ALISON BELL, PhD, RCC

CLINICAL DIRECTOR, ALISON BELL & ASSOCIATES COUNSELLING

For more than 25 years, I have had the privilege of working with children, teens, adults, couples and families through some of the most challenging and meaningful parts of their lives.

My work is grounded in an emotion-focused and relational approach. I believe that our emotions, behaviours and patterns make more sense when we understand what is happening underneath them. Therapy is an opportunity to develop that understanding, make sense of the ways we respond to ourselves and others, and build new ways of navigating emotions, challenges and relationships.

Over the years, my clinical work has developed areas of specialization while continuing to support mental health and well-being more broadly. My work includes a focus on anxiety, depression, ADHD, emotional dysregulation, relationship and family challenges, as well as more specialized work in giftedness and neurodivergence, emotional intensity, eating disorders, and parent and family support. I have a particular interest in working with children, adolescents and adults who experience the world deeply and intensely, including those who are gifted, ADHD, twice-exceptional or otherwise neurodivergent.

Understanding gifted and neurodivergent children and their families has also become an important focus of my academic work. I completed my PhD in Psychology at Simon Fraser University, where my doctoral research focused on the emotional experiences of gifted children and how parents can be supported to better understand and respond to their children’s emotional intensity. My research examined an emotion-focused parent workshop designed to increase parents’ understanding, skills and capacity to support their gifted children.

A significant part of my clinical work is grounded in Emotion-Focused Family Therapy (EFFT). As an EFFT therapist, trainer and supervisor, I have had the opportunity to work with parents, caregivers, therapists and other professionals using emotion-focused approaches. EFFT reflects something I believe deeply: parents and caregivers can be powerful agents of support, connection and change. While their child receives therapy, I often work directly with parents to understand emotions and behaviour, strengthen connection, respond differently in difficult moments and support their child more confidently.

I also have extensive experience supporting individuals and families affected by eating disorders and disordered eating. Eating disorders can impact the entire family, and the people closest to the individual often feel frightened, overwhelmed or unsure of how to help. My work includes supporting the individual while also helping parents, partners and other family members better understand what is happening, navigate their own emotional responses, and learn how to support the person while challenging eating-disorder behaviours and strengthening connection.

My work with couples is similarly grounded in attachment and emotion-focused approaches. Couples often come to therapy believing that communication itself is the problem, when underneath the communication there is often a cycle of pursuing, withdrawing, protecting, reacting or disconnecting. Therapy creates an opportunity to understand what is happening beneath that cycle and develop different ways of reaching and responding to one another. The goal is not to eliminate conflict, but to help couples understand each other’s experiences, navigate difficult emotions and find their way back to connection when disconnection happens.

Alongside my clinical work, I provide professional training, consultation and workshops for therapists, parents, educators, schools and community organizations. I particularly enjoy translating research and clinical theory into practical strategies people can use whether that means helping a parent respond differently to an overwhelmed child, helping an educator understand the needs underneath a student’s behaviour, or helping a therapist deepen their emotion-focused work.

Across all these areas, the heart of my work remains the same: helping people better understand and navigate their emotions, strengthen their relationship with themselves and others, and to feel more connected in the relationships that matter most.