Counselling with a regulated clinician offers a private, collaborative place to talk about low mood, daily functioning, relationships, and what kind of support might actually fit your life. Registered Psychologists, Registered Provisional Psychologists, Registered Social Workers, Canadian Certified Counsellors, Mental Health Therapists, and Student Therapists. Registered Psychologists and Registered Provisional Psychologists are registered with the College of Alberta Psychologists (CAP) and practise under the Canadian Psychological Association (CPA) Code of Ethics. Registered Social Workers are regulated by the Alberta College of Social Workers (ACSW). Canadian Certified Counsellors (CCCs) are certified by the Canadian Counselling and Psychotherapy Association (CCPA). 50-minute sessions, in person in Edmonton and St. Albert, or virtually across Alberta.

Book a Session | Match with a Therapist

You Might Be Wondering Whether Counselling for Major Depressive Disorder Is Right for You

You may be turning over a question that is hard to answer on your own: is this depression, or is it just a long stretch of being tired, stretched thin, and unmotivated? A lot of people sit with that question for months before they type anything into a search bar. Some worry that booking an appointment would be taking a spot from someone who is worse off.

You might recognize some of this. Waking up already tired, before the day has asked anything of you. Getting through work or school while feeling oddly far away from it, like you are watching yourself do it. Letting messages sit unanswered from people you actually care about, then feeling worse about the silence. Things you used to look forward to feeling flat when they finally arrive.

These patterns are ones many people describe, and they are not a character flaw or a failure of effort. Low mood that sticks around tends to narrow what feels possible, which is part of why it can be so hard to act on your own behalf. That does not mean something is permanently wrong with you, and it does not mean you have to arrive at a conclusion about yourself before you talk to anyone.

You may wish to read on and see what this kind of counselling actually involves, what it does not involve, and what it costs. You can decide from there whether it seems relevant to you.

Who We Help

This service may be a good fit if you are:

• Living with low mood, loss of interest, or changes in energy, sleep, appetite, or concentration that have lasted a while.
• Someone who has received a diagnosis of major depressive disorder and wants counselling support alongside other care.
• Unsure whether what you are experiencing is depression and want to talk it through with a clinician.
• Managing depression alongside work stress, school demands, grief, chronic illness, relationship strain, or a major life change.
• Looking for support for a partner, family member, or friend and trying to understand the options before you raise it with them.
• Wanting to work on daily structure, self-criticism, motivation, or withdrawal rather than on a diagnosis.

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

• In immediate danger or thinking about ending your life. Routine counselling appointments and online booking are not built for urgent safety concerns. Please use the crisis resources below.
• Seeking a formal diagnosis, a disability or insurance report, or documentation for a court or employer. Psychological assessments are a separate service at Wholesome Psychology, and they are not part of counselling. You can read about assessment for depression if that is what you need.
• Looking for medication management. Prescribing is outside a therapist's scope of practice. Those questions belong with a physician, nurse practitioner, psychiatrist, or pharmacist.
• Needing a legal service, an investigation, or advocacy in a dispute. Counselling is none of those things.

If You Need Help Right Now

Wholesome Psychology is not an emergency or crisis service. If your safety or someone else's is at risk, please use one of these instead of waiting for an appointment:

• 911 or your nearest emergency department, if there is immediate danger.
• Alberta Mental Health Help Line: 1-877-303-2642, available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
• Crisis Text Line: text HOME to 741741.
• The Government of Canada maintains a directory of mental health support services and how to reach them (Public Health Agency of Canada [PHAC], n.d.).

What This Service Is

"Major depressive disorder" is a diagnostic term used in classification systems such as the World Health Organization's ICD-11, which groups single-episode and recurrent depressive disorders under mood disorders (World Health Organization [WHO], n.d.). Reading a webpage cannot tell you whether that term applies to you, and neither can a booking form. A clinician cannot make that determination from a first phone call either.

What counselling offers is a structured, confidential space to talk about mood, daily functioning, relationships, routines, and goals, and to build a plan around them. Your therapist works with you to clarify what you want to be different, and the two of you decide together what to work on and in what order. The pace is set by you, not by the therapist.

It helps to be clear about the boundaries. Counselling is not a legal service, an investigative process, or crisis intervention. It does not include psychological assessment or testing, which is a separate service with its own process and fees. It is not a substitute for medical care, and it does not involve prescribing or adjusting medication.

