Learn More About Julia
Julia Gerlitz is a Registered Clinical Counsellor (RCC) with 10 years of experience assisting individuals, youth, and families overcome problems in their lives. She has worked in a variety of settings, including private practice, mental health and substance use centres, and adult supported recovery programs. Julia holds a Masters Degree in Counselling Psychology from the University of British Columbia and has completed the Vancouver School of Narrative Therapy Foundations Level I Training, Advanced Skills Certification, and Narrative Therapy informed Relational Interviewing with Conflicted Couple Relationships. Julia is also a registered member of the British Columbia Association of Clinical Counsellors (BCACC). The BCACC is a society of regulated Clinical Counsellors dedicated to providing the highest standard of professional counselling, consulting, assessment, testing and training services.
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Julia lives in Nelson, BC. She can be found climbing, running, and skiing in the mountains, or hiking, camping, and exploring the oceans and deserts of the southwest with her partner(s) and daughter.
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Julia's Approach to Counselling
Support That Makes a Difference
Counselling is an exchange. You don’t come to a counsellor to be “fixed," rather; you share your experience of the concerns you face and the changes you want to make, while your counsellor offers ideas and suggestions. Julia always privileges her client's perspective and wishes, and all recommendations she offers are informed by ten years of practice and the leading research in narrative therapy and mindfulness-based cognitive behavioural therapy. Together, you and Julia will use your combined knowledge to better understand the problem, how it came to be present in your life, and how you would like things to look different. You then create a doable plan to get there and progressively work away on it with Julia's assistance.
Narrative Therapy
"The person is not the problem, the problem is the problem."
~ Michael White (co-founder of Narrative Therapy)
Narrative Therapy is about helping people change the story they have about themselves, and about moving away from problem focused stories to preferred stories. In Narrative Therapy, conversations are considered the tool to help people heal or "re-author" their self-narrative. It's about standing up to the problem and reclaiming your problem-free identity. Narrative Therapy encourages a new type of conversation about concerns in your life; a conversation that uncovers the many skills and competencies you already possess that can be accessed to break away from the problem’s influence on you. In narrative conversations, you are considered the expert in your own life. For more info:
​http://dulwichcentre.com.au/what-is-narrative-therapy/
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Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy
Changing your thinking will change your world
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) teaches people to see the connections between what they think, how they feel, and what they do. Changing your thinking patterns about the problematic situation results in positive changes in mood and actions, allowing you to tackle the issue at hand from a new perspective. Mindfulness provides an added layer where you learn skills to accept what cannot be changed, to live more fully in the present moment, and to deeply experience what is most precious to you. For more info:
https://positivepsychology.com/mbct-mindfulness-based-cognitive-therapy/