A structured place to bring your questions about trauma-related experiences, talk through what has been happening, and work out what kind of support fits. Registered Psychologists and Registered Provisional Psychologists regulated by the College of Alberta Psychologists (CAP). Practice guided by the Canadian Psychological Association (CPA) Canadian Code of Ethics for Psychologists. In person at three Edmonton locations and two St. Albert locations, with virtual appointments available across Alberta. 50-minute sessions, seven days a week.

Book a Session | Match with a Therapist

This page is general information about a service. It cannot tell you whether PTSD, complex PTSD, or anything else applies to you.

You Might Be Wondering Whether a PTSD or Trauma Assessment Is Right for You

You may be asking yourself whether what happened to you was bad enough to look into. Other people had it worse. It was years ago. Or nothing obviously dramatic happened at all, and things just quietly stopped feeling right. That particular doubt keeps a lot of people from making the call, sometimes for years.

Maybe you notice you are tired in a way that sleep does not touch. Maybe you find yourself scanning a room before you sit down, or going quiet with people who have not done anything wrong. Some people describe feeling far away from their own life, as though they are watching it rather than living in it. Others say the reaction comes out sideways, in irritation or numbness, and they cannot trace it back to a cause.

Responses like these are common reactions to harmful or frightening experiences. They reflect ways your mind and body learned to keep you safe. They are not a character flaw, and they do not mean something is permanently wrong with you.

If you are trying to work out whether talking to someone would help, reading on may give you a clearer picture of what this service involves and what it does not. You can decide from there.

Who We Help

People come to this service at very different points. Some have a specific question they want answered. Some are gathering information for a partner, a parent, or an adult child. Some are not sure they want anything at all yet.

This service may be a reasonable fit if:

• You have questions about trauma-related experiences and how they are affecting your day-to-day life.
• You want to talk through your history and current concerns with a regulated clinician before deciding on next steps.
• You are trying to understand what kind of support might suit you, including whether counselling is worth exploring.
• You are looking into options on behalf of someone else and want to know how the process works.
• You have had therapy before and want to reconsider your options.

This service may not be the right fit if:

• You need help right now because of an immediate safety concern. Please use the crisis resources below instead.
• You need a report, letter, or documentation for an insurer, employer, school, disability claim, or court matter. Ask the administrative team what is within scope before you book, because this is not confirmed for every purpose.
• You are looking for a forensic or legal opinion. That work sits outside this service.
• You want ongoing therapy rather than an assessment conversation. You may prefer to start with Trauma Therapy or PTSD Treatment.
• You are seeking a programme for someone who has caused harm to others. The administrative team can point you toward appropriate community services.

If You Need Help Right Now

Wholesome Psychology is not an emergency or crisis service. We cannot respond to urgent safety concerns, and appointments are not available on demand. If you need immediate support, please use one of these instead.

• 911 if you or someone else is in immediate danger, or attend your nearest emergency department.
• Alberta Mental Health Help Line: 1-877-303-2642, available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
• Family Violence Info Line (Alberta): 310-1818, toll-free, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
• Crisis Text Line: text HOME to 741741.

If you are still living in a situation that is not safe, reaching out to one of the lines above is a reasonable first step. Therapy can come later, and it will still be there.

What This Service Is

An assessment is a structured conversation with a clinician about the question you are bringing, the context around it, and how things are going for you now. The purpose is to understand the situation well enough to talk sensibly about what might help next.

An assessment is not the same as an automatic diagnosis. Booking one does not mean you will leave with a label, a written report, or a treatment plan. What a clinician can offer depends on the reason for the appointment, your consent, and the limits of that clinician's scope of practice.

A few boundaries worth stating plainly. This is not a legal service, an investigation, or a crisis response. It is not medical care and does not replace advice from your physician. Nothing on this page constitutes personalized clinical advice.

You set the pace. You choose how much to say and when. A clinician may ask questions, but you are not required to answer any of them, and you can stop or change direction at any point.

Confidentiality and its limits are explained at the start of services, before you share anything personal. There is a fuller explanation further down this page.

Signs Trauma May Be Affecting You

People describe the aftermath of frightening or harmful experiences in all sorts of ways. The list below is written in ordinary language rather than diagnostic terms, and it is offered only to help you recognize your own experience. It is not a checklist, a test, or a set of criteria.

• Sleep that does not restore you, or a pattern of waking in the early hours with your heart going.
• Being on alert without meaning to be, noticing exits, sitting with your back to a wall, jumping at ordinary noises.
• Memories or images that arrive uninvited, sometimes triggered by something small like a smell or a tone of voice.
• Steering around places, people, conversations, or reminders, and reorganizing your life to keep the steering possible.
• Feeling flat or far away, including moments where you lose track of time or feel detached from your surroundings.
• Pulling back from people who care about you, or finding closeness harder than it used to be.
• Irritability, a short fuse, or anger that surprises you afterwards.
• Physical symptoms with no clear medical cause, such as headaches, stomach trouble, muscle tension, or exhaustion.
• Carrying shame or self-blame about what happened, or about how you responded at the time.

