Virtual Therapy · Serving Kelowna & the Okanagan
Trauma Therapist & Couples Counselling for Kelowna & the Okanagan
Specialist-level virtual therapy for Kelowna and Okanagan residents. EMDR, IFS, and Gottman Method — without the waitlist or the drive to Vancouver. Evening and weekend availability.
Free initial consultation · No commitment · Seven days a week
Virtual therapy for the Okanagan
The Okanagan has a growing population and a genuine shortage of specialist mental health providers — especially therapists trained in advanced trauma modalities like EMDR and IFS. Most Kelowna residents seeking specialist trauma care face long waitlists or a costly commute to Vancouver.
TEO Counselling's fully virtual model means Kelowna and Okanagan residents get specialist-level trauma therapy without leaving home. No waitlist. Evening and weekend availability designed around real people's schedules.
We serve all of the Central Okanagan and beyond — Kelowna, West Kelowna, Lake Country, Penticton, Vernon, and surrounding communities.
Therapy services for Kelowna & the Okanagan
Trauma, PTSD & CPTSD Therapy
EMDR and IFS trauma therapy — two of the most evidence-based approaches available for PTSD and complex trauma. For Okanagan residents, this level of specialization is rarely available locally. Virtual sessions make it accessible without a trip to the coast.
Couples & Relationship Counselling
Gottman Method and EFFT couples therapy for Kelowna-area couples. The Okanagan's seasonal economy and tourism industry create unique relationship stressors — we offer evening sessions that work around shifting schedules.
Serving Kelowna & the Central Okanagan
Virtual sessions reach the entire Okanagan and beyond.
Kelowna · West Kelowna · Lake Country · Peachland · Vernon · Penticton · Summerland · Osoyoos · Oliver · and all of the Okanagan Valley — and everywhere else in the province through our British Columbia therapy page
Common questions from Kelowna residents
Is there an EMDR therapist in Kelowna?
TEO Counselling provides EMDR therapy virtually to Kelowna and Okanagan residents. Mohamad Shabib is an advanced EMDR-trained therapist. Virtual EMDR is clinically equivalent to in-person sessions and avoids the scarcity of local EMDR-trained therapists in the Okanagan.
How much does therapy cost in Kelowna?
Individual sessions are $150/60-min session and couples sessions are $175/60-min session. We offer sliding scale fees starting at $110. Your first consultation is always free.
Do I need to travel to get specialist trauma therapy?
No. TEO's fully virtual model means Kelowna residents access the same specialist-level trauma and couples therapy as Vancouver clients — from home, with no travel required.
Do you have a waitlist for Kelowna clients?
No waitlist. We can typically schedule your free consultation within 1–2 days and your first session shortly after.
When the season ends and the work stops
A lot of Kelowna income arrives between May and October. Orchards, wineries, hotels, restaurants, tour boats, landscaping, construction, fire contracts — the year is shaped like a wave. Someone works six days a week through August without a free evening, and by mid-November has three shifts, a grey lake and far too much time. The busy months and the quiet months produce different problems, and people usually go looking for help somewhere in the gap between the two.
What we hear most often is that there was no room to fall apart while the season was running, and then it came apart afterwards. That is not weakness and it is not surprising. Something in you held the line because the money depended on it holding. Internal Family Systems is one way of working with that: instead of arguing with the part of you that pushes through, the work is to get to know it — what it is protecting, and what it believes would happen if it stopped. Mohamad has completed IFS Levels 1 and 2.
Scheduling is built around shift work rather than office hours. Sessions run noon to nine Pacific, seven days a week, so a server finishing a lunch shift can take three in the afternoon and a tradesperson off site at five can take seven in the evening. Sunday is an ordinary working day here. If your income is seasonal, say so at the consultation. Individual sessions are $150 and couples $175, and a small number of reduced-fee spots are held — they are not always open, and you will be told plainly if they are full.
What a wildfire summer leaves behind
Smoke season does something to a household even in the years nothing burns. The alert arrives on your phone at two in the morning. You pack the car, wake the kids, put the cat in the carrier — and then you sit in the driveway and nothing happens. The order never comes, or it comes and is lifted, and by Tuesday you are back at work. The body never gets to finish what it started. It stays half-mobilised, sometimes for weeks after the air clears.
Many people settle on their own once the season turns and never need a therapist for it, and that is worth saying plainly rather than talking everyone into treatment. What suggests something has not settled is a reaction that outlives the danger: a neighbour's barbecue in February landing in your chest, checking wildfire maps in March, a road you no longer drive because of the burn scar beside it, a child who stops sleeping alone as soon as August comes round again.