A therapist can help you think through whether counselling on its own, medical care, an assessment, community support, or some combination is likely to be useful for your situation. Everything you share is treated as confidential, within limits set by Alberta law and professional ethics. Those limits are explained in full further down this page, and your therapist will go through them with you at the start of your first session.

Symptoms: Signs Depression May Be Affecting You

The list below describes experiences people often bring to counselling. It is not a checklist, a screening tool, or a way to diagnose yourself. Recognizing yourself in some of these does not confirm anything, and not recognizing yourself does not rule anything out.

• A heaviness or flatness that does not lift much even when circumstances improve.
• Losing interest in things that used to matter, including people, work, and activities you once chose freely.
• Sleeping far more or far less than usual, or waking early and not being able to get back to sleep.
• Appetite changes in either direction, and eating that has become disconnected from hunger.
• Difficulty concentrating, following conversations, or making decisions that used to be simple.
• A persistent internal commentary that is harsh, dismissive, or focused on being a burden.
• Physical symptoms without a clear cause, such as fatigue that rest does not fix, muscle aches, or headaches.
• Pulling back from friends and family, then feeling worse about the distance.
• Thoughts of death or of not wanting to be here.

If that last one is present for you, please use the crisis resources listed above rather than waiting for a scheduled appointment.

Experiences like these are common, and they tend to feed one another. Withdrawal reduces the things that lift mood, which makes withdrawal easier the next day. That loop is something structured support can work on directly, and it does not mean something is permanently broken.

How Treatment Works Here

• Find your therapist. You can use the Match with a Therapist tool, read through profiles on the Our Therapists page, or call the administrative team at 780-904-4880 and talk it through with a person. Availability and fit vary by clinician.
• Book your first session. The first appointment covers informed consent, confidentiality and its limits, and what you would like support with. You can ask questions before you share anything personal.
• Build your plan together. You and your therapist decide on goals and an approach that reflects your circumstances and preferences. The plan is co-created, not handed to you.
• Ongoing sessions. Sessions run 50 minutes, typically weekly or every second week, adjusted as things change. In person at any of the five locations, or virtually anywhere in Alberta.
• Progress check-ins. Your therapist reviews progress with you regularly. If something is not working, the plan changes.

There is no fixed number of sessions, and no one can tell you in advance how long this will take. Some people come for a short period of focused work and stop. Others stay longer. Your voice matters at every stage of that decision, including the decision to pause or finish.

Evidence and Approaches

Psychological therapies are addressed in Canadian clinical guidelines and in systematic review evidence for major depressive disorder. The source material available for this page confirms which guidelines and reviews exist and what they cover, but it does not include their effect estimates, remission rates, or comparative rankings. We have written this section to reflect that limit rather than to fill the gap with claims we cannot trace. Availability of any specific approach depends on the individual clinician, so please ask about training and approach when you book.

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)

What it helps with: CBT works on the links between thinking patterns, behaviour, and mood, including self-critical thinking that keeps low mood in place.

Evidence summary: Psychological treatments occupy a dedicated section of Canadian clinical guidelines for adults with major depressive disorder (Canadian Network for Mood and Anxiety Treatments [CANMAT], 2016). The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence publishes guidance on treatment and management of depression in adults (National Institute for Health and Care Excellence [NICE], n.d.). The extracts available for this page confirm both documents but report no outcome data.

Limitations: Nothing here is a claim about how well CBT performs against other options, because those results were not available. Not every clinician here practises this way.

Behavioural Activation and Other Behavioural Approaches

What it helps with: Behavioural approaches focus on the withdrawal and inactivity loop, rebuilding routine and contact with things that used to give the day some shape.

Evidence summary: A Cochrane systematic review examines behavioural therapies alongside other psychological therapies for depression (Cochrane, n.d.). Behavioural approaches also sit within the psychological treatments covered by Canadian guidance for adults with major depressive disorder (CANMAT, 2016). The capture available for this page confirms the review and the guideline but does not contain their conclusions or effect estimates.

Limitations: No comparison is drawn here between behavioural therapies and other approaches, since the underlying findings were not available. Responses differ from person to person.

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)

What it helps with: ACT works on your relationship to difficult thoughts and feelings, and on choosing actions that line up with what you value even when mood is low.

