Depression Therapy and Counselling in Surrey, BC
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A depression therapist in Surrey BC can help individuals struggling with low mood, hopelessness, burnout, emotional numbness, anxiety, relationship difficulties, and loss of motivation. At Sojourn Counselling and Neurofeedback, our Registered Clinical Counsellors provide compassionate, evidence-informed treatment for depression both in-person and through online counselling across BC.
Sessions are available with our Registered Clinical Counsellors, and lower cost counselling is available with supervised interns at $60 per 50 minute session, including a free first session.
What Does Depression Feel Like?
Depression can affect far more than mood alone. While many people associate depression with sadness, it often shows up as emotional exhaustion, numbness, irritability, hopelessness, difficulty concentrating, loss of motivation, or a sense of disconnection from yourself and others. Some people struggling with depression continue functioning outwardly while internally feeling overwhelmed, stuck, or emotionally shut down.
For some individuals, depression feels heavy and persistent, making even simple daily tasks feel difficult. Others experience cycles of emotional highs and lows, burnout, self-criticism, or a lingering sense that life has lost meaning or enjoyment. Depression can also affect sleep, appetite, energy levels, memory, relationships, work performance, and physical health.
Many people seeking depression counselling in Surrey BC describe feeling isolated, disconnected, or frustrated that they “should” be able to feel better on their own. It is also common for depression to occur alongside anxiety, trauma, chronic stress, grief, relationship difficulties, or major life transitions.
Depression does not always look the same from person to person. Some individuals cry frequently, while others feel emotionally numb. Some withdraw socially, while others stay busy and overfunction while quietly struggling underneath. High-functioning depression can often go unnoticed by friends, family members, and even the person experiencing it.
Working with a depression therapist can help you better understand the underlying patterns contributing to depression while developing healthier ways of coping, reconnecting emotionally, and moving toward greater stability, hope, and resilience.
At Sojourn Counselling and Neurofeedback, our therapists provide compassionate, evidence-informed therapy treatment for depression tailored to each individual’s unique experiences, relationships, nervous system patterns, and emotional needs. We offer both in-person depression counselling in Surrey BC and online counselling across British Columbia.
Depression does not always look like being unable to function. Many people keep going to work, caring for their families, and meeting their commitments while feeling empty, flat, or disconnected underneath. This is sometimes described as high functioning depression. Because so little shows on the outside, people in this position often question whether their experience counts, or wonder whether they are simply lazy or ungrateful. Persistent low mood is not a character flaw, and you do not need to be visibly struggling to deserve support.
Therapy Treatment for Depression
Effective therapy treatment for depression involves more than simply reducing symptoms. Depression often develops through a combination of emotional, neurological, relational, and life experiences that can leave a person feeling overwhelmed, disconnected, or stuck in painful patterns. Counselling can help identify and address the underlying factors contributing to depression while supporting healthier emotional regulation, self-understanding, and resilience.
At Sojourn Counselling and Neurofeedback, our Registered Clinical Counsellors provide individualized depression counselling tailored to each person’s unique experiences, symptoms, nervous system patterns, relationships, and goals. Rather than taking a one-size-fits-all approach, we work collaboratively to understand what may be contributing to your depression and what types of support may be most helpful.
Depending on your needs, treatment may include approaches such as Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), mindfulness-based therapy, Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), Internal Family Systems (IFS)-informed work, attachment-focused therapy, EMDR therapy, behavioural activation strategies, or nervous system regulation approaches such as neurofeedback. Many individuals struggling with depression also benefit from exploring unresolved trauma, chronic stress, relationship difficulties, burnout, grief, perfectionism, or patterns of self-criticism that may be maintaining depressive symptoms.
Depression can impact the brain and nervous system in ways that make motivation, concentration, emotional connection, and even basic daily functioning feel difficult. Therapy can help individuals gradually reconnect with themselves, develop healthier coping strategies, improve emotional flexibility, and begin rebuilding a sense of meaning, hope, and momentum.
