AEDP Therapy in British Columbia

The most recent AEDP (Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy) textbook includes this phrase in its title: transforming suffering into flourishing. AEDP is a therapeutic modality that not only wants to alleviate the negative effects of psychological distress, but believes that as humans, we need opportunities to thrive in our lives, existing as our full, expansive, selves.

We live in a world where much of mental health has become about managing symptoms or learning tools and tips to reduce the experience of anxiety or depression. For those of us who work as AEDP therapists, our goals are much bigger. We want to see ourselves and others access calm, an increased capacity, and truly flourish in our lives. It is only through accessing our innate creativity that we as a community will be able to move forward and build a better, safer, and more inclusive world.

What is AEDP?

AEDP is a healing-oriented style, developed by Diana Fosha, that focuses on positive neuroplasticity developing out of relationship. This allows for transformation; healing both relational and attachment based trauma. AEDP trained therapists are not looking to “fix” you but believe you are already wired for healing, and need relational support to allow that healing to come forward, so that you can flourish in your life. As human beings, we are wired to be in community and relationships with each other.

Imagine you were raised in a home where the emotions of sadness and anger made your parents uncomfortable. As a result, they did everything they could to prevent you from being in an experience where you would have these emotions surface, or if they did surface it caused a major family disruption. It’s easy to see how being raised in this environment could teach someone that their sadness and anger was a problem that needed to be avoided.

Because of contexts like this, we often learn to develop strategies to protect us from feeling emotions. This can be anything from distracting ourselves, numbing, feeling anxiety that surfaces to try to push the emotion away, or dissociation, to name a few. What you miss out on learning is that you can feel angry or sad and still be ok. In reality, those emotions give you much needed information about your wants, needs, values, and priorities, and are incredibly useful for decision making.

AEDP therapy can help you relearn how to experience your emotions. By being with someone who is not afraid of or uncomfortable with your feelings, you can also learn to tolerate them in a different way, and maybe even welcome them, as a necessary part of the human experience. Feeling the full spectrum of your emotions does not have to be scary, or something to be avoided.

At The Commons Wellness Collective, we believe that you should have access to the broadest experience of being human possible, and this requires capacity to feel and process all of your emotions. Emotions like anger specifically, are so important to help us know when things around us are out of alignment with our values, or that we are not ok with how we or someone we love is being treated. Without being able to feel this, it’s possible we can stay in situations that are not healthy for us for far too long. Because we want you to have the chance to thrive in your life, we believe emotions are a critical part of that. If you’re curious to learn more, this video with Dr. Tori Olds does a fabulous job of describing what is happening in AEDP, and why we prioritize it in the way we do.

AEDP is one of the most accessible forms of therapy. All you need are two people who are committed to building a relationship, and because of this, it lends itself well to online therapy. We are proud to offer AEDP Therapy to any folks living in BC.

How AEDP Can Help You

Maybe you’re feeling stuck in therapy, maybe you struggle to identify and make space for your emotions, or you find yourself in the same patterns in relationships over and over and are wondering what needs to change. Working with a trained AEDP therapist can help.

AEDP is an evidence-based therapy. Ongoing research shows that patients experience change that lasts long after the therapy ends. AEDP is effective in treating trauma, depression, grief and loss, emotional dysregulation, negative thoughts, interpersonal problems, and other issues. When we experience pain or find ourselves in relational dynamics that feel impossible to change, which is often the case during childhood, our brain works to protect us and in doing so can limit our access to our full emotional experience. As we grow, we gain more agency and capacity, but unless those pathways are rewired, our brain continues to use the same strategies we developed in childhood, even though we may not need protection in the same way. By addressing the root causes and origin points of these strategies and by using positive neuroplasticity, your brain's neural pathways are transformed allowing you to see shifts in your everyday life.

