Allison Yang, MA Student

Clinical Intern

When I think about a shoreline, what strikes me is its powerful illustration of life’s tensions—the shoreline is ever-changing, yet it always remains a shoreline, something distinct and unchangeable. So too, I believe, is the work of therapy: Can we simultaneously accept who we are and work toward who we are becoming?

In my current M.A. program in Counselling Psychology at Trinity Western University, I am devoting much of my academic and personal focus on the tensions of bereavement-related regret, as well as the experiences of spiritual trauma and negotiating religious identities, especially for LGBTQ+ folks. Previously, I completed my undergraduate studies at the University of British Columbia with a Bachelor of Arts, double majoring in Psychology and English Language/Rhetoric. This is where I became captivated by the fascinating and perplexing relationship between language and emotions. I also worked in the field of post-secondary academic advising for several years, where I walked alongside adolescents and young adults through their processes of decision-making and exploration. In my current counselling work with clients, my therapeutic techniques are mainly integrative and person-centred, though I draw from a theoretical foundation based on flavours of existential psychotherapy and Virginia Satir’s work on people’s internal resources and family systems.

It is my belief that while some tensions require a practical solution-focused approach, all tensions need tenderness, a hand that is willing to hold them with openness and curiosity. These tensions often present themselves as questions: can I be? Am I lovable as I am? Will I be okay? Although we may not always find swift answers and satisfactory resolutions to our tensions, I would consider it a gift to be with you as you live out these questions.

I am deeply grateful to the Musqueam, Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh, and Stó:lō peoples on whose traditional, ancestral, and unceded lands I have done much of my learning, working, and playing. I wish to acknowledge my hosts with an ever-growing commitment to witness and take action against individual and systemic oppression in all of its forms.

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