Confidential counselling for adults, youth, and children affected by sexual abuse or sexual assault, at a pace you set. Delivered by Registered Psychologists, Registered Provisional Psychologists, Registered Social Workers, Canadian Certified Counsellors, and Mental Health Therapists. Psychologists are registered with the College of Alberta Psychologists (CAP), social workers with the Alberta College of Social Workers (ACSW), and Canadian Certified Counsellors (CCCs) are certified by the Canadian Counselling and Psychotherapy Association (CCPA). Psychology practice is guided by CAP Standards of Practice and the Canadian Psychological Association (CPA) Canadian Code of Ethics for Psychologists. Available in person at five Edmonton and St. Albert locations, and virtually across Alberta. Sessions are 50 minutes. Evening and weekend appointments are available, too.

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You Might Be Wondering Whether Sexual Abuse Recovery Counselling Is Right for You

You may be questioning whether what happened to you counts. Maybe it was a long time ago. Maybe you knew the person. Maybe you did not say no out loud, or you said nothing at all, and you have spent years turning that over. Many people who reach this page are not sure they have the right to call their experience abuse or assault, and that uncertainty alone can keep someone from asking for help for years.

Some of what follows may be familiar. Feeling fine for weeks and then flattened by something small, like a smell or a song or a certain tone of voice. Going quiet around people who have not done anything wrong. Managing work, school, and family well enough that no one asks, while sleep, appetite, or your sense of your own body has quietly changed.

These are common reactions to harmful experiences. They are ways your mind and body learned to keep you safe, and they are not evidence that something is permanently wrong with you. Responses vary widely from person to person, and there is no correct way to have been affected.

You do not have to decide anything right now. The rest of this page describes what this kind of counselling involves, what the research does and does not show, what it costs, and what your privacy rights are, so you can work out for yourself whether it seems worth exploring.

Who We Help

This service may be a good fit if you are:

• An adult who experienced sexual abuse or sexual assault at any point in life, recently or decades ago.
• A young person or child, with support from a caregiver.
• Someone whose experience does not fit a tidy description and who is still working out how to name it.
• Ready to book, or only gathering information for now.
• A parent, partner, friend, or caregiver reading on behalf of someone else.
• Looking for support with the present-day effects of what happened, such as sleep, relationships, boundaries, intimacy, or concentration.

This service may not be the right fit if you need:

• Immediate crisis support. Please use the resources in the next section. Wholesome Psychology does not provide emergency response.
• A psychological assessment or a report for court, police, immigration, or an insurer. Psychological assessments are a separate service at this clinic and are not included in counselling. Our administrative team can explain the difference and what would be involved.
• Legal advice or help with an investigation. Counselling is not a legal or investigative process. A lawyer, a victim services unit, or a sexual assault centre can advise on those.
• A programme for people who have caused sexual harm. That work sits outside this service, and our administrative team can point you toward appropriate referral options.

If You Need Help Right Now

Counselling is booked in advance and is not an emergency service. If you are in danger or cannot keep yourself safe, please use one of these instead.

• 911 if you or someone else is in immediate danger.
• Alberta Mental Health Help Line: 1-877-303-2642, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
• Family Violence Info Line (Alberta): 310-1818, 24 hours a day, toll free, with interpretation available.
• Crisis Text Line: text HOME to 741741.

Wholesome Psychology is not an emergency or crisis service.

What This Service Is

Sexual abuse recovery counselling is scheduled, confidential talk therapy with a regulated mental health professional. You and your therapist agree on what you want to work on, and sessions focus on the effects the experience has had on your life now. That might mean sleep, trust, anger, shame, intimacy, boundaries, or how you function at work or school.

The pace is set by you, not by the therapist. You decide what to talk about and what to leave alone, and you can change your mind in either direction. A therapist may suggest an approach or raise something they notice, and you can decline. Much of the useful work in this area happens without a detailed retelling of events.

There are things this service is not. It is not a legal service, an investigation, or a substitute for reporting to police if that is something you want to do. It is not crisis intervention. It does not include psychological assessment or diagnostic reporting, which are offered separately at this clinic. Therapists work within their own scope of practice and training, and will tell you if something you need falls outside it and help you find the right referral.

What you share is confidential, with legal exceptions that your therapist will go through with you at the start. Those exceptions are set out later on this page.

Signs That Past Sexual Abuse May Be Affecting You

People are affected in very different ways, and some people are not distressed at all. The patterns below are ones clients often describe. You do not need all of them, or any particular number of them, for counselling to be useful.

