be more aligned, more helpful and ultimately more healing for many Indigenous people and would encourage seeking Indigenous counselling services if that is your preference. If, though, you choose to work with me, I aim to always bring cultural humility to my practice. I acknowledge my privilege; I aim to be open, collaborative, self-reflexive, and to be in a continual practice of examining my own blind spots and to commit to reconciliation.
I am privileged to have worked therapeutically with many Indigenous people over the past 14 years. I am deeply aware of the traumatic impacts from colonization, including Canada’s genocidal residential school system and its resulting intergenerational trauma, as well as ongoing systemic oppression. I have also witnessed powerful resiliency and healing, and look forward to continuing this meaningful therapeutic work.
I am a mental health provider with the Non-Insured Health Benefits Program (NIHB) and the Indian Residential School - Resolution Health Support Program (IRS RHSP) through Indigenous Services Canada.
Some people may be eligible to receive counselling services funded through the following programs:
An Invitation to Connect
If you’re looking for counselling in Whitehorse, interested in group counselling, or exploring student supervision, you’re welcome to reach out.
My hope is that anyone who works with me leaves knowing:
There is nothing wrong with them
They are not alone
Change and healing are possible
You’re invited to take this step at your own pace. When you’re ready, I’d be glad to connect.