Shoreline Therapy Group
Soft light over the ocean at a quiet Nanaimo shoreline

Shoreline Therapy Group

Individual, Couples & Family Therapy in Nanaimo

A place to understand what is happening, reconnect with what matters, and discover what might become possible.

People come to therapy for all kinds of reasons. Sometimes something has happened: a loss, separation, traumatic experience, relationship rupture, diagnosis, or significant life transition, and the way forward is difficult to see.

Sometimes there is no single defining event. Something may feel unsettled within you, difficult between you and someone you love, or increasingly complicated across the wider family.

Shoreline offers individual, couples and family therapy depending on where the concern is being experienced and what kind of conversation may be most helpful.

The boundaries between these forms of counselling are not always rigid. Individual experiences can affect relationships. Couple dynamics can shape family life. Family histories can influence how each person understands themselves and others.

You do not need to know which type of therapy you need before reaching out. We can begin by understanding what is happening and what matters to you.

Explore Your Counselling Options

Where to begin

Individual, Couples or Family Therapy: Where Do I Begin?

It is not always obvious whether what you are experiencing belongs in individual counselling, couples counselling, or family therapy.

A concern may feel deeply personal while also affecting a relationship. Difficulties between partners can influence the wider family. Family histories and established ways of relating can continue to shape how people understand themselves long after circumstances have changed.

The starting point does not need to be perfect. What matters is beginning with where the concern seems to be showing up most clearly now.

Individual Counselling

When the Focus Is Primarily on You

Individual counselling may be a helpful place to begin when you want space to explore your own experiences, emotions, relationships, patterns, or questions about what is happening in your life.

The work may involve anxiety, trauma, grief, identity, substance use, difficult experiences from the past, significant life transitions, or patterns you understand intellectually but continue to feel caught within.

Individual therapy can also include relationship concerns when what you most need is space to understand your own experience within those relationships.

Explore Individual Counselling

Couples Counselling

When the Focus Is Primarily Between Partners

Couples counselling may make sense when the primary concern is what is happening between you and a partner.

You may be caught in recurring conflict, struggling to communicate, feeling increasingly distant, trying to rebuild trust, navigating intimacy or parenting, or questioning what the relationship needs now.

Couples therapy creates space to understand the relationship itself rather than locating the difficulty entirely within either person.

Explore Couples Counselling

Family Therapy

When the Concern Extends Across the Family

Family therapy may be a helpful starting point when the concern involves relationships, roles, communication, or change across the wider family.

The work may involve parents and adolescents, parents and adult children, siblings, families affected by substance use or mental health concerns, grief and loss, changing family roles, boundaries, or patterns that have become established over time.

Family counselling offers an opportunity to understand what is happening without locating the entire problem within one family member.

Explore Family Therapy

The Lines Between Them Are Not Always Clear

These are not rigid categories. Individual experiences, couple relationships, and wider family dynamics can affect one another, and the focus of counselling can respond to what becomes important as the work develops.

We can begin with what is happening now and become curious about where the conversation needs to go.

Common reasons

What Might Bring You to Therapy?

The reason you first reach out is not always the only thing happening.

Trauma can shape relationships. Grief can change how people cope and connect. Anxiety may affect communication, intimacy, parenting, or the way conflict is experienced. Substance use can influence individuals, couples, and entire families. Experiences from earlier in life may continue to shape relationships in the present.

You may be:

  • Living with anxiety, overwhelm, burnout, or persistent self-doubt
  • Carrying the effects of trauma or difficult experiences from the past
  • Grieving a loss or moving through a significant life transition
  • Feeling disconnected from yourself or uncertain about who you are becoming
  • Repeating patterns that you understand but still find difficult to change
  • Experiencing conflict, distance, or loss of connection in a relationship
  • Trying to rebuild trust after a rupture or betrayal
  • Navigating parenting, changing family roles, or conflict across the family
  • Living with the impact of substance use or mental health concerns
  • Wanting to communicate differently with someone you love
  • Facing a difficult decision or period of uncertainty
  • Feeling that something needs attention, even if you cannot quite name what it is yet

Some of these concerns may be explored through individual counselling. Others may make more sense within couples counselling or family therapy.

The work can begin with what feels most present and remain open to the larger context around it.

The approach

How Shoreline Approaches Individual, Couples & Family Therapy

Stephanie McCune, PhD, RCC, approaches counselling collaboratively, compassionately, and with deep respect for lived experience.

Her work is grounded in relational and postmodern approaches, particularly Narrative and Collaborative Therapies, and also draws from trauma-informed, somatic, experiential, and family-systems perspectives.

Across individual, couples, and family therapy, the work does not begin by asking what is wrong with you or by assuming there is one correct explanation for what is happening.

Stephanie brings more than 26 years of experience in mental health, substance use, trauma, grief, family support, relationships, and significant life transition.

The form the counselling takes may be different, but the underlying approach remains the same: your knowledge of your own life and relationships matters, and therapy is something we explore together rather than something imposed upon you.

Instead, therapy creates space to become curious about:

  1. 01What has happened?
  2. 02What has helped you cope or survive?
  3. 03What matters to you?
  4. 04What may be shaping the relationships around you?
  5. 05What is asking for attention now?
  6. 06What might become possible from here?
A wide open beach under soft cloud near the Nanaimo coastline

Room enough for whoever comes

Nanaimo & online

Individual, Couples & Family Therapy in Nanaimo & Online

Shoreline Therapy Group offers individual counselling, couples counselling, and family therapy in person in Nanaimo and by secure video.

If you are unsure which format may be the best place to begin, you do not need to decide before reaching out. We can begin with what is happening now and consider together what kind of support may fit.

Looking for support beyond individual, couples, or family therapy? Explore all Counselling Services available through Shoreline Therapy Group.

Fine ripples left in wet sand after the tide has drawn back

The tide leaves its own map

Where to begin

You Can Begin With What Feels Most Present

You do not need to arrive with a clear explanation of what is wrong or certainty about what kind of therapy you need.

You can begin with the concern, relationship, question, or experience that feels most present now.

Together, we can become curious about what is happening and where the conversation may need to go.

Book an Appointment

Questions

Frequently Asked Questions About Individual, Couples & Family Therapy

It is common to have questions about where to begin, especially when what you are experiencing affects more than one part of your life or relationships.

These answers may help clarify the different ways counselling can begin.

Have questions about where to start? Contact Shoreline Therapy Group.

Book an Appointment