Virtual Therapy · Serving Kelowna & the Okanagan
Trauma Therapist & Couples Counselling for Kelowna & the Okanagan
Online trauma therapy and couples counselling for Kelowna and the Okanagan, from clinicians with EMDR, IFS and Gottman Method training. Evenings and weekends, and no office to drive to.
Free initial consultation · No commitment · Seven days a week
Trauma and couples therapy online for Kelowna, at a glance. TEO Counselling provides trauma therapy and couples counselling to Kelowna and the Okanagan online; there is no office in Kelowna. All three clinicians serve British Columbia: Mohamad Shabib, a Canadian Certified Counsellor with the CCPA (#11249205), in English or Arabic; Alison Shaji, a Registered Clinical Counsellor with the BCACC (#22608), in English, Hindi or Malayalam; and Rola Shbib, BSW (Hons), RSW (Ontario), OCSWSSW #866715. Appointments run 12:00 pm to 9:00 pm Pacific, seven days a week. Individual sessions are $150 and couples sessions $175, each 60 minutes. MSP does not cover counselling in private practice; every session comes with an insurance-ready receipt, and direct billing is available with Mohamad and Alison for Pacific Blue Cross, CVAP and TELUS eClaims plans. The first step is a free 15-minute consultation on a video call or a scheduled phone call, with no referral needed.
Virtual therapy for the Okanagan
Kelowna has trauma counsellors with offices of their own, and if sitting in the same room as your counsellor matters to you, one of them is the better choice. TEO is the online option, run from Nanaimo with no office anywhere: it suits shifts that change week to week, a household where an hour out is hard to explain, or work that takes you to Alberta for part of the year.
We serve all of the Central Okanagan and beyond — Kelowna, West Kelowna, Lake Country, Penticton, Vernon, and surrounding communities.
Therapy services for Kelowna & the Okanagan
Trauma, PTSD & CPTSD Therapy
EMDR and IFS trauma therapy for PTSD and complex trauma. Virtual sessions make it accessible without a trip to the coast. More on EMDR therapy online in British Columbia.
Couples & Relationship Counselling
Gottman Method and EFFT couples therapy for Kelowna-area couples. The Okanagan's seasonal economy and tourism industry create unique relationship stressors — we offer evening sessions that work around shifting schedules. Read more about online couples counselling in BC.
CVAP counselling online for Kelowna residents — TEO Counselling Services is an approved CVAP vendor and bills the program directly. How CVAP counselling works online in BC.
Serving Kelowna & the Central Okanagan
Virtual sessions reach the entire Okanagan and beyond. We also work with clients in Vancouver, Victoria and Abbotsford, and our British Columbia therapy page covers the rest of the province.
Kelowna · West Kelowna · Lake Country · Peachland · Vernon · Penticton · Summerland · Osoyoos · Oliver · and all of the Okanagan Valley — and everywhere else in the province
Common questions from Kelowna residents
Is there an EMDR therapist in Kelowna?
Several Kelowna practices offer EMDR in person. TEO offers it online: Mohamad Shabib holds Advanced EMDR training through an EMDRIA-approved programme, and Alison Shaji, RCC, is EMDR-trained. Research on EMDR delivered remotely is smaller and newer than research on EMDR overall, so the consultation is the place to ask whether online suits what you are bringing.
How much does therapy cost in Kelowna?
Individual sessions are $150/60-min session and couples sessions are $175/60-min session. A small number of reduced-fee spots are held — if cost is a barrier, mention it during the consultation. Your first consultation is always free.
Do I need to travel for trauma therapy?
No. Every session is online, so a client in Peachland, West Kelowna or Lake Country sees the same clinicians, at the same fees and hours, as one in Vancouver.
Do you have a waitlist for Kelowna clients?
No waitlist.
When the season ends and the work stops
A lot of Kelowna income arrives between May and October. Orchards, wineries, hotels, restaurants, tour boats, landscaping, construction, fire contracts — the year is shaped like a wave. Someone works six days a week through August without a free evening, and by mid-November has three shifts, a grey lake and far too much time. The busy months and the quiet months produce different problems, and people can go looking for help somewhere in the gap between the two.
One story is that there was no room to fall apart while the season was running, and then it came apart afterwards. That is not weakness and it is not surprising. Something in you held the line because the money depended on it holding. Internal Family Systems is one way of working with that: instead of arguing with the part of you that pushes through, the work is to get to know it — what it is protecting, and what it believes would happen if it stopped. Mohamad has completed IFS Levels 1 and 2.
Scheduling is built around shift work rather than office hours. Sessions run noon to nine Pacific, seven days a week, so a server finishing a lunch shift can take three in the afternoon and a tradesperson off site at five can take seven in the evening. Sunday is an ordinary working day here. If your income is seasonal, say so at the consultation. Individual sessions are $150 and couples $175, and a small number of reduced-fee spots are held — they are not always open, and you will be told plainly if they are full.
What a wildfire summer leaves behind
Smoke season does something to a household even in the years nothing burns. The alert arrives on your phone at two in the morning. You pack the car, wake the kids, put the cat in the carrier — and then you sit in the driveway and nothing happens. The order never comes, or it comes and is lifted, and by Tuesday you are back at work. The body never gets to finish what it started. It stays half-mobilised, sometimes for weeks after the air clears.