AEDP also recognizes the wider social and cultural context we all exist in and are impacted by daily. Systems of oppression impact all of us. For example, a system like patriarchy causes us to internalize gender roles and power dynamics and impacts how we feel about ourselves. It also shows up in our relationship dynamics, affects the opportunities we have access to, and how we may be discriminated against or hold power in the broader society. There are societal pressures on all of us to behave in alignment with the expectations of a patriarchal structure. All of these levels of experience need to be addressed, and while we cannot eradicate the effects of patriarchy through individual therapy, we can help identify when and how it shows up in our lives, and shift our response to it in order to live in a way that is in stronger alignment with our values.

This style of therapy is not only beneficial for us as individuals, but benefits our communities. One of the beautiful byproducts of living from our core selves, is that we have increased access to creativity, calm, and connectedness. These are traits our communities desperately need to imagine a better future with equity for all.

What to Expect in an AEDP Session

An AEDP therapist will focus on ‘Healing from the Get-go’. That means from the start of the first session we will be looking for places where emotion is surfacing and exploring what might be getting in the way of those emotions being expressed. In addition, we use a trauma informed approach, meaning you have a say in what happens, and we go at the pace that feels comfortable to you.

Many times in therapy, we can feel obligated to regurgitate vulnerable and personal details of our lives without first creating a relationship of safety to know that those details will be held with care and compassion. That feeling of “safe enough” comes from being able to feel trust in your therapist's capacity to be with you in what you’re sharing. In AEDP, we prioritize the relationship we are building together, and that relationship is co-created. This means nothing in therapy happens without your consent. In many cases, we start by exploring how vulnerable and nerve wracking it can be to share with someone we are just getting to know, and focus on building trust.

Part of what makes this work a great fit for online therapy, is that as therapists, we are focused on moment to moment tracking, meaning we are watching your facial expressions, and posture, just as much as we are listening to the words you’re saying. Facial expressions will often show a hint of emotion that may not be present in what we’re saying. In AEDP therapy, you’ll find your therapist will pause you, and ask something like ‘What are you noticing right now?’ or ‘What just happened?’, with the intention of surfacing an emotion that might otherwise be glossed over, in the rush to share the details of a story. AEDP is focused on the experience and processing, instead of prioritizing the content you might be sharing.

Our Experience with AEDP Therapy

AEDP therapists undergo extensive training in the forms of lectures, demonstrations from skilled clinicians using clinical tapes, and experiential practice. Many of our training workshops include hours of time trying out therapy skills on each other as colleagues. The goal of training is to learn skills while also having the opportunity to experience what a session would feel like from the patient or client's point of view.  Because of this, we know exactly how vulnerable it feels to do this work. Many of us also work with an AEDP therapist for our own personal therapy.

In AEDP, we use supervision to develop our skills on an ongoing basis. With the consent of some of our clients, we are able to review recordings of our work to see how we can continue to improve, this is one of the most valuable learning tools we have, and if you are someone who would be comfortable allowing sessions to be recorded for the benefit of learning, know that is a precious gift that benefits not only your therapy but many others.

As of March 2026, Nicole is a Level 3 AEDP clinician, working towards certification and receiving ongoing Supervision from an AEDP Certified Supervisors. This means they have completed over 250 hours of focused training, practice and supervision. They also support the AEDP community by volunteering as an Educational Assistant for AEDP trainings. Belinda, Kaleigh, Jordan and Natasha are all Level 2 AEDP clinicians undergoing group supervision with an AEDP faculty member, and Katelyn is a Level 1 AEDP clinician. You can learn more about AEDP through the AEDP Institute’s website. At this time, the Collective is receiving Group Supervision from AEDP Institute Senior Faculty member and Certified Supervisor, Ben Medley.

Start Your Healing Journey

If this style of therapy resonates with you, or feels like something you want to learn more about, we would love to hear from you! We are committed to supporting folks not only in reducing the distress they are experiencing, but also to seeing them thrive and flourish in their lives. 

Please reach out using our contact form. We’d love to chat with you and answer any of your questions about AEDP. Each of our therapists offer a free 15 minute consultation so you have a chance to ask questions, and get a feel for what the work would be like before making a commitment. 

We are honoured to support anyone living in British Columbia, and with the convenience of online therapy, all you need is a private space and an internet connection to get started. We are committed to making therapy access as simple as possible.