Madeleine Sullivan

Madeleine can help you with the following specific areas:

• Anxiety
• Trauma Recovery
• Sexual abuse
• Emotional Abuse
• Physical Abuse
• Self-Esteem
• Emotional Boundary Wounding
• Attachment Wounding
• Communication Tools
• Shame Resilience
• Anger Management
• Negative Beliefs
• Negative Self-Talk
• Depression
• Connecting with your Feelings
• Relationships
• Goals
• Childhood Abuse
• Weight Issues
• Sleep Issues

Madeleine’s Specific Qualifications and Specialized Training Include:

• A Master’s Degree in Counselling Psychology from the University of Victoria
• A Bachelor’s degree in Social Work from the University of Victoria
• Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Basic Training
• EMDR 2.0
• EMDR Evicting TOXIC Shame
• EMDR Treatment of Substance and Behavioral Addictions
• AJ Popky Detur Addiction Protocols
• EMDR Blocking Beliefs
• Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT)
• Advanced Flash Technique
• Emotion Freedom Tapping (EFT)
• Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction
• Treating Complex Trauma and Dissociation
• Healing Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse

About the Counselling Experience with Madeleine

• Sessions are collaborative, empathetic, and focused on understanding the roots of patterns that keep you feeling stuck.
• Madeleine integrates insight with practical strategies to support change in both thought and behaviour.
• Her clients often describe her approach as gentle yet effective, combining compassion, curiosity, and evidence-based methods.
• Healing begins when you feel seen, understood, and safe.
• Madeleine strives to make that possible in every session.

Madeleine’s approach to what anxiety and panic are: 

• How anxiety and panic present itself: cognitive, behavioural, and physical manifestations
• The cycle of anxiety and panic: How to face the fear and do it anyway
• How anxiety and panic create sleep difficulties
• The vicious cogs of anxiety and panic
• Challenging unhelpful thoughts and beliefs
• How to gain empowerment
• Ways we give power away
• Tools for stress management
• Root causes of anxiety and panic
• How to relax during anxiety and panic
• Tips and techniques on how to build a toolbox
• "STOPP: (Stop, Take a Breath, Observe What's Happening, Put it into Perspective). Techniques for ongoing stress management
• How to smash through your wall of fear
• ACE: The healthy life balance between achieving, connection, and enjoyment – how these activities affect our brain chemistry
• How to heal anxiety and panic related to sleep difficulties
• Releasing anxiety and panic through meditation, safety meditation, and progressive relaxation techniques.   

Madeleine’s approach to Exploring Anger Management Issues includes: 

• Understanding that anger is a normal and healthy emotion
• Anger tells us when something feels unfair, painful, or out of balance.
• When met with compassion and understanding, anger can become a powerful signal for change rather than a source of guilt or conflict.
• Understanding how we get stuck in the anger cycle
• The common thoughts of anger
• The physical sensations of anger and the adrenalin response
• Behaviour manifestations of anger
• How anger styles are learned
• Identifying triggers of anger
• What hidden anger looks like
• Family of origin rules and anger management
• Angry boundary cycles
• What to do when you feel angry
• How to work through anger
• How to communicate through anger
• Behavioural changes for anger management
• Self-care for ongoing anger management

Anger is not a flaw—it’s a signal that something important needs attention. When it’s repressed or explosive, it becomes destructive, but when understood, it becomes a guide toward empowerment.

In anger counselling, Madeleine will help you:

• Explore anger as an emotional messenger rather than a problem.
• Identify triggers, body cues, and the deeper emotions beneath anger (hurt, fear, grief).
• Address repressed anger that shows up as resentment or withdrawal.
• Learn CBT-based emotional regulation tools to express anger safely.
• Practice clear and assertive communication when boundaries are crossed.
• Use EMDR to release old stories such as “I’m powerless” or “It’s not safe to feel angry.”
• Develop a grounded, respectful relationship with your anger as part of emotional integrity.

Anger, when understood, becomes a bridge to boundaries, strength, and authenticity.

How Madeleine will work with you around emotional abuse, physical abuse and sexual abuse:

• Helping you move through the spectrum from "Victim" to "Thriving" to "Surviving"
• Looking at ways we give our power away
• How to create shame resilience for trauma and abuse
• How to strengthen self-esteem
• How to strengthen wounded boundaries
• How to communicate our boundaries
• Working with no — the gentle refusal
• How to heal wounded trust

Madeleine will help you build Shame Resilience:

Toxic shame convinces us we are unworthy or broken. It whispers “I am bad” instead of “I made a mistake.” This belief quietly shapes self-image and relationships, keeping people trapped in silence and self-criticism.

In shame-focused therapy, we will:

• Understand the difference between guilt and shame, and how shame drives perfectionism, people-pleasing, or avoidance.
• Identify shame triggers and unwanted identities like “I’m unlovable” or “I’m a failure.”
• Recognize shame screens—defensive behaviours that mask pain.
• Use CBT and EMDR to transform shame-based core beliefs into self-acceptance.
• Build shame resilience—the ability to move through shame with awareness and compassion.
• Strengthen connection, belonging, and authenticity through vulnerability.

Healing shame begins with being seen and understood; it thrives in secrecy but dies in empathy.

