Coping With Holiday Stress: Tips From a Therapist
The holidays can bring joy, stress, and everything in between. In this gentle, therapist-informed guide, Nimble Counsellor Anna MacGillivray offers practical, body-aware strategies to help you stay grounded through seasonal overwhelm. From boundaries to rest to nervous-system support, these tips can help you move through the holidays with more steadiness and compassion.
Finding Safety in Your Body: Somatic Experiencing for Body Image and Eating Disorders
In this piece, Vancouver based Anna MacGillivray, RCC and Somatic Experiencing–trained clinician, explores how body image and eating struggles often begin in the nervous system, and how Somatic Experiencing can help people reconnect with their bodies, rebuild safety, and gently shift long-standing patterns of shame and disconnection.
Somatic Experiencing and Addiction: Healing the Nervous System in Recovery
Addiction is often misunderstood as a battle of willpower, but Somatic Experiencing® shows us that many addictive patterns begin in the nervous system’s attempts to survive overwhelming stress, pain, or disconnection. In this compassionate exploration, Nimble Counselling founder Anna MacGillivray, RCC, explains how body-based healing can help people in Vancouver and across B.C. find safety, regulation, and genuine relief from compulsive cycles. This gentle, trauma-informed approach invites us to understand addiction not as a flaw, but as a survival strategy that can be unwound with support.
Your Guide to Counsellors in BC: Understanding Titles, Training, and Coverage
Finding the right mental health support in British Columbia can be confusing, especially when counsellors, psychologists, social workers, and even unregulated “therapists” use overlapping titles. Unlike some provinces, BC does not yet have a regulatory college for counsellors, which means anyone can call themselves a counsellor—making it important to understand who is qualified, what those credentials mean, and what services your insurance will cover.
This guide breaks down the key differences between Registered Clinical Counsellors (RCC), Canadian Certified Counsellors (CCC), Registered Social Workers (RSW), Psychologists, Psychiatrists, and unregulated helpers such as life coaches. We’ll also walk you through which professionals are regulated, who is usually covered by extended health benefits, and practical steps to verify a therapist’s credentials so you can choose support with confidence.
What’s Your Attachment Style? Understanding How You Connect in Relationships
What’s your attachment style and how does it shape the way you connect, communicate, and love? In this guide, Nimble Counselling founder Anna MacGillivray walks you through the four main attachment styles (Secure, Anxious, Avoidant, and Disorganized), how they show up in everyday life, and how understanding your patterns can help you build safer, stronger relationships.
Boundaries: The Key to Protection, Connection, and Self-Worth
Boundaries are often misunderstood—they’re not about shutting people out, but about creating space for what matters most. Just like a garden needs a fence to flourish, our relationships need boundaries to stay healthy. Without them, things can become tangled, neglected, or overrun. With walls too high, nothing can grow. But when boundaries are intentional and balanced, they allow connection, protection, and growth to coexist. In this post, we explore how different types of boundaries—rigid, porous, and healthy—shape the landscape of our relationships, and how finding the right balance can help you cultivate deeper, more fulfilling connections.