• Memories that arrive uninvited, or a sense of the past intruding on an ordinary day.
• Avoiding places, people, films, conversations, or medical appointments that bring it back.
• Blaming yourself, or holding a fixed belief that you should have done something differently.
• Feeling numb or disconnected, including from your own body.
• Being easily startled, constantly scanning a room, or struggling to relax anywhere.
• Trouble sleeping, nightmares, or waking already tense.
• Difficulty with trust, closeness, or physical intimacy, including with people you love.
• Sudden shifts in mood, or anger that feels out of proportion to what triggered it.
• Using alcohol, substances, work, or busyness to keep from feeling much of anything.

The World Health Organization classifies post-traumatic stress disorder and complex post-traumatic stress disorder among disorders specifically associated with stress (World Health Organization [WHO], 2026). Recognizing yourself in a list is not a diagnosis, and nothing on this page is intended as one. Only a qualified professional can assess an individual, and that happens in conversation, not on a web page.

Having these experiences does not mean something is permanently wrong with you. They are common reactions to harmful experiences, and structured support can help many people work with them.

How Treatment Works Here

• Find your therapist. Use the Match with a Therapist tool or read through Our Therapists profiles. If you would rather talk it through with a person, call the administrative team at 780-904-4880. You can ask about a therapist's training and experience before booking.
• Book your first session. The first session covers consent and confidentiality, including the limits, and gives you room to say what you would like from counselling. You are not expected to give an account of what happened. Questions about the process are welcome, and asking them is a reasonable use of the time.
• Build your plan together. You and your therapist agree on goals and on how to approach them. If you have a preference for or against a particular method, say so. The plan belongs to both of you.
• Ongoing sessions. Sessions run 50 minutes, usually weekly or every second week at first, and the frequency can be adjusted as things change.
• Progress check-ins. Your therapist will review with you what is helping and what is not. Plans change. So do goals. Saying that something is not working is useful information, not a setback.

There is no fixed number of sessions. Some people come for a short, focused period. Others work over a longer stretch, or return later when something new surfaces. Your voice matters at every stage, including in deciding when to stop.

Evidence and Approaches

Therapists here draw on several approaches and select them with you, based on your goals, your preferences, and their own scope of practice. No single method suits everyone. The summaries below describe what the research suggests and where it is limited.

Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (TF-CBT)

What it helps with: Intrusive memories, avoidance, and trauma-related beliefs such as self-blame.

Evidence summary: The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence ([NICE], 2018) recommends offering an individual trauma-focused CBT intervention to adults with PTSD symptoms presenting more than a month after a traumatic event. A systematic review of treatments for adolescent and adult sexual assault victims reported support for cognitive behavioural therapy (Miles et al., 2024). The Canadian Psychological Association (CPA, 2026) describes TF-CBT as widely used with young people affected by trauma.

Limitations: Guideline recommendations are written around diagnosed PTSD, which does not describe everyone affected by sexual abuse. Response varies, and some people need slower or differently structured work.

Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT)

What it helps with: Stuck beliefs about responsibility, safety, and trust that took hold after the abuse.

Evidence summary: NICE lists cognitive processing therapy among the individual trauma-focused CBT interventions it recommends for adults with PTSD symptoms (NICE, 2018). A systematic review of evidence-based treatments for adolescent and adult sexual assault victims found strong support for cognitive processing therapy among the primary psychotherapies examined (Miles et al., 2024).

Limitations: Much of the supporting research studies diagnosed PTSD rather than the full range of responses to sexual abuse. The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health ([CAMH], n.d.) notes that some people have strong preferences about working directly with traumatic memories, and that those preferences should be respected.

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)

What it helps with: Specific memories that still feel vivid, close, or intrusive years later.

Evidence summary: NICE recommends offering EMDR to adults with PTSD symptoms presenting more than three months after a non-combat-related trauma (NICE, 2018). For children and young people aged 7 to 17, NICE suggests considering EMDR where trauma-focused CBT has not helped or has not been a good fit (NICE, 2018). Miles et al. (2024) also identified EMDR among supported psychotherapy treatments for sexual assault survivors.

Limitations: The adult recommendation is framed around non-combat-related trauma, and evidence is thinner for some populations and presentations. Individual response varies, and EMDR is not the right starting point for everyone.

Present-Focused and Stabilization Work

What it helps with: Sleep, emotional regulation, distress tolerance, and everyday functioning, either before memory-focused work or instead of it.