Recognizing yourself in some of these does not mean you have a disorder, and it does not mean something is permanently wrong. These are common ways people respond to overwhelming events. The Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) publishes general public information on trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder if you would like background reading from a Canadian source. Whether structured support would help you specifically is a question for a conversation with a clinician, not a web page.

How This Works Here

• Find your clinician. You can use the Match with a Therapist tool or read profiles on the Our Therapists page. If you would rather talk it through, the administrative team can be reached at 780-904-4880.
• Book your first session. The first session includes a discussion of consent, confidentiality, and what you are hoping to get out of coming in. It is also your chance to ask practical questions before you commit to anything further.
• Build the plan together. What happens next is decided with you, not for you. That might mean further conversation, a different service, counselling, or no particular recommendation at all.
• Ongoing sessions if you continue. Sessions run 50 minutes. Frequency is usually weekly or every second week, adjusted to suit you.
• Check in on progress. Your clinician reviews how things are going with you at regular intervals, and the plan changes as your needs change.

There is no fixed number of sessions and no standard route through this. Some people come once, get their question answered, and leave. Others carry on for months. Your view of what is working carries weight at every stage.

Evidence and Approaches

An honest note before this section. The research set assembled for this page was thin. Two clinical guideline documents were supplied as filenames only, without text, so no findings are attributed to them here. Several Canadian public health sources could not be extracted into usable content. Where evidence is missing, this page says so rather than filling the gap.

Structured Clinical Conversation

What it helps with: Organizing scattered questions about trauma-related experiences into a clearer picture of what has been happening and what might help.

Evidence summary: Post-traumatic stress disorder and complex post-traumatic stress disorder are terms classified by the World Health Organization under disorders specifically associated with stress (World Health Organization [WHO], 2026). Terminology of this kind gives a clinician a shared framework for a conversation. It does not, on its own, establish what any individual is experiencing.

Limitations: The evidence pack for this page did not include the diagnostic criteria, interview methods, or protocol detail that would allow any statement about how accurate or useful a particular interview format is. Individual clinicians vary in how they structure these conversations.

Questionnaires and Rating Scales

What it helps with: Giving a clinician a rough, structured snapshot of how a person is doing, which can then be discussed rather than taken at face value.

Evidence summary: No usable research on the performance of specific trauma questionnaires was available in the evidence pack for this page, so no accuracy, threshold, or comparative claims are made here. Wholesome Psychology has not specified which questionnaires, if any, are used in this service.

Limitations: Questionnaires developed and tested in one population do not necessarily perform the same way in another. A score is not a diagnosis and should not be read as one.

Trauma-Focused Therapies

What it helps with: Ongoing therapeutic work for people who decide, after an assessment conversation or independently, that they want treatment rather than clarification.

Evidence summary: Guideline and review material on trauma-focused therapies was supplied to this page only as document filenames, with no text, so no findings, recommendations, or effect estimates are reported here. Related pages are listed below as information about what the clinic offers.

Limitations: Because no source text was available, this page makes no claim that any particular therapy is suitable for you. Suitability is a clinical question that depends on your circumstances.

These are separate services from assessment: Trauma Therapy, PTSD Treatment, EMDR Therapy, and Child and Youth Stress and Trauma. Listing them is not a recommendation that any of them fits your situation.

What Results to Expect

Recovery from trauma-related difficulty is rarely a straight line. Most people describe stretches of progress, periods where nothing seems to shift, and occasional weeks that feel like going backwards. That pattern is ordinary and does not mean the work has failed.

Some people notice changes within a few months. Others find that longer-term work suits them better. Several things influence how it goes, including the nature of what you experienced, what is happening in your life right now, whether you feel safe, and how well you and your clinician work together.

No therapy and no assessment guarantees an outcome. Nobody can tell you in advance how you will respond, and this page will not try. Outcomes vary between people, and they vary for the same person at different points in life.

Fit between you and your clinician matters, and it is not a fixed thing. If it is not working, changing clinician or changing approach is always available to you, and asking for that is a normal part of the process rather than a setback.

Confidentiality and Privacy

What you say in session is confidential. Your clinician is responsible for protecting your privacy, and that responsibility is enforced by their regulator.

Psychologists in Alberta are registered with and regulated by the College of Alberta Psychologists (CAP). Certified Canadian Counsellors (CCCs) are regulated by the Canadian Counselling and Psychotherapy Association (CCPA). Registered Social Workers are regulated by the Alberta College of Social Workers (ACSW). Practice is also guided by the Canadian Psychological Association (CPA) Canadian Code of Ethics for Psychologists.

Two pieces of Alberta legislation govern how personal information is handled. The Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA) generally applies to psychologists working in private practice and private clinics. The Health Information Act (HIA) applies to organizations and individuals who meet the definition of a custodian under that Act. Your clinician can tell you which framework applies to your file.

Confidentiality has limits set by law. The main exceptions are:

• A risk of serious harm to you or to another person.
• Suspected abuse or neglect of a child, which carries a mandatory reporting duty under Alberta law.
• A court order or other legal requirement to disclose.

