Candid Cherry Tree Chats
Interview with Victoria Kim, Associate Therapist
Meet Associate Therapist Victoria Kim!
We are excited to introduce Victoria to the Cherry Tree Counselling team!
Victoria specializes in working with individuals, couples, and families and is passionate about helping them navigate through challenges such as Depression, Family Conflict, Relationship Issues, Emotional Regulation, People-pleasing and Perfectionism, Trauma, and Anxiety. Her warm and down-to-earth personality helps to create a safe environment filled with unconditional empathy, compassion, and validation. Sessions with Victoria are flexible and collaborative, meaning that you will explore at your own pace and express yourself freely.
If you are interested in working with Victoria or would like more information about her therapeutic approach, please contact us via email at admin@cherrytreecounselling.ca.
The Interview
CREE: Hi, Victoria. Welcome. Thanks so much for being here.
VICTORIA: Hi, Cree. Thank you so much. I'm very excited and very honoured to be here.
CREE: Amazing. Well, Victoria, we are very honoured and excited to have you joining us as the newest member of the Cherry Tree associate team. It's wonderful. It's a new year, and it's a new start. And so it just seems like a wonderful time to welcome you here. I’m so glad that you're joining our incredible team of therapists.
VICTORIA: I am so excited. When we first talked, I was like, oh, my gosh, this is a place that I really want to be able to learn from. The team sounds amazing. And to be able to be given that chance. I'm just so thrilled.
CREE: Oh, that's amazing. I mean, obviously I'm biased, but I think we have a fantastic team here at Cherry Tree with a really wide skill set, and really amazing expertise on the team in lots of different clinical areas, so you're going to fit right in. So today for our chat, we're just thinking about what folks might be interested in knowing about you and how you practice…
Q: So I would love to just kick us off by asking you, Victoria, what made you decide to become a therapist?
VICTORIA: Oh, a wonderful question. I think my story into the field isn't unlike everybody else's. I think I always knew that I wanted to help people. There were a few considerations in my past, whether that was going through the medical route, even becoming a lawyer, but this felt very right to me. And I think it just attests to how I grew up and how the people around me responded to just me listening, which I think is one of the most important jobs of being a therapist.
CREE: Absolutely. Active listening is such a gift, a very unique gift. Well, it sounds like you have a helper's heart, and that's what brought you to this work and into this field. So hopefully you're right where you need to be and want to be.
Q: Can you tell everyone a little bit about your approach to therapy?
There are, of course, lots of different models and modalities out there in different therapeutic techniques. What kinds of issues do you like to work with, and what's your approach to therapy in general?
VICTORIA: So in general, what I tell my clients when I'm first meeting them for a consultation is that my approach is very flexible and collaborative. And what I mean by that is that I know that as wide as our toolkits have to be as therapists, then not all of those tools are going to be appropriate to use for the stage that my client is at in their life. So to be flexible to those needs and to change with them as they grow with you throughout the therapeutic process is really important to me.
But also in the collaboration process, I'm really, really wanting my clients to be transparent with me. And I emphasize that as well throughout treatment, whether that's just checking up on them throughout the session or telling them it's okay to disagree with me if I'm not relating or resonating with my reflection. And I think it's really important to bring in that self-advocacy piece that I think people get misconstrued with us being mental health professionals. Yeah. And so I really want to collaborate with my clients in that way.
CREE: Well, I love that. I love that highly collaborative and flexible approach, and really under the umbrella of what we practice here at Cherry Tree, which, of course, is relational psychotherapy. It's all about building those relationships, and that's really at the heart of what we're doing. So that's great to hear. I have a creative question for you next.
“I really want to take the time to understand my client’s stories and experiences and how it got them to be able to sit in front of me and really understand that they need support at that time.”
Q: If your therapeutic approach was a musical genre, what would it be and why?
VICTORIA: Wow, what a fun What a fun question. Oh, okay. So I don't think my... Like I said, with my flexible approach, I don't think it would really fit into one genre. Maybe thinking about it, maybe jazz would be a very interesting one. One, because it does require some technical skills, of course, to be able to play the instruments, but also the way that jazz players play is really attuning to whoever they're riffing off of. So whether that's a duet partner or something, they really feel that and feel what their partner is bringing into the music. And yeah, so I would say maybe jazz then.
CREE: Well, thank you. I asked you a fun question and you gave me a fun answer, so that's perfect. I love it. I love how you wove that together. Beautiful. Victoria, as you well know, a lot of us are vulnerable. I mean, we're vulnerable when we come to therapy. It's really hard to enter into therapy for some of us. It may be the first time that we've been oriented to therapeutic process. We may have had experiences in the past that didn't resonate well with us, all kinds of different reasons to enhance that vulnerability…
Q: And I'm just wondering if someone was hesitant about trying out therapy, giving it a try, and doesn't have any prior experience, what guidance might you offer them?
VICTORIA: I think it would just be to really go in with an open mind and an open heart. I think for some clients, they try therapy and the therapist isn't for them, and it ruins their experience of it, and they become distrusting. So I would say that if you leave that experience not feeling like that therapist wasn't for you, is to not give up hope, but to find somebody who does fit and match the needs that you have for your counselling experience. And like I said, sometimes different therapists will approach things in different ways that don't actually resonate with you as a client. But there are many therapists out there who will probably be able to meet those needs.