Some people settle on their own once the season turns and never need a therapist for it, and that is worth saying plainly rather than talking everyone into treatment. What suggests something has not settled is a reaction that outlives the danger: a neighbour's barbecue in February landing in your chest, checking wildfire maps in March, a road you no longer drive because of the burn scar beside it, a child who stops sleeping alone as soon as August comes round again.
EMDR can be the piece of work that fits here, and it helps to know what it actually does. A memory laid down under threat keeps its sensory pieces intact — the alert tone, the orange light, the smell of it. Reprocessing means holding attention on one of those pieces while following a repeating left-right cue, which loads working memory and allows the memory to be stored again with less sensory charge attached. That is the working model the protocol is built on, and it is still argued about. It is not retelling the story until it wears out, and how much any single memory shifts varies from person to person. Mohamad's EMDR training is at the advanced level through an EMDRIA-approved programme, and Alison is EMDR trained as well.
Who you would be working with
Mohamad Shabib, MACP, CCC, is a Canadian Certified Counsellor with the Canadian Counselling and Psychotherapy Association and works with clients in all six provinces the practice serves. His training covers advanced EMDR through an EMDRIA-approved programme, Internal Family Systems Levels 1 and 2, Gottman Method Levels 1 and 2, CBT for Trauma Levels 1 and 2, DBT, and Indigenous Focused Oriented Therapy. He also holds a graduate diploma in addiction treatment and prevention and has worked with concurrent trauma and addictions at Edgewood. Sessions in English or Arabic.
Alison Shaji is a Registered Clinical Counsellor with the BCACC and works with clients in British Columbia, which covers Kelowna and the rest of the Okanagan. Her training includes EMDR, Gottman Method Levels 1 and 2, CBT, DBT, Emotion Focused Family Therapy, and psychoanalytic, inner-child and shadow work. She works in English, Hindi and Malayalam.
Rola Shbib is a Registered Social Worker (Ontario). Her background is crisis intervention, suicide prevention and addictions, alongside an honours degree in thanatology — the study of grief, dying and bereavement.
How the first few sessions go
The first contact is a free 15-minute consultation, and no referral is needed from a doctor or anyone else. It is a short conversation in ordinary language: what is going on, what you have already tried, what the work would involve, and whether the person on the other end is someone you could talk to. Deciding not to book afterwards is a normal outcome, not an awkward one.
The first full session is history and pacing rather than reprocessing. In trauma work the order matters. Before going near a difficult memory you build the ability to stop, steady yourself and come back — noticing when you have gone too far, and having something to do about it when you have. Going straight at the worst of it in week one can end the hour more activated than it began. That groundwork can feel slow when you arrived wanting to get on with it.
Two limits are worth knowing before you book. Counsellors do not diagnose; if what you need is an assessment or medication, that is your physician or a psychiatrist, and you will be told so rather than strung along. And what you say is held in confidence with four exceptions there is an obligation to act on: a risk of serious harm to you or another person, a child in need of protection, a court order or subpoena, and a reporting duty owed to a regulatory college.
Common questions
My work is seasonal. Should I start now or wait for the off-season?
Either works, and they work differently. Starting mid-season tends to mean fewer sessions spaced further apart, fitted around shifts. Waiting until November means more time and more room, but the quiet months can be when things surface, which is a harder moment to be starting from scratch. If cost is the deciding factor, raise it at the free consultation rather than after.
Do I have to describe the evacuation in detail?
No. EMDR is worked from a fragment — an image, a sound, a smell — rather than a full narration, so a detailed account out loud is not required. You set the pace and can stop at any point. Some people say very little during reprocessing itself. Nothing in the process depends on you being able to tell the whole story.
Will my extended health plan cover this?
No provincial health plan in Canada covers counselling in private practice, so this is paid either out of pocket or through extended health. Plans list the designations they reimburse, so check whether yours names a Canadian Certified Counsellor, a Registered Clinical Counsellor or a Registered Social Worker before assuming. An insurance-ready receipt is issued after every session, and direct billing is available with Mohamad and Alison for Pacific Blue Cross, CVAP and plans on the TELUS eClaims network.
What happens if a shift changes and I have to cancel?
Twenty-four hours' notice and there is no charge. Later than that, or a no-show, is charged in full, because the hour was held and could not be offered to anyone else. It is a firm policy rather than a flexible one, which is why it is written here and not buried in the paperwork you sign afterwards.
I work part of the year in Alberta. Can I keep the same therapist?
With Mohamad, yes. He works with clients in British Columbia, Ontario, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Newfoundland and Labrador, so going east for a season does not interrupt the work. Tell us which province you are physically in when you book, since that determines who can see you. Alison's registration is with the BCACC and her clients are in British Columbia.
Kelowna & BC mental health resources
Therapy is not a crisis service. These are free and staffed around the clock:
- · 9-8-8 Suicide Crisis Helpline: call or text 9-8-8 (24/7)
- · BC Crisis Line: 1-800-784-2433 (24/7)
- · KCR Community Resources Crisis Line: 1-888-353-2273, 24/7
- · Kids Help Phone (for young people): 1-800-668-6868, or text CONNECT to 686868
For ages 12 to 24, Foundry Kelowna at 100-1815 Kirschner Road offers free, confidential services, including drop-in single-session counselling run by CMHA Kelowna; call 236-420-2803 for current drop-in hours.
If you are in immediate danger, please call 911.
Specialist care, right from Kelowna
Book a free consultation — no waitlist, no commute. We'll talk about what you're dealing with and see if we're the right fit.
Book Free ConsultationOr text: (519) 760-5211