Your clinician will explain these limits clearly in the first session, before you share anything personal. You are welcome to ask questions about records, information sharing, or third-party involvement at that point, or beforehand by calling the administrative team.

This page describes general obligations and is not legal advice about your specific circumstances.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I have to describe what happened in detail?

No. You decide how much to say and when, and you can decline any question without explaining why. Some people find it useful to talk through events. Others prefer to work with what is happening in the present, such as sleep, relationships, or reactions they cannot place, without going back over the details. Both are legitimate. If a conversation starts to feel like too much, say so, and the pace changes.

Is what I share kept private?

Yes, with limits set by law. Your information is protected under Alberta's Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA) or the Health Information Act (HIA), depending on the setting, and your clinician is accountable to the regulating body for their credential: the College of Alberta Psychologists (CAP) for psychologists, the Canadian Counselling and Psychotherapy Association (CCPA) for Certified Canadian Counsellors (CCCs), or the Alberta College of Social Workers (ACSW) for Registered Social Workers. The exceptions are a risk of serious harm, suspected abuse or neglect of a child, and a legal requirement such as a court order. See the confidentiality section above for the full explanation.

How many sessions will I need?

There is no fixed answer, and anyone who gives you a firm number in advance is guessing. Some people come with one specific question and are finished after a short piece of work. Others find that longer-term support suits them better. You and your clinician review how things are going at regular intervals and adjust from there.

What if the therapist is not the right fit?

Fit matters, and it is reasonable to change your mind. If a clinician is not right for you, you can ask to work with someone else, and the administrative team can help arrange it on 780-904-4880. You do not need to justify the decision or have a difficult conversation about it first. New clients may access their first session at 50% off to help find the right therapeutic fit.

Can I access this online?

Virtual appointments are listed across Alberta, and the same confidentiality standards apply as they do in person. Whether virtual delivery is suitable for a particular assessment request depends on the purpose of the appointment, so please confirm with the administrative team before booking.

What if I am still in an unsafe situation?

Talk to a service equipped for that first. The Family Violence Info Line on 310-1818 is free, confidential, and available at any hour, and the Alberta Mental Health Help Line on 1-877-303-2642 is also open 24 hours a day. Therapy is difficult to do well while a situation is ongoing, and there is no rush. Safety planning comes first, and the clinic will still be here afterwards.

Is an assessment the same as being diagnosed with PTSD?

No. An assessment is a process for understanding the question you are bringing and the context around it. It does not automatically produce a diagnosis, a written report, or a recommendation. If you specifically need documentation for an insurer, employer, school, or legal matter, ask the administrative team what is within scope before booking, because that is not confirmed for every purpose.

I am looking into this for someone else. Can I still call?

Yes. The administrative team can explain how the service works, what it costs, and what the booking process involves. They cannot discuss another adult's care without that person's consent, and the person themselves needs to make the appointment. Reading this page and passing on the phone number is often enough of a start.

Meet Your Clinicians

The clinical team includes Registered Psychologists, Registered Provisional Psychologists, Registered Social Workers, Certified Canadian Counsellors, Mental Health Therapists, and Student Therapists. The credential type affects both the fee and the scope of what that clinician can do.

All psychologists at the clinic are registered with the College of Alberta Psychologists (CAP). Certified Canadian Counsellors (CCCs) are regulated by the Canadian Counselling and Psychotherapy Association (CCPA), and Registered Social Workers are regulated by the Alberta College of Social Workers (ACSW). Registered Provisional Psychologists have completed their graduate training and practise under the supervision of a senior registered psychologist while they complete the requirements for full registration.

Areas of focus vary between clinicians. You can review individual profiles on the Our Therapists page, use the Match with a Therapist tool, or call the administrative team on 780-904-4880 and ask which clinicians work with trauma-related concerns. Availability changes, so it is worth asking rather than assuming.

Children and Youth

Wholesome Psychology offers counselling for children, adolescents, and young adults as well as for adults.

Clinicians working with younger clients use approaches suited to the child's age and stage of development. For younger children this often means less talking and more activity, play, or drawing, because that is how many children process difficult experiences.

Caregivers are usually part of the work. Clinicians talk with parents and guardians about how to support the child at home, since a child's recovery environment matters as much as what happens in a session. How much of a young person's session content is shared with caregivers depends on their age and is discussed openly at the start.

If you are looking for support for a child or teenager, the Child and Youth Stress and Trauma page has more detail, or you can call 780-904-4880.

Taking a Next Step

If you would like to find out whether this service fits your situation, here is what is available:

• Book a session online through the booking system.
• Match with a Therapist if you would like help narrowing the options.
• Call the administrative team on 780-904-4880 with any practical question.
• Email info@wholesomepsychology.ca.
• Read Getting Started with Therapy if you want to know what the process looks like before committing.

New clients may access their first session at 50% off to help find the right therapeutic fit.

Starting the conversation is enough.

References

• National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. (n.d.). Post-traumatic stress disorder.
• Public Health Agency of Canada. (n.d.). About trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Canada.ca.
• World Health Organization. (2026). ICD-11 for mortality and morbidity statistics (2026-01 release).