A collaborative space to look at how work fits alongside rest, relationships, caregiving, and the rest of your life. Registered Psychologists, Registered Provisional Psychologists, Registered Social Workers, Canadian Certified Counsellors, Mental Health Therapists, and Student Therapists. Psychologists registered with the College of Alberta Psychologists (CAP). Canadian Certified Counsellors (CCCs) regulated by the Canadian Counselling and Psychotherapy Association (CCPA). Registered Social Workers regulated by the Alberta College of Social Workers (ACSW). Practice guided by the Canadian Psychological Association (CPA) Canadian Code of Ethics for Psychologists. In person in Edmonton and St. Albert, or virtually across Alberta. 50-minute sessions, daytime, evening, and weekend availability.

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You Might Be Wondering Whether Work-Life Balance Coaching Is Right for You

You may be questioning whether this counts as a real reason to see someone. Nothing has collapsed. The work is getting done, the people who depend on you are being looked after, and from the outside your life probably looks manageable. That can make it feel strange to book an appointment about something as ordinary as the shape of your weeks.

Maybe you check messages at a red light without deciding to. Maybe Sunday evening brings a tightness you have stopped mentioning to anyone. Maybe you are in the room with your family while your attention is still back at work, and you have started apologizing for it more than you would like.

These patterns are common responses to sustained demand. They are not proof of weak discipline or a character flaw, and having them does not mean you have a diagnosis. Work conditions, workload, schedules, and relationships with people at work are recognized as part of a person's broader health context, which is a different thing from calling them an illness (World Health Organization [WHO], n.d.).

You can read on and decide whether any of this matches your situation.

Who We Help

This service may be a good fit if you are:

• Working long or irregular hours and finding little room left for anything else
• Unable to stop thinking about work in the evenings, on days off, or during holidays
• Carrying paid work alongside caregiving for children, parents, or a partner
• Returning to work after leave, changing roles, starting a business, or facing a schedule change
• Struggling to hold boundaries around availability, email, or after-hours requests
• Wanting to think through what you actually want your life to look like, rather than fix a specific crisis
• Gathering information for a partner, adult child, or friend and trying to work out whether counselling would help them
• Already sure you want to start, and looking for the right clinician

This service may not be the right fit if:

• You are in crisis or unable to stay safe. Please use the resources in the next section instead of waiting for an appointment.
• You need a formal psychological assessment, a report, or documentation for an employer, insurer, or court. Psychological assessment is a separate service at this clinic and is not part of work-life balance counselling. The administrative team can explain what is available.
• You need workplace investigation, human resources advocacy, employment law advice, or a disability or accommodation determination. These fall outside what a therapist provides here, and a referral or redirection can be discussed.
• Your central concern is harassment, discrimination, or a threat to your physical safety at work. Counselling can support you while you deal with this, but the formal complaint route runs through your employer, your union, or Alberta Occupational Health and Safety.

If You Need Help Right Now

Wholesome Psychology is not an emergency or crisis service. This page and the online booking system are not monitored for urgent concerns. If you are in immediate danger or cannot keep yourself safe, please use one of the following:

• 911, or go to your nearest emergency department, if you are in immediate danger
• 9-8-8 Suicide Crisis Helpline: call or text 9-8-8, available across Canada, 24/7
• Alberta Mental Health Help Line: 1-877-303-2642, 24/7
• Crisis Text Line: text HOME to 741741

What This Service Is

Work-life balance counselling is a structured conversation about how work sits alongside everything else you care about. You and your therapist look at your current demands, your priorities, the routines you have fallen into, and the choices actually available in your circumstances. There is no single correct balance, and the goal is not to make you more productive.

The word "coaching" means different things in different settings. Here it describes psychological support delivered by a regulated or supervised clinician, working within their scope of practice. It is not a legal service, an investigative process, a medical assessment, or crisis intervention.

Some things this service is not:

• Not a psychological assessment. Assessment is a separate service with its own process and fees.
• Not a report-writing service for employers, insurers, or courts.
• Not employment advice, and not a place where someone tells you whether to quit.
• Not a substitute for medical care, emergency services, or your workplace's own health and safety obligations.

