Resources
I provide counselling to all communities in Greater Vancouver including Surrey, White Rock, Burnaby, Richmond, New Westminster, Delta, Coquitlam, Langley, Abbotsford, Mission, and Maple Ridge.
Resources
Harvelle Hendrix’s Imago recipe for an everlasting relationship
Be KIND
Practice these four skills to develop strength, connection and lasting love in your relationship:
Know that your partner is not you! Accept & embrace the differences. Be an advocate for your partner’s separate reality and potential.
Increase your appreciation of your partner! Tell your partner, daily, what you appreciate about him/her.
No negativity! Make your relationship a sacred space by removing all negativity.
Dialogue always! Practice the Imago dialogue until it becomes second nature.
John Gottman’s “Four Horseman of the Apocalypse”
Are you experiencing any of the following in your relationship?
Criticism: negativity about your partner’s character.
Contempt: sarcasm, cynicism, name-calling, eye-rolling, & mockery.
Defensiveness: blaming & attacking your partner.
Stonewalling: tuning out, disengaging from, & avoiding your partner.
After studying marriages for 16 years, relationship expert John Gottman identified that the above four communication habits in a relationship predict future divorce with amazing accuracy. If you are experiencing even one of these on a regular basis in your relationship, therapy would be beneficial to prevent the pain and stress that come with letting it go unchecked.
Child & Youth Mental Health
Children and youth look to adults to navigate the world. In the present situation, parents and caregivers can be good role models by taking good care of themselves, physically and mentally.
7 Tips for Talking to Kids About COVID 19
Let them know the lines of communication are going to be open and as you learn more, you will share the information with them.
Qmunity Vancouver
QMUNITY is a non-profit organization based in Vancouver, BC that works to improve the lives of the queer community through services, connection and leadership.
Everyday Anxiety Strategies for Educators (EASE)
EASE – Everyday Anxiety Strategies for Educators is a collection of school-based, evidence informed, anxiety management and resilience-building resources for use by educators with B.C. students in grades K-7.
Supporting kids in the time of COVID-19
The COVID-19 public health emergency is putting a lot of pressure on parents, caregivers and others who work with children. They must explain challenging concepts to help children manage their fears and keep routines as stable as possible.
Sources Community Resources Society
Is a community-based non-profit organization in White Rock, BC, who offers subsidized counselling services. Staff and volunteers provide social wellness programs to support the community through leadership, education and volunteerism. Sources’ services address individual and community issues, such as isolation, addiction, mental illness, poverty, disability and conflict.
Healthy Minds BC
It can be hard for adults to know what to say or do to ease a child’s worries, especially during times of change and uncertainty. As the most important big people in their world, parents and caregivers can help children feel safer and soften the sharp edges of whatever is making their worries grow.
Canadian Mental Health Behavior & Anxiety Programs
Worried about your child’s anxiety or behaviour challenges? Struggling to get through daily activities with your child? Ready to learn new strategies to support you and your child?
Collaborative Divorce
Is a better approach to navigating divorce that aims to be less stressful, less expensive, and avoid court.
Helping Children Cope with Stress
Children may respond to stress in different ways such as being more clingy, anxious, withdrawing, angry or agitated, bedwetting etc.
Respond to your child’s reactions in a supportive way, listen to their concerns and give them extra love and attention.
Alexandra Neighbourhood Services
Youth and Family Workers support families, parents and caregivers of children ages 0-13 to strengthen relationships and access information and resources to meet their unique goals.
Imago Workshop
Looking for some help for your relationship? This is the best weekend workshop in the greater Vancouver area, presented by two master Imago therapists, Maureen McEvoy & Tamara Adilman (and myself as the support therapist). The psycho-educational workshop teaches tools that enhance communication, conflict management, and connection. These tend to fill up, so click below to register and save your spot!
Greater Good Science Center
Don’t have to time read parenting books? Here are some helpful short videos developed from ongoing child development research at UC Berkeley. They focus on parenting key principles and what you can do at home to raise your kids to be successful, kind, and confident people.
Brené Brown
Brene Brown studies human behavior and is one of the most profound, enlightening people I’ve come across. Here she is presenting on vulnerability and connection, and her take home message is the way to have truly deep human connection is to be vulnerable with others. Everyone in a relationship should watch this.
The Imago Dialogue
Dr. Ben Cohen gives practical advice to couples looking to improve their communication.
