Lantern Path Counselling
Cory Stevens, RCC
About Me: Queer-Affirming & Neurodivergent-Informed Counselling in Burnaby
Working With Me
Many of the people I work with are navigating anxiety, overwhelm, or the lasting impact of stress and trauma. Some are neurodiverse and are looking for support that respects how their brains work. Others are queer, trans, or exploring identity and relationships in ways that haven’t always felt understood or affirmed. At the same time, you don’t need to fit a specific label to reach out. If you’re feeling stuck, disconnected, or ready to approach things differently, we can explore whether working together feels like a good fit.
I also work with clients registered with BC’s Crime Victim Assistance Program (CVAP). If you have been approved for CVAP funding, we can use that coverage for eligible counselling sessions. See my page on CVAP for more information.
My Approach to Therapy
In formal terms, my practice is influenced by:
- Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT),
- Rogerian person-centered therapy,
- polyvagal theory, and
- feminist/anti-oppressive therapies.
With relationships, I am also influenced by:
- Sue Johnson’s Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) and
- Jessica Fern’s adaptation of attachment theory for consensually non-monogamous relationships.
If you’re less familiar with these ideas, I’ve summarized the points that really resonate with me below:
Values
Let's build a map that guides you towards what really matters to you in life
You get to choose what matters to you in life, and there are no right or wrong answers. We all have values, but we sometimes don’t stop to think about them and how they show up in our everyday lives. If we go for long periods of time without connecting with our values, we can start to feel lost or aimless in life.
- Maybe you’re overworking yourself and sacrificing quality time with friends and family.
- Maybe you’re investing into relationships where the respect, kindness, and care that you’re showing others isn’t being reciprocated.
- Maybe you realize you haven’t made time to be creative, connect with your sense of humor, or follow your passions lately.
When I listen to clients describe the kinds of challenges that they’re navigating in their lives, I often think about how surface-level events connect to much deeper levels of meaning, which is where your values tend to live. Often, the final straw isn’t about the straw at all – it’s about what the straw represents.
Person-Centered
You are the expert on your own experience
When we meet, the I bring my training and experience in providing mental health support and facilitating positive change. You bring your identities, history, and knowledge of yourself and the problems that you’re currently struggling with.
I believe that we are fundamentally resilient and growth-oriented, but modern society tends to teach us that we’re not good enough and that we have to constantly fight to prove our worth as humans through working hard, being attractive, and attaining money and success.
I think that slowing down and creating a space of validation and warmth where you can just be your authentic self for a while can be very powerful. Regardless of what we talk about in session, I intend to treat you as a complete human being who is full of natural strengths and deserves respect and care.
Neurobiology
Your unconscious nervous system influences every moment of your life
Your nervous system usually operates below conscious awareness. Polyvagal theory draws our attention to the functioning of our autonomic nervous system (the part outside of our conscious control) and helps us understand how and why we move through patterns of safety, threat-response, and shut-down in response to everyday events.
Starting to understand how and why your nervous system’s functioning causes you to “act out” in predictable ways to possible threats can be liberating and validating. It can help shed the guilt and shame you may carry for having “bad” emotions. Your nervous system is trying to protect you, and when protective functions are activated repeatedly over time, you can start to find it difficult to relax, let your guard down, and connect with safety, joy, or playfulness.
Polyvagal theory helps us create a safe place for counselling, and it can really help you as another way to understand yourself and your emotions.
EFT & Attachment
We are relational beings, but those relationships can be such hard work
From birth, we have an innate need for connection. We want to feel seen, safe, and supported in our relationships. Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) offers a map for understanding the patterns we get stuck in when those connections feel threatened or out of reach. Based in attachment theory, EFT helps us notice how relationship distress often stems from how we protect ourselves and reach for others, even when it doesn’t come out quite the way we intend.
In our work together, I’ll help you slow down and tune in, not just to the content of what’s happening, but to the emotions and desires underneath. Whether you’re coming as an individual or in a relationship, we can explore how past wounds, current fears, and unmet needs may be shaping your experiences.
