About
About Shoreline Therapy Group
A relational counselling practice grounded in curiosity, lived experience, and the complexity of change.
Shoreline Therapy Group is a Nanaimo-based counselling practice created around a simple belief: people are more than the problems, diagnoses, or experiences that bring them to therapy.
The work is collaborative, relational, and deeply respectful of lived experience. Rather than assuming there is one correct explanation for what is happening, or one prescribed path toward change, counselling creates space to become curious about what has happened, what has helped you survive, what matters to you, and what may be asking for attention now.
Shoreline is led by Stephanie McCune, PhD, RCC, a Registered Clinical Counsellor, educator, researcher, and author with more than 26 years of experience across mental health, substance use, trauma, grief, family support, and significant life transition.
Her clinical work, research, and teaching continue to shape the philosophy behind Shoreline: your knowledge of your own life matters, and meaningful change is something we explore together rather than something imposed upon you.
Meeting people where they already stand
The Philosophy
The Philosophy Behind Shoreline
Shoreline Therapy Group is grounded in the belief that people bring important knowledge about their own lives, relationships, histories, and experiences into counselling.
That belief has been shaped by Stephanie's clinical work, teaching, research, and more than 26 years spent alongside individuals, families, and communities navigating complex periods of change.
During her doctoral research, Stephanie centred the experiences of parents and caregivers of adolescents in relationship with alcohol and other drugs. At the heart of that work was a question that continues to influence Shoreline today:
What becomes possible when people's lived knowledge is privileged rather than corrected?
That question reflects a different way of thinking about therapy.
Rather than beginning with the assumption that the therapist holds the correct explanation for what is happening, Shoreline approaches counselling as a collaborative relationship. Clinical knowledge matters, but so does your knowledge of yourself: your history, relationships, values, ways of coping, and understanding of what has brought you here.
This does not mean that difficult experiences, diagnoses, patterns, or symptoms are ignored. It means they are understood within the larger context of a person's life rather than treated as the whole story of who they are.
The work creates room for curiosity, reflection, connection, and new understanding while respecting the complexity and uncertainty that can accompany meaningful change.
Meet Stephanie
Meet Stephanie McCune, PhD, RCC
Stephanie McCune, PhD, RCC, is a Registered Clinical Counsellor based in Nanaimo, on the traditional territory of the Snuneymuxw First Nation.
For more than 26 years, she has worked alongside individuals, families, and communities navigating substance use, trauma, grief, mental health concerns, relationship change, and significant periods of transition.
Stephanie holds a Bachelor of Social Work, a Master's degree in Counselling Psychology, and a PhD in Social Sciences from Tilburg University, completed through the Taos Institute, where she remains an Institute Associate.
Her experience spans clinical practice, community-based mental health and substance use services, research, post-secondary education, family support, professional development, and private practice.
That breadth of experience shapes Shoreline Therapy Group today.
The Work
A Relational Approach to Therapy
The work at Shoreline Therapy Group is grounded in relational and postmodern approaches, particularly Narrative and Collaborative Therapies.
These approaches are interested not only in the difficulties someone is experiencing, but also in the relationships, histories, meanings, identities, and wider contexts that may be shaping those experiences.
Stephanie also draws from trauma-informed and somatic practice, Motivational Interviewing, family systems, and experiential approaches depending on what is most useful in the work.
Rather than applying one model to every person or beginning with the assumption that there is one correct explanation for what is happening, counselling remains responsive to the person, relationship, history, and circumstances in front of us.
Therapy is something we explore together.
Stephanie brings clinical experience, therapeutic knowledge, and different ways of understanding what may be happening. You bring your knowledge of your own life, relationships, history, values, and what matters to you.
The work develops through the conversation between those different kinds of knowledge.
Questions That Help Guide the Work
Rather than beginning with the question, "What is wrong with you?", the work at Shoreline is more interested in questions such as:
- 01What happened?
- 02What has helped you survive?
- 03What matters to you?
- 04What is asking for attention now?
- 05What might become possible from here?
These questions create room to understand what has shaped your life, how you have responded, what continues to matter to you, and what may be becoming possible now.
Shoreline does not approach counselling as a process of correcting people or fitting their experiences into a predetermined explanation. The work can hold complexity, uncertainty, contradiction, and change while remaining grounded in the therapeutic relationship.
For a deeper look at the clinical ideas, therapeutic perspectives, and approaches that shape this work, explore Shoreline's Counselling Approach.
