Leona Westra

About me

I will work with you to reduce the pain and distress you are experiencing in your life. I specialize in working with chronic pain, trauma, emotional neglect, and persistent depression/anxiety. I bring a vast knowledge of trauma, chronic pain, and emotional neglect that comes from both a personal lived experience and professional education and expertise. I will use this experience and knowledge to help you overcome your unique challenges and improve your quality of life. I have an honest, empathetic, and collaborative style to explore, understand, and bring awareness to the underlying causes of your current challenges. I see my role as a compassionate witness and guide, helping you with your healing journey and enhancing your life. I strive to ensure you feel understood and heard as we work together to bring healing to your life. I’ll provide knowledge and skills to further your understanding of your struggles, promote healing, and get you to a better place. As we work together, I desire to see you achieve your goals and get the most out of your life. Some of the benefits my clients have received are: • Reduction in pain, pain flares, and pain intensity. • Improved coping and more in control of their lives. • Better boundaries, improved self-care, increased function, and better quality of life • Reduction of trauma triggers, trauma symptoms, and trauma’s effect on their lives. • Increase in self-worth, self-esteem, and self-value. • Reduction in people-pleasing, perfectionism, and self-critical tendencies. • Increased awareness and knowledge. • Fewer feelings of sadness, anger, emptiness, shame, and guilt. • Enhanced spiritual connection • Improved sleep and ability to relax. • Processing loss so the distress doesn’t feel as intense. I provide counselling for chronic pain from multiple aspects, including Pain Reprocessing Therapy, EMDR Pain Protocol, Cognitive Behaviour Therapy, Grief Therapy, Psychoeducation, and Self-Management. I will work with you from where you are and according to your pain presentation. We will work together to find out what relief is possible for your life with chronic pain and find a way to get you there. I provide trauma counselling from multiple aspects, including EMDR, Flash, cognitive processing therapy, parts work/internal family systems, somatic approaches, Dialectical behaviour Therapy, Psychoeducation, and coping strategies. I am experienced in working with complex trauma, narcissistic abuse, relational trauma, intergenerational trauma, emotional abuse, and medical trauma. We will work together to find you healing from your trauma and help you get more out of your life. I provide counselling for childhood emotional neglect by focusing on a few aspects, such as helping you understand why you are struggling the way you are, helping you build an emotional foundation and filling in some of the missing needs and skills from childhood, processing trauma, helping you embrace the beautiful person you are, and building you up to reach your full potential. We will work together to find you the healing for the emptiness of emotional neglect and help you get more contentment in your life. When you're ready to get more out of life, I'm ready to help. Please book a free 15-minute consultation on my booking page (accessed through my website) or email me to find out how I can help you.