Our therapists provide compassionate, evidence-informed support for individuals experiencing many forms of depression, including persistent low mood, high-functioning depression, burnout, postpartum depression, situational depression, anxiety-related depression, trauma-related depression, and depression connected to major life changes or relationship stress.
We offer both in-person depression counselling in Surrey BC as well as online therapy across British Columbia for individuals seeking flexible and accessible support.
Alongside CBT and emotion focused approaches, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) for depression can help with rumination, self-criticism and withdrawal by reconnecting you with your values and small, workable steps, and research suggests its outcomes are comparable to CBT for many people.
How Depression Counselling Can Help
Depression counselling can help individuals better understand the emotional, relational, behavioural, and nervous system patterns contributing to their struggles while providing practical tools and meaningful support for change. Many people begin therapy feeling emotionally exhausted, disconnected, overwhelmed, or uncertain whether things can improve. Working with a compassionate depression therapist can help create space for healing, insight, and gradual movement forward.
One of the goals of depression counselling is not simply to “think more positively,” but to help individuals reconnect with themselves, strengthen emotional resilience, improve coping strategies, and reduce the sense of isolation that depression often creates. Therapy can help you better understand your emotions, identify unhelpful patterns, process difficult experiences, and develop healthier ways of responding to stress, relationships, and self-criticism.
Individuals seeking therapy treatment for depression often report improvements in areas such as:
- Emotional regulation and mood stability
- Motivation and energy levels
- Self-esteem and self-worth
- Sleep and daily routines
- Relationship and communication patterns
- Anxiety and chronic stress management
- Burnout and emotional exhaustion
- Ability to experience connection, joy, and meaning again
Depression can also affect the body and nervous system in ways that make it difficult to feel emotionally present, hopeful, or engaged in daily life. For some individuals, therapy may include nervous system regulation approaches such as mindfulness practices, grounding strategies, somatic awareness, or neurofeedback therapy to support emotional flexibility and stress recovery.
At Sojourn Counselling and Neurofeedback, we recognize that depression often develops within the broader context of life experiences, relationships, trauma, grief, stress, or major transitions. Our therapists work collaboratively with clients to create individualized treatment plans that reflect each person’s needs, goals, and pace of healing.
Whether you are experiencing long-term depression, recent emotional burnout, or periods of feeling disconnected and overwhelmed, seeking support from a depression counsellor can be an important step toward greater stability, emotional wellbeing, and reconnection with yourself and others.
What to Expect in Your First Few Sessions
The first session is mostly about getting oriented. Your counsellor will ask what brought you in, what the low mood has looked like day to day, how long it has been going on, and what you have already tried. You do not need to have any of it organized in advance, and you are not expected to tell your whole story at once.
Early sessions usually focus on building a clear picture of how depression is showing up for you, across sleep, energy, concentration, appetite, relationships, and your sense of self. From there you and your counsellor decide together what to work on first and at what pace. Some people want practical structure early on, while others need time to feel settled before going anywhere tender. Both are reasonable places to start.
If something in a session does not feel right, you can say so. Adjusting the pace, the focus, or the approach is a normal part of the work rather than a setback. Many clients find it takes two or three sessions to sense whether a particular counsellor feels like a good fit, and it is completely acceptable to try someone else if the fit is not there.
What Progress Can Look Like
Progress with depression is rarely a straight line, and it usually shows up in small, ordinary ways long before it shows up as feeling happy. Clients often notice the practical things first. Getting out of bed takes slightly less negotiation. A shower stops feeling like a project. You answer a message you had been avoiding for a week.
Later, people often describe a little more room between themselves and the harsh internal commentary, or a returning flicker of interest in something they used to enjoy. Energy tends to come back unevenly. Difficult days still happen, but many clients find they become shorter, less all consuming, or easier to recover from.
Therapy cannot promise a particular outcome or timeline. What counselling can offer is a steady place to understand what is happening, support while your capacity rebuilds, and practical ways of responding to low mood that do not rely on willpower alone.