Evidence summary: CAMH describes present-focused therapies as building the coping skills needed to improve functioning, such as regulating emotions and tolerating distress, and states that both present-focused and past-focused approaches are effective (CAMH, n.d.). CAMH also places establishing safety first, including safety from further abuse (CAMH, n.d.). For people with complex needs, including complex PTSD, NICE advises building in extra time to develop trust (NICE, 2018).

Limitations: CAMH notes that further research is needed to determine which people are best suited to which type of therapy (CAMH, n.d.).

Trauma-Informed Care

What it helps with: The conditions around therapy, so sessions feel predictable and safe enough to use.

Evidence summary: The Canadian Psychological Association describes trauma-informed care as an approach organized around safety, trust, collaboration, peer support, cultural responsiveness, and empowerment (CPA, 2026). CPA presents it as a way of working across settings alongside trauma-specific treatment (CPA, 2026).

Limitations: It is a framework rather than a therapy with its own outcome trials. It supports engagement but does not replace a specific therapy where one is indicated.

If you want to read more about particular methods, see our pages on trauma therapy, EMDR therapy, and cognitive behavioural therapy. Not every clinician offers every approach, so it is worth asking.

What Results to Expect

Recovery is rarely a straight line. Most people describe stretches of progress interrupted by harder weeks, often around anniversaries, court dates, family events, or new relationships. A difficult week after a good month is a normal part of the pattern rather than a sign the work has failed.

Timelines vary a great deal. Some people find relief from just 2-3 sessions, particularly when the focus is narrow and practical. Others benefit from steady work over many months, and people with longer or repeated experiences of abuse often need more time to build trust before anything else is useful. No therapy can guarantee an outcome, and any clinician who promises one is overstating what is known.

Several things tend to influence how counselling goes:

• The nature and duration of what you experienced, and how old you were.
• What else is happening in your life now, including housing, finances, and safety.
• Other health concerns, including depression, anxiety, chronic pain, or substance use.
• The support you have outside sessions.
• How well you and your therapist work together.

That last point carries real weight. If the fit is not right, the work tends to stall, and changing therapist or changing approach is always an option. Saying so is not rude and it is not a failure. Our administrative team can help you move to someone else without you having to explain yourself in detail.

Confidentiality and Privacy

What you say in therapy stays between you and your therapist. This is both a professional obligation and a legal one.

All psychologists at Wholesome Psychology are registered with the College of Alberta Psychologists (CAP) and practise under the CAP Standards of Practice and the Canadian Psychological Association (CPA) Canadian Code of Ethics for Psychologists. Two pieces of Alberta legislation govern how your information is handled. The Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA) applies to private organizations operating in Alberta, which includes private psychology clinics. The Health Information Act (HIA) governs health information held by custodians as defined in that Act, and applies where a service or provider falls within its scope. Your therapist can tell you which applies to your file and how your records are stored, retained, and accessed.

There are limits. A therapist may have to disclose information without your consent in a small number of situations:

• When there is a risk of serious harm to you or to another person.
• When a child is believed to be in need of protection. Reporting suspected child abuse or neglect is a legal duty in Alberta, and it applies to everyone, not only to clinicians.
• When a court orders the release of records or testimony.
• When disclosure is otherwise required by law.

Where disclosure is necessary, it is kept to what the situation requires and to the people who need to know. Your therapist will explain all of this in the first session, before you share anything personal, and you can ask about it beforehand by phoning 780-904-4880. If you want to know how a specific situation would be handled, that is a fair question to ask before you book.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I have to describe what happened in detail?

No. You decide what to say and when, and many people never give a full account. Plenty of useful work focuses on the present: sleep, boundaries, relationships, anger, or how your body reacts to certain situations. CAMH notes that some people have strong preferences about working directly with traumatic memories and that those preferences should be respected (CAMH, n.d.). If a therapist suggests an approach that involves working with memories, they will explain what it involves first, and you can say no.

Is what I share kept private?

Yes, within limits set by law and professional standards. Your therapist must disclose information in a small number of situations, including risk of serious harm, suspected child abuse or neglect, and a court order. The confidentiality section above sets out the details, and your therapist will go through them in the first session before you share anything personal.

How many sessions will I need?

There is no fixed answer. Some people find relief from a small number of focused sessions. Others work over a longer period, particularly where the abuse was prolonged or happened in childhood. NICE advises building in extra time to develop trust for people with complex needs, including complex PTSD (NICE, 2018). You and your therapist will review progress regularly and adjust rather than working to a set number.

What if the therapist is not the right fit?

Fit matters, and it is reasonable to change. You can tell your therapist directly, or contact the administrative team at 780-904-4880 and they will help you find a different clinician without a difficult conversation. Trying someone else is common and it is not a setback. New clients may access their first session at 50% off to help find the right therapeutic fit.