Evidence summary: ACT belongs to the broad category of psychological treatments addressed in Canadian clinical guidance for adults with major depressive disorder (CANMAT, 2016) and in NICE guidance on depression in adults (NICE, n.d.). No ACT-specific source was available in the evidence set behind this page.

Limitations: Because no ACT-specific evidence was available, this describes what the approach involves rather than what research has found. Ask your therapist about their training in it.

Mindfulness-Based Approaches

What it helps with: Mindfulness-based work builds skills for noticing thoughts and physical states without being pulled into rumination about them.

Evidence summary: Mindfulness-based work falls within the psychological treatments addressed in Canadian guidance for adults with major depressive disorder (CANMAT, 2016). The Canadian Psychological Association publishes a public fact sheet on depression as part of its professional education material (Canadian Psychological Association [CPA], 2021). The material available for this page does not include modality-specific findings for mindfulness-based approaches.

Limitations: No claim is made here about effectiveness, and mindfulness-based work is not suitable for everyone or for every stage of depression. Discuss fit with your clinician.

What Results to Expect

Recovery is rarely a straight line. Most people describe better stretches and harder stretches, and a harder week does not undo the work that came before it. Counselling can give you a place to notice those shifts and adjust rather than treating a setback as proof that nothing helps.

Some people notice changes relatively early. Others benefit from longer-term work, particularly where depression has been present for years or sits alongside other difficulties. We are not able to publish a typical timeline or recovery rate for this service, because the evidence sources behind this page do not support one. Any page that offers you a specific number is going beyond what the research it cites can show.

Several things influence how this goes: how long the low mood has been present, what else is happening in your life right now, whether other health concerns are involved, what support you have outside sessions, and how well you and your therapist work together. No therapy guarantees an outcome, and no clinician can promise one.

Therapeutic fit matters more than most people expect. If the working relationship does not feel right, changing therapist or changing approach is always an option, and saying so is a normal part of the process rather than a complaint.

Confidentiality and Privacy

What you share in counselling is confidential. Your clinician keeps records and handles your personal and health information under Alberta's Health Information Act (HIA) and the Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA), and under the professional obligations applicable to their profession: Registered Psychologists and Registered Provisional Psychologists are regulated by the College of Alberta Psychologists (CAP) and practise under the Canadian Psychological Association (CPA) Code of Ethics; Registered Social Workers are regulated by the Alberta College of Social Workers (ACSW); and Canadian Certified Counsellors (CCCs) are certified by the Canadian Counselling and Psychotherapy Association (CCPA).

There are limits, and they are set by law rather than by clinic preference. Confidentiality may be broken when:

• There is a risk of serious harm to you or to another person.
• There is reasonable suspicion of abuse or neglect of a child. Reporting is mandatory under Alberta law.
• A court orders the release of records.

Your clinician will walk you through these limits in plain language during the first session, before you share anything you would rather keep private. You are welcome to ask questions about record keeping, who has access to your file, and how information is stored, at any point. If you would rather ask before booking, the administrative team can pass questions to a clinician.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I have to describe everything that has been going on?

No. You set the pace and decide what to bring into the room and when. Some people want to talk through history in detail, and some would rather work on present-day patterns like sleep, motivation, or self-criticism without going back over everything. Both are workable. If a topic feels like too much on a given day, you can say so, and your therapist will follow your lead.

Is what I share kept private?

Yes, within limits set by Alberta law and professional ethics. Your information is handled under the Health Information Act (HIA) and the Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA), and your clinician is bound by the professional obligations applicable to their profession: CAP and CPA obligations for Registered Psychologists and Registered Provisional Psychologists, ACSW obligations for Registered Social Workers, and CCPA certification requirements and professional obligations for Canadian Certified Counsellors (CCCs). The exceptions involve risk of serious harm, suspected abuse or neglect of a child, and court orders. The confidentiality section above sets these out in full, and your therapist will review them with you at the start.

How many sessions will I need?

There is no fixed answer, and we would rather not invent one. Some people come for a short period of focused work on a specific problem. Others find longer-term counselling more useful, particularly when depression has been present for a long time or sits alongside other difficulties. Your therapist reviews progress with you regularly, and the plan is adjusted based on what you are noticing, not on a preset schedule.

