Ann Downie

Ann meets people from a position of warmth, compassion, openness and curiosity. She has a deep commitment to connect and work alongside individuals to develop an authentic, trusting relationship, and offers counselling using a collaborative approach. By creating a safe therapeutic environment, Ann’s goal is to support her clients build on their personal strengths and understanding, allowing them to develop the resiliency they require to cope with the challenges they are facing.

Utilizing her education and clinical experience, Ann helps people find unique strategies to nurture stronger relationships, and to heal and grow from life’s challenges. She offers a supportive space to move away from feeling stuck, with a focus on helping clients explore their own power and ability to make the changes they want in their lives.

Ann offers support with a broad range of challenges, including anxiety, depression, career and workplace challenges and transitions, burnout, relationship issues and relationship breakdown, communication difficulties, grief and loss, parenting challenges and parent-teen conflict, stress management, personal growth, and recent or historical trauma.  

Ann provides ADHD-informed counselling services, and has completed extensive training to support clients with ADHD. She holds the ADHD - Certified Clinical Services Provider (ADHD-CCSP) designation to showcase her skills in supporting neurodivergent clients.

Ann has a special interest in supporting clients struggling with binge eating and chronic dieting, with a focus on helping clients improve their relationships with their bodies. Her training and experience in this area allow her to support clients to calm their nervous system and regulate their emotions more effectively, build mindful and intuitive eating patterns that support awareness of hunger and fullness, and move from shame to empowerment. Ann offers a weight-inclusive space that challenges diet culture and weight stigma, using a trauma-informed approach to help clients approach emotional eating from a holistic lens. 

Ann draws from a variety of evidence-based counselling approaches based on the needs of each client. She uses a blend of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT), emotionally focused therapy (EFT), internal family systems theory, and narrative therapy. She works from a trauma-informed, solution-focused and humanistic lens that emphasizes self-discovery and personal agency.

Ann offers phone and online video counselling sessions for clients across British Columbia. She works with individual adults.

Ann is a Registered Clinical Counsellor with the BC Association of Clinical Counsellors with a Masters of Education in Counselling Psychology from UBC. She has 20 years of experience in the helping field.

Please note: emails/messages sent to Ann through the CounsellingBC.com website are forwarded to the confidential inbox of the Clinical Director of Gravitate Counselling Inc., who can answer your questions and/or help you book your first appointment with her.