The pace is set by you. You decide what to bring up and what to leave for another day. Your therapist will explain confidentiality and its legal limits at the beginning of care, and there is a fuller explanation further down this page. You can also look at related pages for workplace stress counselling, stress management therapy, or career transitions counselling if one of those describes your situation more closely.

Signs Work Pressure May Be Affecting the Rest of Your Life

People notice this in different ways. The list below describes patterns others have brought into sessions, written in everyday language rather than clinical terms. You do not need to recognize all of them, or any particular number of them, for counselling to be useful.

• Feeling tired most of the time, including after a full night's sleep or a weekend off
• Trouble falling asleep, staying asleep, or waking early with work already running in your head
• Irritability with colleagues, a partner, or children that feels out of proportion afterwards
• Growing distance or cynicism about a job you once cared about
• Difficulty concentrating, remembering things, or making ordinary decisions
• Putting things off, then working late to catch up, then putting more things off
• Physical complaints such as headaches, muscle tension, stomach upset, or appetite changes
• Withdrawing from friends, exercise, or interests that used to matter to you
• A sense that you are always slightly behind, no matter how much you get through

The Canadian Psychological Association describes patterns like these as signs that can arise from chronic workplace stress, and notes that burnout appears in the international classification system as an occupational phenomenon rather than a medical condition (Canadian Psychological Association [CPA], 2021). This is worth holding onto. Experiences like these are not permanent features of who you are, and they usually reflect the load you have been carrying rather than a defect in how you handle it. Structured support gives you somewhere to look at that load with another person.

How Counselling Works Here

• Find your therapist. You can use the Match with a Therapist tool, read individual profiles on the Our Therapists page, or call the administrative team at 780-904-4880 and describe what you are looking for.
• Book your first session. The first appointment covers consent, confidentiality and its limits, what brought you in, and what you would like to be different. You are not expected to arrive with a clear plan.
• Build your plan together. You and your therapist agree on what to focus on. That might be workload, boundaries, a transition, communication at work, or clarifying what you want to protect time for.
• Ongoing sessions. Sessions are 50 minutes, usually weekly or every two weeks at first, and adjusted as things change. Frequency is a shared decision, not a fixed schedule.
• Progress check-ins. Your therapist reviews with you what is working and what is not. Plans change as your circumstances change, and stopping or pausing is always a legitimate option.

There is no set number of sessions. Some people come for a short, focused piece of work. Others use counselling over a longer period, particularly when the situation at work is not something they can change quickly. Your voice matters at every stage of this, including when you disagree with your therapist's suggestion. You can read more on the Getting Started with Therapy page.

Evidence and Approaches

Therapists here draw on several approaches, chosen with you rather than assigned to you. The research below concerns mental wellbeing at work and workplace stress generally. It does not measure outcomes for work-life balance counselling as a specific service, so the summaries stay cautious on purpose.

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)

What it helps with: Examining the thoughts and habits that keep you working past the point of usefulness, such as treating every request as urgent.

Evidence summary: Guidance from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence ([NICE], 2022) on mental wellbeing at work recommends that employees who want further support be offered access to cognitive behavioural therapy, mindfulness training, or stress management training. The CPA's workplace burnout fact sheet lists changing how you think about your work, using approaches such as CBT, among individual strategies (CPA, 2021).

Limitations: These sources address workplace wellbeing broadly rather than this service, and the evidence assembled for this page includes no outcome data for work-life balance counselling. Individual responses vary.

Mindfulness and Relaxation-Based Approaches

What it helps with: Noticing the point at which work stress carries into evenings and weekends, and practising ways of settling attention rather than staying braced.

Evidence summary: NICE guidance includes offering employees ongoing access to mindfulness, yoga, or meditation, and lists mindfulness training among the options for those who want further support (NICE, 2022). The CPA also lists relaxation, meditation, and mindfulness practices among individual responses to workplace burnout (CPA, 2021).