What if the therapist is not the right fit?

Fit is a real factor, not a nicety, and it is normal for the first match not to be the right one. You can tell your therapist directly, or you can contact the administrative team at 780-904-4880 and ask to be matched with someone else. No explanation is required. New clients may access their first session at 50% off to help find the right therapeutic fit.

Can I access counselling online?

Yes. Virtual sessions are available across Alberta and run the same length as in-person appointments. The same confidentiality standards and legislation apply. Some people prefer virtual sessions when leaving the house is one of the harder parts of the week, and some prefer to be in the room. You can also switch between the two.

Do I need a diagnosis or a referral before I book?

No. You do not need a diagnosis, a referral, or a letter from anyone to book counselling. If you want a formal diagnostic evaluation, that is a separate service with its own process, and you can read about assessment for depression or ask the administrative team about it.

Can counselling replace or change my medication?

No. Prescribing and adjusting medication are outside a therapist's scope of practice. Those decisions belong with a physician, nurse practitioner, psychiatrist, or pharmacist. Your therapist can help you prepare questions for those appointments and can work alongside your medical care, but will not advise you to start, stop, or change a prescription.

Meet Your Clinicians

Wholesome Psychology works with Registered Psychologists, Registered Provisional Psychologists, Registered Social Workers, Canadian Certified Counsellors, Mental Health Therapists, and Student Therapists. Registered Psychologists and Registered Provisional Psychologists are registered with the College of Alberta Psychologists (CAP). Registered Social Workers are regulated by the Alberta College of Social Workers (ACSW). Canadian Certified Counsellors (CCCs) are certified by the Canadian Counselling and Psychotherapy Association (CCPA). Registered Provisional Psychologists practise under the supervision of a senior registered psychologist, which is a normal stage of registration rather than a reduced standard of care.

Many clinicians here have training in depression, mood-related concerns, anxiety, grief, and the life circumstances that often sit alongside them. Training and areas of focus differ from person to person, so it is worth asking directly about approach and experience before or during a first session.

You can read individual profiles on the Our Therapists page, use the Match with a Therapist tool, or call the administrative team at 780-904-4880 if you would rather talk it through with someone. The Getting Started with Therapy page explains the process from first contact onward. Related pages include Depression Counselling, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, and What to Expect From Therapy.

Children and Youth

Depression affects children and adolescents as well as adults, and it often shows up differently in younger people. Irritability, school refusal, physical complaints, or a sudden drop in interest can look like something other than low mood from the outside.

Wholesome Psychology offers counselling for children, adolescents, and young adults. Clinicians working with younger clients use age-appropriate approaches and adjust the format, pace, and language to the child's stage of development. Where it is appropriate, they also work with caregivers, since the home environment is part of what supports a young person's recovery.

If you are a parent or caregiver reading this for someone else, you can call the administrative team at 780-904-4880 to talk through options before involving your child in the decision. Related pages include Child and Youth Depression and Child and Youth Mental Health.

Taking the Next Step

If counselling seems like it might be worth trying, there are a few ways to begin, and none of them commit you to anything beyond a first conversation.

• Book a session online through the booking system.
• Match with a therapist using the matching tool.
• Call the administrative team at 780-904-4880.
• Email info@wholesomepsychology.ca.
• Read the Getting Started with Therapy page if you would like to know more about the process first.

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

Starting the conversation is enough.

References

• Canadian Network for Mood and Anxiety Treatments. (2016). Canadian Network for Mood and Anxiety Treatments (CANMAT) 2016 clinical guidelines for the management of adults with major depressive disorder: Section 2. Psychological treatments. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4994791/
• Canadian Psychological Association. (2021). Depression (Fact sheet, FS_Depression_EN_2021).
• Cochrane. (n.d.). Behavioural therapies versus other psychological therapies for depression (CD008696). Retrieved July 26, 2026, from https://www.cochrane.org/evidence/CD008696_behavioural-therapies-versus-other-psychological-therapies-depression
• National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. (n.d.). Depression in adults: Treatment and management.
• Public Health Agency of Canada. (n.d.). Mental health support: Get help. Retrieved July 26, 2026, from https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/mental-health-services/mental-health-get-help.html
• World Health Organization. (n.d.). ICD-11 for mortality and morbidity statistics: Depressive disorders.