Depression and Trauma Are Often Connected
For many individuals, depression does not develop in isolation. Experiences such as trauma, chronic stress, emotional neglect, relationship wounds, grief, burnout, or prolonged periods of feeling unsafe or overwhelmed can significantly impact the nervous system and contribute to depressive symptoms over time. In some cases, depression may develop as the mind and body’s way of coping with emotional pain, disconnection, or unresolved experiences.
People struggling with trauma-related depression often describe feeling emotionally numb, disconnected from themselves, chronically exhausted, highly self-critical, or unable to experience joy or emotional closeness. Others may feel stuck in patterns of shame, hopelessness, hypervigilance, or emotional withdrawal. These experiences are often deeply connected to the nervous system’s attempts to protect itself following overwhelming or painful life events.
At Sojourn Counselling and Neurofeedback, our therapists recognize the important relationship between trauma and depression. Rather than focusing only on symptom reduction, we work to understand the underlying emotional and nervous system patterns that may be contributing to ongoing struggles. This trauma-informed approach to therapy treatment for depression can help individuals feel safer, more emotionally connected, and better able to process difficult experiences.
Depending on your needs, therapy may include approaches such as EMDR therapy, attachment-focused counselling, mindfulness-based approaches, Internal Family Systems (IFS)-informed therapy, Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), or nervous system regulation approaches such as neurofeedback. These approaches can support emotional processing, reduce overwhelm, and help create greater flexibility and resilience within the nervous system.
Many individuals seeking depression counselling discover that unresolved trauma, chronic stress, or painful relationship experiences may still be influencing how they view themselves, relate to others, and respond emotionally in the present. Therapy can help bring greater awareness to these patterns while creating opportunities for healing, self-compassion, and reconnection.
If you are experiencing depression alongside anxiety, trauma symptoms, emotional numbness, relationship difficulties, or chronic stress, working with a trauma-informed depression therapist may help address not only the symptoms themselves, but the deeper experiences contributing to them.
Neurofeedback for Depression
Depression can affect more than thoughts and emotions alone. Many individuals experiencing depression also notice changes in energy, sleep, concentration, emotional responsiveness, stress tolerance, and overall nervous system functioning. In some cases, people describe feeling emotionally “stuck,” mentally foggy, chronically exhausted, disconnected, or unable to shift out of patterns of overwhelm or shutdown despite their efforts.
At Sojourn Counselling and Neurofeedback, we offer NeurOptimal® neurofeedback as an additional support option for some individuals seeking therapy treatment for depression. Neurofeedback is a non-invasive form of brain training designed to support the brain’s natural ability to adapt, regulate, and function more flexibly under stress.
Rather than diagnosing or forcing the brain into a particular state, NeurOptimal® provides real-time information about brain activity, allowing the brain to recognize and adjust patterns that may be contributing to dysregulation, emotional rigidity, stress reactivity, or difficulty recovering from overwhelm. Many individuals report improvements in areas such as emotional resilience, sleep, mental clarity, stress tolerance, focus, and overall wellbeing.
Because depression is often connected to chronic stress, trauma, nervous system dysregulation, burnout, or emotional exhaustion, neurofeedback may be a helpful complement to traditional depression counselling for some individuals. It can also support people who feel “stuck” despite insight-oriented therapy alone or who struggle to access emotional flexibility when overwhelmed.
Neurofeedback is not intended to replace counselling or medical care, but can often work alongside therapy approaches such as EMDR therapy, mindfulness-based therapy, CBT, attachment-focused work, or trauma-informed counselling. Some individuals use neurofeedback to support emotional regulation and nervous system stabilization while engaging in deeper therapeutic work.
We offer in-office neurofeedback sessions in Surrey BC as well as home neurofeedback rentals for clients seeking greater flexibility. Our therapists can help determine whether neurofeedback may be an appropriate complement to your treatment goals and overall wellness plan.