Limitations: Recommendations of this kind are written for workplace programmes rather than individual counselling, and population-level findings do not predict what any one person will notice. Some people find these practices unhelpful, and that is worth saying early.

Stress Management and Coping Skills Work

What it helps with: Practical work on workload patterns, time use, rest, and recovery, including what happens to your week when demand rises.

Evidence summary: NICE lists stress management training among the supports that should be available to employees who want them (NICE, 2022). The CPA describes changing work patterns, building coping skills such as time management, prioritizing sleep, and drawing on social support as individual responses to burnout (CPA, 2021).

Limitations: Both sources are explicit that individual approaches are not a substitute for reducing workplace stressors, and the CPA notes that individual-focused strategies appear insufficient on their own for severe burnout (NICE, 2022; CPA, 2021). Counselling cannot change your employer's decisions.

Interpersonal Effectiveness and Boundary Work

What it helps with: Preparing for difficult conversations about workload, availability, and expectations, at work and at home.

Evidence summary: The CPA lists improving interpersonal effectiveness, including assertiveness and conflict resolution skills, among the individual strategies people use in response to workplace burnout, and identifies difficulty setting limits as one contributing risk factor (CPA, 2021). A review published by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health ([CAMH], 2020) treats work-life balance as one component of an organizational mental health strategy rather than a purely personal skill.

Limitations: This material describes contributing factors and general strategies, not measured outcomes from counselling. How much room you have to set limits depends heavily on your role, your finances, and your employer.

What Results to Expect

Progress here is rarely a straight line. A change that holds during a quiet month can come undone during a busy one, and that is a normal part of the work rather than a failure.

Some people find relief from just 2-3 sessions, particularly when the main need is to think something through clearly with another person or to prepare for one specific conversation. Others work over a longer period, especially when caregiving, financial pressure, or a difficult workplace limits how much can change quickly. Neither pattern is better than the other.

Several things influence how this goes:

• How much control you currently have over your hours, workload, and schedule
• What else you are carrying outside of work
• Whether the pressures are short-term or built into the role
• The fit between you and your therapist

No therapy guarantees an outcome, and nobody can promise you a lasting balance, better performance, or the end of stress. What counselling offers is a structured place to examine the situation and your options. If the fit with your therapist is not right, changing clinicians or approaches is always available, and the administrative team can help arrange it without you having to explain yourself in detail.

Confidentiality and Privacy

What you share in session is confidential. Your therapist does not report to your employer, your manager, your insurer, or your family, and attending counselling is not disclosed to them by the clinic.

Several layers of obligation sit behind that. Psychologists at Wholesome Psychology are registered with the College of Alberta Psychologists (CAP) and practise under CAP's Standards of Practice and the Canadian Psychological Association (CPA) Canadian Code of Ethics for Psychologists. Alberta privacy legislation also applies. Private clinics providing psychological services in Alberta generally fall under the Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA), while the Health Information Act (HIA) governs health information held by custodians defined under that Act, such as public health providers. Your therapist can tell you which applies to your file and how your records are stored.

Confidentiality has legal limits. Your therapist may be required to disclose information when:

• There is a risk of serious harm to you or to another person
• There is a reasonable suspicion that a child is being abused or neglected, which carries a mandatory reporting duty under Alberta law
• Records are ordered released by a court

Your clinician will go through these limits with you in the first session, before you share anything personal, and you are welcome to ask questions about records, virtual sessions, insurance receipts, and information handling before you decide how much to say.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I have to describe everything that is going wrong at work?

No. You choose what to talk about and how much detail to give. Some people want to lay out the whole history of a job; others would rather work on what this week looks like and what they want to change. 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 rather than push for detail.

Is what I share kept private? Could my employer or insurer find out?

Sessions are confidential, and the clinic does not tell your employer, manager, or insurer that you are attending. If you submit a receipt for reimbursement, your insurer sees the information on that receipt, which is why some people pay privately instead. Confidentiality has legal limits, including risk of serious harm, suspected child abuse or neglect, and court orders. The confidentiality and privacy section above sets out the details, and your therapist will review them with you in the first session.