CREE: That's right. And therapeutic fit is so important. We know that for that fit and match to feel right. And so for anyone curious about your approach and what it would be to work with you, I wonder if you can walk us through an initial session a little bit.
Q: What might a typical session with you look like?
VICTORIA: Normally, the first session is, I understand, like you said, how vulnerable walking into a session is, especially when you don't have experience or it's been a while since you've been back into therapy. I really want us to be self-aware of some of those feelings. So probably ask a little bit of feedback and what you're expecting out of this process. And really, those first few sessions are for us to get to know each other and build that rapport together and make sure that I am the right fit for my client that's coming to me. And really just a lot of information gathering. I really want to take the time to understand my client's stories and experiences and how it got them to be able to sit in front of me and really understand that they need support at that time. Thank you.
CREE: Thank you for that. Okay, I have another fun question for you.
Q: If you could have dinner with any three people, alive or passed, who would deeply understand mental health, who would they be and why?
VICTORIA: Wow. Oh, my gosh, that's a fun question. Yes. Okay. The first one would be the late Sue Johnson, for sure. With the more technical skills that I bring into my flexible and collaborative approach is mostly, I would say, an emotion-focused approach. I really appreciate what Sue Johnson brought to the field in really emphasizing the role that our emotions play when it comes to processing or acting on our behaviours. So I think it's really important, and I would love to ask her a lot more questions about that and how it really does relate to experiences in our early childhood.
The second one would be probably Judith Hermann. I'm just finishing Trauma and Recovery, which is such a wonderful book. And just as complex as trauma is, she's broken it down into such a nice, concise way of really understanding the importance of processing trauma from understanding the origins of it, the dialectic between really feeling anxious and going into maybe constriction and numbness and depression that we feel and what's important for those victims types of recovery. So I think that's really important.
The last one would be Nancy McWilliams. So another amazing lady, and I think just bringing and being able to speak to her and integrate the psychoanalytic diagnosis that's really, really important. To bring those key clinical pieces that I think sometimes are missed in just straight therapy or counselling experiences.
CREE: Thank you. Thank you very much. I'd love to come to that imaginary dinner.
VICTORIA: I think it would definitely be an interesting conversation with a lot to learn.
CREE: A lot to talk about and a lot to learn for sure.
Q: Victoria, can you tell us a bit about what age groups you work with and what populations you serve?
VICTORIA: So I would say that I would like to work with like teens, adults, seniors, even couples and families from ages 15 and up. And I think that starting from that age range is really important because as a teenager, you really start to explore outside of your family and get to know your own identity and who you are and how that can affect you in your personal relationships and romantic relationships. So I think it's a critical period, and I would love to work with anybody who is struggling to meet, to reconcile both of those things at that time.
CREE: Okay, wonderful. Do you offer in-person sessions, virtual sessions, or both?
VICTORIA: Luckily, I'm able to offer both. Mondays 11: 30 to about eight o'clock, I'm offering in-person sessions at our great office. From Tuesday to Thursday, I am able to offer a range and flexible availability from morning, daytime, and evening sessions.
CREE: Okay, that's wonderful. Thank you.
Q: And what's the most unexpected skill or hobby that you have that helps you as a therapist?
VICTORIA: Oh, my gosh. Another fun question. I would say for me, it'd probably be cooking. I do love to bake as well, but that one, you have to be a little bit more precise, whereas when I'm cooking, I feel like I have a lot more free reign to be flexible with ingredients and be able to swap things out as I need. So I think in a creative way, it does help me to be flexible in my thinking process.
CREE: Amazing.
Q: And Victoria, is there anything unique about your practice or approach that you'd like potential clients to know?
I'm wondering specifically about any niche areas of clinical interest best passion, skill that you really love working with. So folks know not just where to find you, but what areas you work in.
VICTORIA: Yeah, for sure. And I think it hopefully fits in with the relationship professional work that we're doing. So definitely people who are maybe struggling individually or together, relationship issues, which is where that couple work comes in, those who are struggling with some family conflict. So again, that could be an individual process or together as a family group, specifically, anxiety, those with trauma, those suffering from depression, and even those with... Sometimes it comes up as people-pleasing or perfectionistic characteristics that make it hard to set boundaries or really make it tough to set realistic expectations for self. Those individuals I find in my experience right now, those are the people who find me and want to work with me.
CREE: Okay, wonderful. I mean, it sounds like you have a really wide scope of practice at this point. You're able to support a lot of different age groups and populations and presenting concerns and issues. And so, that's fantastic.
Q: If someone is interested in working with you, Victoria, how would they connect?
VICTORIA: Yes. So they could reach out to our wonderful Care Coordinator, or they are able to book directly into my calendar for sure.
CREE: Okay, so they would go to the website to book into the calendar?
VICTORIA: Yes.
CREE: So that's www.cherrytreecounseling.ca. You can find Victoria's profile there and her bio and a direct booking link. And for anyone needing support, as you said, they can go through our Care Coordinator.
Well, Victoria, welcome to the team. I can't wait to work alongside you to get started and to see where we go on our journey together. So thanks so much for being here and sharing a little bit more about your scope of practice and your services and what lights you up in the work. Thanks so much.
VICTORIA: Thank you so much, Cree. It's been a pleasure. Take care.
Are you looking to try therapy with Victoria?
Connect with us and let’s talk about how we can help you.
