Trauma Therapy Online in Alberta

Trauma therapy online in Alberta, at a glance. TEO Counselling provides trauma therapy by video anywhere in Alberta. EMDR, Internal Family Systems and CBT for trauma are provided by Mohamad Shabib, MACP, a Canadian Certified Counsellor (CCC) with the CCPA and a Registered Psychotherapist (Qualifying) with the CRPO in Ontario, EMDR-trained through an EMDRIA-approved programme, with IFS Levels 1 and 2 and CBT for Trauma Levels 1 and 2, in English or Arabic. Rola Shbib, BSW (Hons), RSW (Ontario), offers trauma-informed, stabilization-focused counselling in English and does not offer EMDR, IFS or CBT for trauma. Appointments run 1:00 pm to 10:00 pm Mountain, seven days a week. Individual sessions are $150 and couples sessions (with Mohamad) $175, each 60 minutes, with no intake or assessment fee. Alberta Health Care does not cover counselling in private practice; every session comes with an insurance-ready receipt, and direct billing is available with Mohamad Shabib for plans on the TELUS eClaims network (Canada Life, Manulife). The first step is a free 15-minute consultation by video or a scheduled phone call, booked online through Jane or by text to (519) 760-5211, no referral needed.

Trauma therapy online in Alberta, in plain terms

TEO Counselling provides trauma therapy by video to adults anywhere in Alberta. The practice is virtual only, so where you live in the province — downtown Calgary, the Edmonton suburbs, an acreage outside Grande Prairie — changes nothing about who you can see or when. This page covers the Alberta practicalities: who you would see, what it costs, what Alberta Health Care does and does not cover, when sessions run in Mountain time, and how to start.

What it does not do is explain the approaches from scratch. What trauma does to a nervous system and how therapy works with it lives on the trauma therapy page; the eight phases of EMDR and how bilateral stimulation runs over video are on the EMDR explainer; and parts, protectors and exiles are on the Internal Family Systems page.

Two clinicians see Alberta clients for trauma. Mohamad Shabib, MACP, CCC, provides EMDR, Internal Family Systems and CBT for trauma; Rola Shbib, BSW (Hons), RSW (Ontario), provides trauma-informed, stabilization-focused counselling. Both are introduced below, and the free consultation decides who you see.

IFS and CBT for trauma online in Alberta

Not every trauma is one event, and not every person wants to start with the memory. Internal Family Systems works with the parts of you that formed around what happened — the one that stays vigilant, the one that goes numb, the one that criticizes you for both — and it is provided in Alberta by Mohamad Shabib, who has completed IFS Levels 1 and 2. An IFS therapist online in Alberta means working with Mohamad, by video, at $150 per 60-minute session; Rola Shbib does not offer IFS. The full account of parts, protectors and exiles is on the Internal Family Systems page.

CBT for trauma, in which Mohamad has completed Levels 1 and 2, is the more structured option: it works with the beliefs that formed around the event — that it was your fault, that nowhere is safe, that you should have known — and with the avoidance that keeps them in place. In practice the three approaches are combined more often than they are chosen between: IFS to reach a memory that is too protected to approach directly, EMDR to reprocess it, CBT to take apart what it left behind. Which one leads is decided with you, not for you, and the background on each is on the trauma therapy page.

What it costs, and where Alberta Health Care stands

Individual sessions are $150 per 60-minute session; couples counselling, with Mohamad, is $175. There is no intake or assessment fee. The free consultation is 15 minutes, by video or a scheduled phone call, and needs no referral.

Alberta Health Care does not cover counselling in private practice — for any method, EMDR included — and no provincial plan in Canada does. Where coverage exists it comes through an extended health plan, usually through work: whether an extended health plan reimburses depends on the designation it names — CCC, RSW (Ontario) or Registered Psychotherapist (Qualifying) with the CRPO in Ontario — and plans list those categories separately, so read the wording in your own booklet or ask the insurer directly before the first paid session. Counselling is not a regulated profession in Alberta, which is exactly why the designation behind the person matters when you are choosing one.

Direct billing is available with Mohamad Shabib for plans on the TELUS eClaims network (Canada Life, Manulife). For every other plan, and for all sessions with Rola, you pay per session through Jane — Interac e-Transfer or credit card — and receive an insurance-ready receipt after every session to submit yourself. Cancellation is free with 24 hours' notice; inside 24 hours, or for a missed session, the full fee is charged. A small number of reduced-fee spots exist — if cost is the barrier, say so at the consultation. The full fee table is on the fees page, and which plans can be billed on your behalf is set out on direct billing.

When this is not the right fit

Weekly video sessions are a good fit for a lot of trauma work and a poor fit for some of it. It is better to say where the line is than to let you find it after paying for a session. This is not the right service when:

• · You are in immediate danger, or you are having thoughts of ending your life right now — the lines below answer around the clock, and therapy is a scheduled appointment, not a crisis service.
• · You are still living inside the situation that caused the harm and there is no private, safe place to have a session from.
• · You need more than an hour a week by video can provide — a day programme, a residential stay, or medical support through withdrawal — in which case Health Link 811 and 211 Alberta can point you to what exists near you.
• · You want a diagnosis or medication — that is a physician's work, not something counselling provides.
• · You need sessions before 1:00 pm Mountain.

If none of those describes you, or you are not sure, the consultation is where to ask. Being told that something else would serve you better is one of its possible outcomes, and it costs nothing.