How many sessions will I need?

There is no fixed answer. Some people find relief from just 2-3 sessions when the goal is to think something through or prepare for one specific conversation. Others continue longer, particularly when work pressures are ongoing or several parts of life are competing at once. Your therapist reviews progress with you regularly, and you can pause or stop at any point.

What if the therapist is not the right fit?

Fit matters more than most other factors, and it is not a criticism of anyone if a match does not work. Tell your therapist or call the administrative team at 780-904-4880, and they will help you move to a different clinician. You will not be asked to justify the decision. New clients may access their first session at 50% off to help find the right therapeutic fit.

Can I meet with a therapist online?

Yes. Virtual sessions are available across Alberta, and many people find them easier to fit around a work schedule. The same confidentiality standards and privacy obligations apply to virtual appointments as to in-person ones. It helps to have a private space and a reliable connection, and your therapist can talk through options if that is difficult at home.

Will a therapist tell me whether I should quit my job?

No. Counselling is not a directive employment service. Your therapist can help you look at your values, your options, the pressures involved, and what you might be weighing without realizing it. The decision stays with you, and a good therapist will be careful not to steer it.

Can I get an assessment or a letter for my employer or insurer?

Not through this service. Psychological assessment is a separate service with a different process, and documentation for employers, insurers, or courts falls outside work-life balance counselling. If that is what you need, call the administrative team at 780-904-4880 and they can explain what the clinic offers and what would need a referral elsewhere.

Meet Your Clinicians

Wholesome Psychology's team includes Registered Psychologists, Registered Provisional Psychologists, Registered Social Workers, Canadian Certified Counsellors, Mental Health Therapists, and Student Therapists. All psychologists are registered with the College of Alberta Psychologists. Registered Provisional Psychologists practise under the supervision of a senior registered psychologist, which is a normal stage of registration in Alberta rather than a limitation on care.

Many clinicians here have training and experience in workplace stress, burnout, career transitions, caregiver strain, and the demands that come with shift work or high-responsibility roles. Each therapist works within their own scope of practice and will tell you directly if something you bring falls outside it.

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 a person. Therapist availability changes, so it is worth confirming before you plan around a specific clinician.

Children and Youth

Work pressures rarely stay inside one person. Children and teenagers often register a parent's stress, changed schedules, or a household under strain, even when nobody has explained what is happening.

Wholesome Psychology offers counselling for children, adolescents, and young people, with therapists who use age-appropriate approaches rather than adult methods scaled down. Clinicians working with younger clients also work alongside caregivers, since the environment around a child matters as much as the sessions themselves. If you are looking at this page for yourself but wondering about a child at home, the administrative team can help you think through whether family or individual support makes more sense.

Take the Next Step When You Are Ready

If a space to think about work, life, and what you want to protect sounds useful, here is how to start:

• Book a session online
• Match with a therapist
• Call: 780-904-4880
• Email: info@wholesomepsychology.ca
• Read what to expect on the Getting Started with Therapy page

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

Starting the conversation is enough.

References

• Canadian Psychological Association. (2021). "Psychology Works" fact sheet: Workplace burnout. https://cpa.ca/psychologyfactsheets/
• Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. (2020). Workplace mental health: A review and recommendations. https://www.camh.ca/
• National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. (2022). Mental wellbeing at work. https://www.nice.org.uk/
• Public Health Agency of Canada. (2024). Mental health in the workplace. Government of Canada. https://www.canada.ca/
• Sexton, J. B., Adair, K. C., et al. (2024). Well-being outcomes of health care workers after a 5-hour continuing education intervention: The WELL-B randomized clinical trial. JAMA Network Open.
• Statistics Canada. (2026, January 16). Canadian Survey on Working Conditions, 2024-2025. The Daily.
• World Health Organization. (n.d.). ICD-11 for mortality and morbidity statistics: Factors influencing health status, including problems associated with employment or unemployment. https://icd.who.int/