When disrupted sleep is the most difficult part of depression to live with, it can help to address it directly. Learn more about counselling for insomnia and sleep anxiety.
Online Therapy for Depression Across British Columbia
For many individuals, accessing support from an online therapist for depression can provide a flexible, comfortable, and effective way to begin counselling. Online therapy allows people to access professional support from the privacy of their home while avoiding many of the barriers that can make seeking help feel overwhelming, including travel time, busy schedules, childcare demands, physical health concerns, or emotional exhaustion. Book online or telephone counselling.
At Sojourn Counselling and Neurofeedback, we provide secure and confidential online counselling across British Columbia for individuals experiencing depression, anxiety, burnout, trauma, stress, relationship difficulties, and emotional overwhelm. Virtual therapy sessions are available for adults, teens, couples, and families throughout BC.
Research has shown that online counselling can be highly effective for many individuals experiencing depression, particularly when there is a strong therapeutic relationship and consistent support. Many clients appreciate the ability to attend therapy from familiar surroundings, which can help create a greater sense of comfort, emotional safety, and accessibility.
Online depression counselling may be especially beneficial for individuals who:
- Feel emotionally drained or overwhelmed by commuting
- Live outside Surrey or the Lower Mainland
- Have demanding work or parenting schedules
- Experience social anxiety or isolation
- Travel frequently or work remotely
- Prefer the privacy and convenience of virtual sessions
Our therapists use many of the same evidence-informed approaches online as we do in person, including CBT, mindfulness-based therapy, EMDR-informed approaches, attachment-focused work, Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), Internal Family Systems (IFS)-informed therapy, and trauma-informed counselling. Online sessions can support individuals struggling with low mood, emotional numbness, burnout, hopelessness, self-criticism, grief, and chronic stress.
Whether you are seeking short-term support during a difficult season of life or ongoing therapy treatment for depression, online counselling can provide meaningful connection, guidance, and support wherever you are located in British Columbia.
Our office is in Cloverdale at Unit 211, 17696 65A Avenue, which makes in person sessions practical for clients across Surrey, Langley, White Rock, and North Delta. If travel, energy, or scheduling makes getting to the office difficult, which is common with depression, online sessions are available across British Columbia.
Which Depression Therapist Is Right for Me?
Finding the right depression therapist is an important part of the counselling process. Research consistently shows that the quality of the therapeutic relationship is one of the strongest predictors of positive outcomes in therapy. Feeling emotionally safe, understood, and supported can make a meaningful difference when working through depression, anxiety, trauma, burnout, or difficult life experiences.
At Sojourn Counselling and Neurofeedback, our therapists bring different personalities, areas of focus, and therapeutic approaches to their work. Some clients are looking for practical coping strategies and structured, goal oriented support, while others want deeper emotional processing, trauma informed therapy, nervous system regulation, or relationship focused counselling. There is no single best approach to therapy treatment for depression.
Our team includes therapists experienced in working with depression, anxiety, trauma, emotional overwhelm, burnout, relationship difficulties, self-esteem concerns, grief, and nervous system dysregulation. Therapy approaches within our clinic may include CBT, EMDR therapy, mindfulness-based approaches, Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), Internal Family Systems (IFS)-informed work, attachment-focused counselling, and neurofeedback.
Everyone on our team is trained to support depression. These short notes may help you decide where to start:
- Katherine Ouano, MEd, RCC – supports children, youth, and families, drawing on CBT, DBT informed skills, and emotionally focused family therapy. Evening and weekend appointments available.
- Alexandra Defazio, MEd, Associate Therapist – works with low mood, grief, burnout, and life transitions using IFS, emotionally focused, ACT, and somatic approaches. Sessions available in English and Spanish.
- Sarah Ball – counselling intern offering lower cost sessions for adults and couples, drawing on emotionally focused, trauma informed, and somatic approaches. Free first session.
- Michael Murie – counselling intern offering lower cost sessions for adults and couples, with a free first session.
