HELPING TO SOOTHE BOTH BODY AND SOUL
Businesses and non-profit organizations regularly open and move in Saskatoon. Today the Starphoenix talks to Bryce Macewan who, with his wife April, opened Soulsoothe Counselling & Wellness in November 2023. Bryce is joined in his office by counsellor Denise Carey. Soulsoothe offers counselling that treats both the body and the soul with a holistic approach using evidence-based counselling techniques, writes
Q Why did you open Soulsoothe Counselling & Wellness?
A I had been practising as a social worker for a number of years and realized that with some of the areas of need within our city, there aren't necessarily services available for people. One of the gaps we wanted to fill was that combination of helping people's mental and emotional health, along with their spiritual health.
Q What is the purpose of Soulsoothe?
A We exist to support our clients' emotional and spiritual health. At the heart of what we're doing is that we would see every client experience true and lasting healing that remains based in real life. We believe in hope for people overcoming struggles.
Q How did the name Soulsoothe come about?
A It was really the coming together of two pieces. Recognizing that we are complex beings, we're both body and soul. There's that flesh material part and that spiritual part. We view people and approach them in a very holistic way. The different approaches that we use are evidence-based, well researched, well founded, but are also able to reach people in a way that can help heal the whole person.
Q What is your background?
A I'm a registered social worker. I've been registered for the past three and a half years. Leading up to that, I started my journey working with youth and families at summer camps, and working with kids in the foster care system. In the last couple of years I have been doing more work with trauma and addiction that I think I really solidified my journey towards wanting to do full time counselling in that area.
Denise is a registered social worker as well. She has been practising for over 30 years, again kind of focusing on trauma and addiction work. We met a few years ago. We were working
together and in many ways I would say we are like the two almost different sides of what we're doing at Soulsoothe. I really focus more on traditional clinical approaches with healing trauma, and for Denise it's definitely pressing more into the spiritual approaches.
Q What services do you provide?
A Both Denise and I provide individual counselling services for youth and adults. I also provide couples counselling services. Denise is also trained in Sozo — a spiritual inner-healing approach. It's not counselling, because it is more of a spiritual service, but it's grounded in clinical counselling theories and approaches.
With individual counselling we support people struggling with a variety of different issues from mental health concerns or a mental health diagnosis to trauma and addiction. Also helping people navigate the complexities of relationships — they
can be really hard at times and also a source of great comfort and enjoyment. We help couples navigate everything from minor conflicts to making decisions about the future, family planning or career goals and also to overcome trauma or infidelity. Both Denise and I offer the same services we would for adults to youth aged 13 to 17.
Q What is your Sozo service?
A Sozo comes from a Greek word meaning saved, healed and delivered. It is holistic healing that goes beyond just feeling better; there's a deeper meaning to it. In Sozo, the purpose is helping people to connect with themselves better and heal, as well as connect with others and heal, but then also to connect with God, in whatever form they understand God. The approach is really a combination of Christian spirituality alongside the clinical counselling.
Q You offer 15 minute free initial
counselling sessions?
A Finding a counsellor is incredibly difficult, and it really matters that you find the right fit because every counsellor is different and every person has different needs. Offering these 15 minute pre-consultations is a way for us to make sure that we're able to provide what it is that the client needs, and if not we refer them to other trusted people we know in the community.
Q What sets you apart from other counsellors?
A Our approaches to counselling are based on providing meaningful and lasting healing and recovering for healing and addiction. Other counselling approaches often develop things like coping skills or resiliency. We focus on doing the deeper work, and we're seeing the result. We're seeing people actually overcoming things that they've spent decades struggling with.
Q Do you offer a judgment-free
space for clients?
A Rarely are people coming to see me because everything in life is going well — they've got struggles or some tough things going on. To know that they can sit down and they don't have to put on a mask, I think it's really freeing for people. As soon as they tiptoe into some of those difficult places and realize that they're met with genuine care and compassion for what it is they're going through, the therapy goes in a totally different direction. That's where we start to see results.
Q Could you tell us about your blog?
A The blog really is a place for people to be able to get to know us more and also find practical ideas that might be helpful between sessions. When they aren't able to sit down with us, hopefully they can find some things in the blog that will be interesting and meaningful to them.
Q Do you offer Christian counselling services?
A We widely advertise as a Christian counselling practice. We serve people from all backgrounds and faiths, sexual orientation, and gender but a lot of people are looking for support from a Christian perspective. After Christian Counselling Services closed down in Saskatoon there were a lot of people that were left wondering where they could go.
We saw that as a gap that few were willing to step into and willingly attach the label of Christian to what they're doing. Our client base is probably 50-50 — about half the people would be from a Christian background looking for Christian counselling and Christian counsellors, and then the other half from a variety of different backgrounds.