Specialized Experience
Specialized Experience in Substance Use, Families & Caregiver Support
Substance use and addiction have been central to Stephanie's clinical, academic, and research work throughout much of her career.
Her experience includes working with people who want to better understand or change their relationship with alcohol and other substances, as well as with parents, partners, siblings, and other family members affected by someone else's substance use.
This work is especially connected to Stephanie's doctoral research, which centred the voices and experiences of parents and caregivers of adolescents in relationship with alcohol and other drugs.
That research continues to influence Shoreline's approach today: people affected by substance use are not reduced to a diagnosis, and family members are not treated simply as extensions of someone else's treatment.
Shoreline approaches substance use with curiosity, compassion, and respect for the complexity of change.
For people who want to explore alcohol or other substance use more directly, including harm reduction, moderation, recovery, family support, or uncertainty about what change should look like, the dedicated Substance Use Counselling page explains this work in more depth.
Psychedelic Work
Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy, Preparation & Integration
Psychedelic-assisted work has become an increasingly important part of Stephanie's clinical practice.
She has completed specialized training in MDMA- and psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy through TheraPsil and continues to pursue advanced education in psychedelic-assisted approaches.
Within Shoreline, this work is approached with clinical care, curiosity, and respect for the complexity of psychedelic and other transformative experiences.
Stephanie's interest is not limited to the experience itself, but also to what surrounds it: how someone prepares, what emerges during the experience, and how insight, emotion, memory, meaning, and change are carried back into everyday life.
Preparation creates the container. Integration is where insight becomes something we live.
Shoreline provides psychotherapy, preparation, and integration support connected with psychedelic-assisted and other transformative experiences.
The dedicated Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy page explains this work in greater depth, including the distinction between psychedelic-assisted therapy and integration support after an experience.
Knowledge carried, shared, and returned
Teaching, Research & Writing
Beyond the Therapy Room
Shoreline Therapy Group is also shaped by Stephanie's work as an educator, researcher, writer, and facilitator.
She teaches in Child and Youth Care at Vancouver Island University and has taught and facilitated learning in substance use, mental health, counselling, resilience, and community practice.
Stephanie has completed the Motivational Interviewing Network of Trainers (MINT) Training for New Trainers and has provided Motivational Interviewing and other professional development for practitioners working across health and helping systems.
She is also a writer, researcher, and creator of therapeutic and educational resources. Her work includes Disrupting Standard Mode: A Big Picture Story of Family Inclusion in Substance Use Services, along with resources exploring substance use, trauma, grief, resilience, psychedelic preparation and integration, and the complexity of being human.
This wider work continues to influence Shoreline by keeping the practice connected to research, education, professional dialogue, and the evolving ways people understand care, relationship, and change.
I arrived unsure I could talk about any of it. Stephanie made the room feel safe enough that I finally did, and nothing about it was rushed. A year on, I recognise myself again.
We had tried couples counselling before and left feeling refereed. Here we were actually listened to. The work was honest, sometimes hard, and it genuinely changed how we speak to each other.
Substance use counselling that never once made me feel judged. Stephanie held the clinical side seriously while treating me like a whole person, which is what finally made the difference.
My integration sessions gave shape to an experience I could not put into words. Careful, grounded, and deeply respectful of what came up.
Video sessions from a small town up island worked far better than I expected. Same steadiness, same depth, no four hour drive.
Counselling Services
Explore Counselling Services
People come to Shoreline Therapy Group for many different reasons, and the concern that brings someone to counselling is often connected to other parts of their life.
Shoreline offers counselling for individuals, couples, and families, specialized substance use counselling, and psychedelic-assisted therapy, preparation, and integration support.
The Counselling Services page provides an overview of the different ways into the work and can help you understand which kind of support may fit what you are experiencing now.
Nanaimo & Online
Shoreline Therapy Group in Nanaimo & Online
Shoreline Therapy Group is based in Nanaimo, on the traditional territory of the Snuneymuxw First Nation.
Counselling is available in person and by secure video, depending on the service and what is clinically appropriate.
The setting may differ, but the intention remains the same: to create a thoughtful, collaborative space where there is room to understand what is happening, what matters to you, and what may need attention now.
If you are exploring whether Shoreline may be a good fit, you can learn more about the available services or get in touch directly.
Beginning
Begin With What Feels Important Now
You do not need to arrive with a complete explanation of what is happening or certainty about where the work should begin.
You may be carrying a question, a relationship, a loss, a pattern, an experience, or simply the sense that something in your life is asking for attention.
Shoreline offers a place to begin with what is present and become curious about what may be possible from there.