Registered Clinical Counsellor
Alison Shaji — Registered Clinical Counsellor, British Columbia
MA Clinical Psychology, RCC (BCACC)
Registration number, so you can check it yourself: Registered Clinical Counsellor (RCC #22608), BCACC — searchable by name or number on the BCACC member register. The RCC designation is a voluntary BC association membership rather than a provincial licence, which is exactly why checking it means something.
Alison helps clients understand themselves more fully — including by looking at where their patterns began, in the early experiences that quietly shaped how they see themselves and others. She combines the depth of psychoanalytic exploration with practical, evidence-based tools to create therapy that is both grounded and genuinely alive.
Alison Shaji
MA Clinical Psychology, RCC (BCACC)
✓ Registered Clinical Counsellor (RCC #22608), BCACC
✓ MA in Clinical Psychology
✓ Psychoanalytic Therapy
✓ DBT · EMDR · CBT · EFFT
✓ Gottman Method (Couples)
✓ Inner Child Work
✓ Shadow Work
✓ Empty Chair Technique
✓ Therapy in Malayalam & Hindi
Alison Shaji, at a glance. Alison Shaji, MA Clinical Psychology, is a Registered Clinical Counsellor with the BCACC (RCC #22608). She sees clients in British Columbia only, by video with TEO Counselling, in English, Hindi or Malayalam. Her training includes EMDR, DBT, CBT, Emotionally Focused Family Therapy (EFFT), Gottman Method Levels 1 and 2, and psychoanalytic approaches, inner child work, shadow work and the empty chair technique. Appointments run 12:00 pm to 9:00 pm Pacific, seven days a week. Individual sessions are $150 and couples sessions $175, each 60 minutes, with no intake or assessment fee. MSP does not cover counselling in private practice; every session comes with an insurance-ready receipt, and direct billing is available with Alison for Pacific Blue Cross, CVAP and TELUS eClaims plans (Canada Life, Manulife). The first step is a free 15-minute consultation, by video or scheduled phone call, booked online with no referral.
My approach
I'm here to help you understand yourself more fully — including by looking at where your patterns began, in the early experiences that quietly shaped how you see yourself and others. Together, we do that gently and at your pace. My aim is to help you uncover what has been holding you back and reconnect with the strengths that have been carrying you all along.
I draw on both worlds: the rich depth of psychoanalytic exploration with modern, hands-on tools like DBT, EMDR, CBT, EFFT, and eclectic modalities such as inner child work, shadow work, and the Empty Chair technique.
Every session is a chance to explore and experiment — a space where healing feels alive, not stuck. My goal is to create a collaborative, non-judgmental environment where you feel genuinely safe to go wherever you need to go.
"We are not what happened to us. We are what we choose to become."
Therapeutic modalities
Psychoanalytic Therapy
Exploring unconscious patterns, early experiences, and relational dynamics that influence current thoughts, feelings, and behaviours.
DBT
Dialectical Behaviour Therapy — skills-based work for emotional regulation, distress tolerance, and building more effective relationships.
EMDR
Eye Movement Desensitization & Reprocessing — processing traumatic memories to reduce their emotional intensity and impact on daily life.
CBT
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy — identifying and reshaping unhelpful thought patterns to build healthier ways of thinking and responding.
Gottman Method
Structured couples work — assessment first, then targeted attention to conflict patterns, friendship, and shared meaning.
Inner Child Work
Reconnecting with and healing younger parts of yourself that may still carry unresolved pain, fear, or unmet needs.
Shadow Work
Exploring the parts of yourself that have been suppressed or denied — bringing them into awareness so they no longer drive behaviour unconsciously.
Session details
What working together actually looks like
Early sessions are about understanding the pattern rather than fixing it. What happens, what comes just before it, what you do next, and what that costs you. You may arrive able to describe your difficulty in detail and frustrated that describing it has changed nothing — that can be a sign the pattern is held somewhere insight alone does not reach.
From there the work moves between depth and practicality depending on what is needed. Some weeks that means going back to where something was learned; other weeks it means a concrete skill for getting through Thursday. Both are legitimate, and which one is useful changes over time.
Nothing is pushed. Pace is something we set together and revisit, and you are allowed to say that a direction is not working.
What you say in session is kept confidential, with the limits every Canadian therapist works under: a risk of serious harm to you or someone else, a child in need of protection, a court order or subpoena, and the reporting obligations a regulator can impose. Those are explained in full in the first session, before anything sensitive is discussed.
Working in Hindi and Malayalam
Sessions run in English, Hindi or Malayalam. For clients from South Asian families in particular, that can remove a layer of translation that is doing quiet damage — the effort of finding an English phrase for something that has a precise word in Malayalam, and settling for an approximation of your own experience.
It also means the context does not need explaining first: what is expected of a daughter, how a marriage is discussed within a family, what it means to be the first person in your family to see a counsellor at all. That last one is worth naming as ordinary rather than a failure of nerve.
Who I tend to work well with
Adults working through early experiences that are still shaping adult relationships. People who are hard on themselves in a way that looks like high standards from the outside. Clients navigating culture and family expectation alongside their own wants, where the two do not agree. Couples wanting to understand the cycle they get stuck in rather than win the argument.
Because my training spans both depth work and structured skills — psychoanalytic and inner-child approaches alongside CBT, DBT, EMDR and EFFT — it is possible to move between them as the work needs, rather than fitting you to one model.
An honest limit
My registration as a Registered Clinical Counsellor is with the BCACC, which is provincial, so I work with British Columbia clients. If you are elsewhere in the six provinces TEO serves, Mohamad or Rola will be your clinician, and the free consultation sorts that out before anything is booked.
Booking a session with Alison
Individual sessions are $150 for sixty minutes; couples sessions are $175. The first conversation is free — fifteen minutes, no referral needed, and no obligation at the end of it.
No provincial health plan in Canada covers counselling in private practice. Reimbursement through an extended health plan depends on the designation your plan covers (CCC, RCC, RSW or Registered Psychotherapist with the CRPO) — full detail is on the fees page. Direct billing is available with Alison for Pacific Blue Cross, CVAP and plans on the TELUS eClaims network (Canada Life and Manulife among them); otherwise you receive an insurance-ready receipt after every session.
Sessions run seven days a week from noon to 9pm Pacific. Cancellations need 24 hours notice; later than that, and missed sessions, are charged in full.
Questions I am asked
Do I need to know what is wrong before I book?
No, and you do not need to. "Something is off and I cannot name it" is a perfectly workable starting point — naming it can be the first piece of the work rather than a prerequisite for it.
Will you make me talk about my childhood?
Only if it turns out to be relevant, and only when you are ready. Plenty of work stays in the present. Where a pattern does trace back, we go there deliberately and with your agreement, using EMDR or inner-child approaches rather than open-ended excavation.
I have tried therapy before and it did not help. Why would this differ?
Worth saying on the consultation call, along with what specifically did not work — that is genuinely useful information rather than an awkward admission. Sometimes the fit was wrong, sometimes the timing, sometimes the approach. If I do not think I am the right person, I will tell you.
Can we work in Hindi or Malayalam throughout?
Yes, entirely, or you can move between languages as suits. You may find yourself switching without planning to, sometimes at the point the material gets closest.