EMDR is often the piece of work that fits here, and it helps to know what it actually does. A memory laid down under threat keeps its sensory pieces intact — the alert tone, the orange light, the smell of it. Reprocessing means holding attention on one of those pieces while following a repeating left-right cue, which loads working memory and allows the memory to be stored again with less sensory charge attached. That is the working model the protocol is built on, and it is still argued about. It is not retelling the story until it wears out, and how much any single memory shifts varies from person to person. Mohamad's EMDR training is at the advanced level through an EMDRIA-approved programme, and Alison is EMDR trained as well.
Who you would be working with
Mohamad Shabib, MACP, CCC, is a Registered Psychotherapist (Qualifying) with the CRPO — an Ontario registration — and works with clients in all six provinces the practice serves. His training covers advanced EMDR through an EMDRIA-approved programme, Internal Family Systems Levels 1 and 2, Gottman Method Levels 1 and 2, CBT for Trauma Levels 1 and 2, DBT, and Indigenous Focused Oriented Therapy. He also holds a graduate diploma in addiction treatment and prevention and has worked with concurrent trauma and addictions at Edgewood. Sessions in English or Arabic.
Alison Shaji is a Registered Clinical Counsellor with the BCACC and works with clients in British Columbia, which covers Kelowna and the rest of the Okanagan. Her training includes EMDR, Gottman Method Levels 1 and 2, CBT, DBT, Emotion Focused Family Therapy, and psychoanalytic, inner-child and shadow work. She works in English, Hindi and Malayalam.
Rola Shbib is a Registered Social Worker (Ontario). Her background is crisis intervention, suicide prevention and addictions, alongside an honours degree in thanatology — the study of grief, dying and bereavement. One note on wording, because the distinction is a real one: EMDR, IFS, Gottman and DBT are completed training levels here, not certifications, and they will never be described as anything else on this site.
How the first few sessions usually go
The first contact is a free fifteen to twenty minute consultation, and no referral is needed from a doctor or anyone else. It is a short conversation in ordinary language: what is going on, what you have already tried, what the work would involve, and whether the person on the other end is someone you could talk to. Deciding not to book afterwards is a normal outcome, not an awkward one.
The first full session is history and pacing rather than reprocessing. In trauma work the order matters. Before going near a difficult memory you build the ability to stop, steady yourself and come back — noticing when you have gone too far, and having something to do about it when you have. Going straight at the worst of it in week one tends to end the hour more activated than it began. That groundwork can feel slow when you arrived wanting to get on with it.
Two limits are worth knowing before you book. Counsellors do not diagnose; if what you need is an assessment or medication, that is your physician or a psychiatrist, and you will be told so rather than strung along. And what you say is held in confidence with four exceptions there is an obligation to act on: a risk of serious harm to you or another person, a child in need of protection, a court order or subpoena, and a reporting duty owed to a regulatory college.
Common questions
My work is seasonal. Should I start now or wait for the off-season?
Either works, and they work differently. Starting mid-season usually means fewer sessions spaced further apart, fitted around shifts. Waiting until November means more time and more room, but the quiet months are often when things surface, which is a harder moment to be starting from scratch. If cost is the deciding factor, raise it at the free consultation rather than after.
Do I have to describe the evacuation in detail?
No. EMDR is worked from a fragment — an image, a sound, a smell — rather than a full narration, so a detailed account out loud is not required. You set the pace and can stop at any point. Some people say very little during reprocessing itself. Nothing in the process depends on you being able to tell the whole story.
Will my extended health plan cover this?
No provincial health plan in Canada covers counselling in private practice, so this is paid either out of pocket or through extended health. Plans list the designations they reimburse, so check whether yours names a Registered Psychotherapist (Qualifying), a Registered Clinical Counsellor or a Registered Social Worker before assuming. An insurance-ready receipt is issued after every session. Insurers are not billed directly.
What happens if a shift changes and I have to cancel?
Twenty-four hours' notice and there is no charge. Later than that, or a no-show, is charged in full, because the hour was held and could not be offered to anyone else. It is a firm policy rather than a flexible one, which is why it is written here and not buried in the paperwork you sign afterwards.
I work part of the year in Alberta. Can I keep the same therapist?
With Mohamad, yes. He works with clients in British Columbia, Ontario, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Newfoundland and Labrador, so going east for a season does not interrupt the work. Tell us which province you are physically in when you book, since that determines who can see you. Alison's registration is with the BCACC and her clients are in British Columbia.
Kelowna & BC mental health resources
Therapy is not a crisis service. These are free and staffed around the clock:
- · 9-8-8 Suicide Crisis Helpline: call or text 9-8-8 (24/7)
- · BC Crisis Line: 1-800-784-2433 (24/7)
- · Kids Help Phone: 1-800-668-6868, or text CONNECT to 686868
If you are in immediate danger, please call 911.
Specialist care, right from Kelowna
Book a free consultation — no waitlist, no commute. We'll talk about what you're dealing with and see if we're the right fit.
Book Free ConsultationOr call: (519) 760-5211