How Madeleine helps help you heal Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and Trauma with a focus on:

• How trauma can affect your window of tolerance
• How emotional dysregulation can lead to hyperarousal (anxious, angry and out of control) and or hypo arousal (collapsed, shut down, depressed)
• How to use the Polyvagal perspective to understand our nervous system and our different emotional states
• How the nervous system creates an awareness of threats, and why alarm activation increases
• Understanding our fight, flight, freeze response
• How to shift emotional states
• Understanding how we can be trapped in survival mode.
• Why you may re-experience painful memories, avoid reminders, feel emotionally numb, or constantly on edge.
• How our nervous system works to protect us
• How trauma has affected your mind, body, and nervous system.
• Manage symptoms like flashbacks, intrusive thoughts, hypervigilance, and emotional numbing.
• Use EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) to safely reprocess traumatic memories so they feel less overwhelming.
• Integrate grounding and calming techniques to regulate hyperarousal and restore a sense of safety.
• Apply CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) to identify and shift trauma-related beliefs such as “I’m not safe” or “It was my fault.”
• Strengthen emotional regulation and reconnect with inner resilience.

Healing from trauma is not about forgetting—it’s about reclaiming your life, your identity, and your ability to feel peace again.

Madeleine’s Further information and therapeutic focus: 

Understanding the manifestations of attachment wounding

• The 7 fundamental attachment needs and why they are important and what they provide for us
• What happens when attachment needs are wounded?
• The protest – attachment needs reflection – what is underneath the protest?
• Which need does your protest activate?
• How your protest is your inner guidance
• Trauma and attachment styles
• Avoidant attachment styles
• Anxious attachment styles
• What the vicious cycle of low self-esteem looks like
• How to change your inner self-image
• Ways to raise your self-esteem
• Believing in yourself – creating self-worth
• Understanding yourself – creating self-acceptance
• What happens when we have conditional self-acceptance?

How to build your self-esteem

• True self-esteem is not about perfection—it’s about self-acceptance and emotional authenticity.
• If you often doubt your worth or seek external validation, therapy can help you rewrite that story.
• Discover the roots of low self-esteem in early experiences or relationships.
• Develop healthy boundaries, assertiveness, and communication skills.
• Use CBT and EMDR to reframe negative self-beliefs and strengthen a positive identity.
• Learn to express needs without guilt and take up space with confidence.
• Build sustainable self-esteem that comes from self-trust, not approval.

Self-esteem grows from consistent self-compassion and emotional awareness—and we’ll work together to help it take root.

How Madeleine works with you on learning assertive communication tools

• I feel because I need statements.
• Learning how to use I – Statements in your life
• Describe, express, specify, consequences (DESC) model of communication
• What are the 5 steps of conflict resolution?
• What are the roadblocks to communication?
• How to express repair attempts

Madeleine will help you understand wounded emotional boundaries

Healthy boundaries protect your emotional well-being without isolating you from others. When boundaries are unclear or damaged, you may feel overwhelmed, resentful, or disconnected from your needs.

• Learn what healthy emotional boundaries look like—flexible, not rigid.
• Recognize patterns of people-pleasing, emotional enmeshment, or burnout.
• Identify beliefs that block boundary-setting (“It’s selfish to say no,” “I’ll be rejected”).
• Practice assertive communication and self-respectful limit-setting.
• Use CBT and EMDR to heal early conditioning that weakened boundaries.
• Create consistent habits for maintaining boundaries with confidence.

Healthy boundaries are not walls—they are bridges to respectful, authentic connection.

 Madeleine will help you work through depression with a focus on:

• Understanding that depression can feel like a fog that drains motivation and joy
• It often hides behind exhaustion, numbness, or self-criticism.
• In your sessions, with Madeleine, you don’t need to pretend to be okay—we’ll work together to understand your emotional world with compassion.
• Exploring how depression is linked to past experiences or emotional suppression.
• Using CBT to shift limiting beliefs such as “I’m not good enough” or “Nothing will ever change.”
• Applying EMDR to reprocess painful memories that reinforce hopelessness.
• Learning somatic and mindfulness strategies to reconnect with your body and moments of joy.
• Building small steps toward motivation, structure, and emotional balance.

Healing depression iis about reconnection—to yourself, your purpose, and your capacity for renewal.

Madeleine will help you through the challenges in your relationship with a focus on: 

• Learning how to communicate feelings
• How to listen and respond to your partner using the speaker-listener model of communication
• How differentiation is healthy in your relationship
• What are unrealistic expectations and faulty relationship beliefs?
• How do unrealistic expectations erode the happiness of your relationship?
• John Gottman’s Four Horsemen
• How dreams within conflict can keep your relationship in gridlock
• How to work with infidelity
• How to have sexual conversations
• How to build a culture of appreciation in your relationship

Madeleine will help you create your ideal future self:

The Future Template is an EMDR-based exercise that helps you visualize and embody your healthiest self. This process allows you to strengthen your identity, align with personal values, and create a mental blueprint for success and resilience.

• Use guided imagery to activate the nervous system’s sense of safety and possibility.
• Identify how you want to think, feel, and act in future situations.
• Integrate EMDR techniques to rehearse those new responses neurologically.
• Strengthen confidence, motivation, and self-trust to create lasting change.

This technique helps you step into your potential—not by wishing, but by embodying who you are becoming.