I also draw from the work of Jessica Fern to support clients in non-monogamous relationships. Her lens on attachment offers language and insight for the many forms love and connection can take, without validating your behaviour. Together, we’ll make space to hold complexity with care, understand your patterns, and move toward more secure ways of relating.
Systems
The systems we inhabit and identities you hold play a role in your experience
I am a bisexual, neurotypical, cisgender man in my thirties, practicing consensual non-monogamy with two wonderful long-term partners. I am an able-bodied, white child of European immigrants, living and working in Vancouver, BC, on the ancestral lands of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and səlil̓ilw̓ətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.
Through these identities, I hold privilege and experience marginalization. You were also born into a particular sociocultural context and are a complex product of many identities that you hold, and the world and systems that we operate in do not treat all identities equally. Identities matter, and how the world treats us can impact our mental and physical health.
As we work through your goals and challenges, it can be helpful to acknowledge systemic barriers you are consciously or unconsciously working with, around, and against.
Mindfulness
A powerful tool that works well for some of us
Let’s face it: mindfulness is so trendy these days. It has been commercialized, packaged up, and sold so that businesses can reel in a profit. It’s even gotten to the point where just using the M-word around certain of us can trigger a stress response because of how forcefully the practice has been imposed on them in the past.
I think this is really a shame because of how powerful mindfulness practice can be as a tool. In my counselling practice, I mostly use mindfulness techniques to support myself as a counsellor and a person, to help me stay present and adaptable in client sessions, and to help me be more kind, compassionate, and accepting towards myself.
That being said, what works for one person won’t necessarily work for another. I will never try to force mindfulness practice on anyone, but if you do have curiosity about it or would like to incorporate it into the work we do together, please feel free to ask me about it.
What to Expect Working With Me
Consultation
This can be a phone call or a video meeting. You can ask me questions, or I can lead by asking you questions. Questions I ask could include:
- What are you looking for help with?
- Have you worked with a counsellor before? If so, what worked well for you? What didn’t?
- What would help make counselling feel supportive for you?
- Do you have any questions about my counselling style or next steps?
The first session
The first session in counselling is an intake session. As an intake session, it will be a bit more structured.
- I’ll review informed consent and confidentiality with you.
- We can spend some time getting to know each other and settling into the rhythm of counselling. I usually ask about:
- What’s bringing you in?
- What feels most important right now?
- If the counselling process is successful and you get everything you were hoping for out of it, what would be different in your life? What are some things we could look at that will help us measure success?
- You are welcome to share as much or as little as feels comfortable for you.
Ongoing sessions
After that, we will work together towards your goals and understand how you work better. The shape of our next sessions will depend on what we learn about you – what works best, what doesn’t, and how you would like to proceed. Many of my clients will meet their goals and then identify new ones, which we can then continue to work on together.
Training & Professional Credentials
- Registered Clinical Counsellor – BC Association of Clinical Counsellors
- Master of Counselling Psychology (MCP) – Adler University
- Bachelor of Arts (with Distinction) – Major in Psychology, Minor in Counselling and Human Development – Simon Fraser University
- Crime Victim Assistance Program (CVAP) Registered Counsellor
Ready to Talk?
I offer counselling online, via phone, or at my office in Burnaby. For online or phone counselling, I can provide services to anywhere within BC.
I offer in-person sessions on Saturdays at my office, which is next to the Production Way SkyTrain station on the Millennium Line. The address is 501 – 3292 Production Way. Street parking is available on the weekends.
For both online and in-person sessions, it’s easy to get started, with no commitment required. It’s important that you feel welcome and like we are a good fit before you decide anything.
You can give me a call or send an email to get started:
If you have any questions about my approach, focus areas, or how I can help you, please reach out! You are welcome to email or call me with times that work for you, and I can book a consultation session or a first session.
- Email: cory@lanternpath.ca
- Phone: (873) 503-2171