- Tarnia Pickard, RCC – brings more than twenty years of experience with children, youth, and families, using EMDR, CBT, DBT, and IFS informed approaches. Accepts CVAP clients.
We also offer low-cost counselling with supervised intern counsellors, including Michael Murie, at $60 per 50 minute session with a free first session.
Whether you are looking for in-person depression counselling in Surrey BC or an online therapist for depression elsewhere in British Columbia, our team is here to support you in finding an approach and therapist that feels like the right fit.
From Our Blog
Frequently Asked Questions About Depression Counselling
Can counselling help with depression?
Yes. Depression counselling can help individuals better understand the emotional, behavioural, relational, and nervous system factors contributing to depression while developing healthier coping strategies and greater emotional resilience. Therapy can support improvements in mood, motivation, self-esteem, relationships, stress management, and overall wellbeing.
What type of therapy is best for depression?
Different therapy approaches may be helpful depending on the individual and the factors contributing to their depression. Common evidence-informed approaches include Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), mindfulness-based therapy, EMDR therapy, Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), attachment-focused counselling, Internal Family Systems (IFS)-informed therapy, and trauma-informed approaches. Many individuals benefit from an integrative approach tailored to their unique needs.
How do I know if I should see a depression therapist?
It may be helpful to seek support from a depression therapist if you have been experiencing persistent sadness, hopelessness, emotional numbness, burnout, irritability, loss of motivation, anxiety, sleep difficulties, or difficulty coping with daily life. Therapy can also help individuals struggling with grief, chronic stress, relationship challenges, trauma, or major life transitions.
Is online therapy effective for depression?
Research suggests that online therapy can be highly effective for many individuals experiencing depression. Virtual counselling allows clients to access support from the comfort and privacy of home while maintaining flexibility and accessibility. At Sojourn Counselling and Neurofeedback, we provide secure online counselling across British Columbia.
Can depression and anxiety happen together?
Yes. Anxiety and depression commonly occur together and can influence one another in significant ways. Individuals experiencing both may feel emotionally overwhelmed, exhausted, restless, disconnected, or caught in cycles of worry and hopelessness. Therapy can help address both the emotional and nervous system components contributing to these experiences.
How long does depression therapy take?
The length of therapy varies depending on each individual’s goals, history, symptoms, support systems, and the factors contributing to depression. Some people benefit from short-term support focused on coping strategies and symptom management, while others pursue longer-term therapy to address trauma, relationship patterns, nervous system dysregulation, or deeper emotional concerns.
Can trauma contribute to depression?
Yes. Trauma, chronic stress, emotional neglect, difficult relationships, grief, and overwhelming life experiences can all contribute to depression. Many individuals seeking therapy treatment for depression discover that unresolved emotional experiences or nervous system dysregulation may be playing an important role in their symptoms.
Is neurofeedback helpful for depression?
Some individuals find that neurofeedback helps support emotional regulation, stress recovery, sleep, mental clarity, and nervous system flexibility. Neurofeedback may be used alongside counselling as part of a broader treatment approach for depression, anxiety, burnout, or trauma-related symptoms.
Can I do therapy while taking antidepressants?
Yes. Many clients work with a counsellor while taking medication prescribed by their physician, and the two are often used alongside each other. Counsellors in British Columbia do not prescribe or adjust medication, so any decision about starting, changing, or stopping an antidepressant belongs with you and your prescribing doctor. What counselling can add is space to understand the patterns underneath low mood and practical ways of working with them. If you are unsure whether medication is right for you, your family doctor is the appropriate place to begin that conversation.
I can still function but I feel empty. Is that depression?
It might be. Depression is not only an inability to function. Some people meet all of their obligations while feeling flat, numb, or disconnected, which is sometimes described as high functioning depression. Because the outside looks fine, it often goes unnamed for a long time and people assume they are simply unmotivated or ungrateful. If low mood, loss of interest, or emotional numbness has persisted for weeks and is affecting how you experience your life, it is reasonable to talk with a counsellor about it, whether or not it looks serious from the outside.