Can I access therapy online?

Yes. Virtual sessions are available across Alberta, and many people prefer them, whether for privacy, distance, or because talking about this feels more manageable from home. The same confidentiality standards, fees, and session length apply. You can switch between in-person and virtual as suits you.

What if I am still in an unsafe situation?

Counselling can still be useful, but safety comes first. CAMH describes establishing safety as the starting point, including help with physical safety from further abuse (CAMH, n.d.). If you are currently at risk, the Family Violence Info Line (310-1818) operates 24 hours a day and can discuss options confidentially, and 911 is there for immediate danger. A therapist can work alongside those supports rather than in place of them.

Do I need a referral or a diagnosis to start?

No referral is needed to book counselling here, and you do not need a diagnosis. Some insurance plans ask for a referral before they will reimburse, so it is worth checking your policy. If you are looking for a formal psychological assessment or a report, that is a separate service at this clinic and the administrative team can explain what it involves.

Can I bring a support person?

You can bring someone to the building, and to a first session if that makes it possible to attend. Whether they stay in the room is something you and your therapist will decide together, since it changes what most people feel able to say. For children and young people, caregivers are usually involved in some part of the work by design.

Meet Your Clinicians

Wholesome Psychology's team includes Registered Psychologists, Registered Provisional Psychologists, Registered Social Workers, Canadian Certified Counsellors, Mental Health Therapists, and Master's-level student therapists. All psychologists are registered with the College of Alberta Psychologists (CAP), the body that regulates psychology in Alberta and sets the standards of practice its members must meet. Registered Provisional Psychologists have completed their graduate training and practise under the supervision of a senior Registered Psychologist while working toward full registration.

Many clinicians here have training in trauma-informed practice and in specific approaches such as EMDR, cognitive behavioural therapy, and other trauma-focused methods. Training and areas of focus differ from person to person, and availability changes, so it is worth checking an individual profile or asking before you book.

You can read individual profiles on Our Therapists, use the Match with a Therapist tool, or call the administrative team at 780-904-4880 for help choosing. The Getting Started with Therapy page walks through what the process looks like.

Children and Youth

We provide counselling for children, adolescents, and young adults as well as for adults. Therapists working with younger clients use approaches suited to the child's age and stage of development, which for younger children often means play, drawing, and activity rather than sitting and talking.

Caregivers are part of this work. The Canadian Psychological Association notes that building resilience after developmental trauma depends on support and guidance from trusted adults such as parents (CPA, 2026). CPA also describes trauma-focused cognitive behavioural therapy as a widely used treatment for young people affected by trauma, with substantial research behind it (CPA, 2026). Depending on the situation, a therapist may work with the child alone, with the caregiver alone, or with both.

Confidentiality works somewhat differently with minors, and the therapist will explain what will and will not be shared with caregivers before the work begins. You may also want to read about child and youth stress and trauma.

Taking a Next Step, If You Want To

If you would like to explore counselling, you can:

• Book a session online
• Match with a therapist using our matching tool
• Call the administrative team at 780-904-4880
• Email info@wholesomepsychology.ca
• Read Getting Started with Therapy to see what the process involves

A first session can be used to ask questions, talk through consent and privacy, and work out whether this feels like the right place. New clients may access their first session at 50% off to help find the right therapeutic fit.

Starting the conversation is enough.

References

• Canadian Psychological Association. (2026). Psychology Works Fact Sheet: Developmental trauma (prepared by E. Romano & D. Collin-Vézina). https://cpa.ca/psychologyfactsheets
• Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. (n.d.). PTSD: Treatment and psychotherapy. Retrieved September 13, 2026, from https://www.camh.ca/en/professionals/treating-conditions-and-disorders/ptsd/ptsd---treatment-and-psychotherapy
• Miles, L. W., Valentine, J. L., Mabey, L. J., Hopkins, E. S., Stodtmeister, P. J., Rockwood, R. B., & Moxley, A. N. H. (2024). A systematic review of evidence-based treatments for adolescent and adult sexual assault victims. Journal of the American Psychiatric Nurses Association. https://doi.org/10.1177/10783903231216138
• National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. (2018). Post-traumatic stress disorder. https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng116
• Statistics Canada. (2022, May 20). Survey on Mental Health and Stressful Events, August to December 2021. The Daily. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/220520/dq220520b-eng.htm
• World Health Organization. (2026). ICD-11 for Mortality and Morbidity Statistics (2026-01 release). https://icd.who.int/ct/icd11_mms/en/2026-01