The Polyvagal Theory
Want to know a little more about the complexity of our nervous system and social behavior? Here is a 30 minute video presented by Seth Porges, who does a great job explaining how our body and brain respond to varying degrees of threat, from minor daily interactions with your partner all the way up to a trauma response.
Emily Nagoski explains how to have a great sex life!
How can we unlock the door to our own authentic sexual well-being? Sex educator Emily Nagoski suggests that the key is realizing that we are all normal, whatever our proclivities. In this playful but informative take on sex positivity, she delves into the science of sexuality to demonstrate how we can shed our insecurities and define pleasure on our own terms.
A Neuroscience Love Song
Check out this video that explains the hormones and neurotransmitters released while we fall in love….
Oprah & Imago
How Your Childhood Affects Your Adult Relationships | Oprah’s Lifeclass | Oprah Winfrey Network
Mike Birbiglia: The New One
About to have a baby? Just had one? Already a parent of 4? Calling all parents! Get cozy on the couch and spend a night watching Mike Birbiglia’s Netflix special (and book )The New One. He opens up about his life as a dad with a balance of humour and vulnerability that all of us can relate to but some of us don’t like to share with others. Vulnerability leads to connection and we are missing that very much right now. We all need a good laugh and a reminder that we all struggle and that’s okay. This special could be just what your relationship needs. All we can do is our best, grow and learn to be better, and aim to be good enough parents.
Zero Negativity Kit
Geared toward couples who have some experience with Imago theory, this kit will track your progress in removing negativity from your relationship and facilitate the experience of transformation. It provides a procedure on how to monitor your relationship to regulate your negative exchanges and how to repair your relationship when you digress from connecting into negativity.
Love Language Quiz
Take the 5 Love Languages® official assessment to discover your love language and begin improving your relationships. Your love language profile will explain your primary love language, what it means, and how you can use it to connect to others.
An Introduction to Imago
At some point in their relationship, couples often find themselves struggling with anger and shock, despair and sadness. Some are newlyweds, and can’t understand how they have plummeted from the heights of love and glory into a swamp of
hopelessness and conflict.
About Sensorimotor Psychotherapy
Sensorimotor Psychotherapy provides clients with tools to deal with disturbing bodily reactions, and they frequently report feeling increasingly safe as they begin to learn how to limit the amount of
information they must process at any given moment by focusing attention on sensation.
Has some time opened up for reading?
I listened to an interview with Glennon Doyle and bought her latest book, and it’s pushing me to think differently about how I live my life. This book is about overcoming fear and living life as your fierce, courageous, authentic self. As we all have more time to reflect on ourselves, think about what you fantasize about doing. What do you keep coming back to? If you listened to the fire inside of you, what is it burning to tell you? The take home message: Be who you are.
Recommended Books
Transforming the Difficult Child: The Nurtured Heart Approach
Transforming the Difficult Child brings to life a new way of shifting intense children to a solid life of success. The Nurtured Heart Approach puts a refreshing spin on both parenting and teaching and reveals new techniques and strategies that create thoroughly positive behaviors.
CLICK HERE
Getting the Love You Want by Harvelle Hendrix & Helen LaKelly Hunt:
Imago Relationship Therapy helps couples transform their relationship into being able to safely manage conflict while staying connected using the effective communication tool of the Imago Dialogue.
CLICK HERE
Giving the Love That Heals by Harvelle Hendrix & Helen LaKelly Hunt:
Imago Parenting helps parents deeply listen to and connect with their children using the dialogue and learn about how their own childhoods influence themselves as parents.
CLICK HERE
Parenting from the Inside Out by Daniel Siegel
In Parenting from the Inside Out, child psychiatrist Daniel J. Siegel, M.D., and early childhood expert Mary Hartzell, M.Ed., explore the extent to which our childhood experiences shape the way we parent. Drawing on stunning new findings in neurobiology and attachment research, they explain how interpersonal relationships directly impact the development of the brain, and offer parents a step-by-step approach to forming a deeper understanding of their own life stories, which will help them raise compassionate and resilient children.
CLICK HERE
How to Talk so Kids will listen, and listen so Kids will talk by Adele Faber
The ultimate “parenting bible” (The Boston Globe) with a new foreword—and available as an ebook for the first time—a timeless, beloved book on how to effectively communicate with your child from the #1 New York Times bestselling authors.
CLICK HERE
Hold on to your kids: why parents need to matter more than peers By Gordon Neufeld & Gabor Maté, MD
This parenting classic on one of the most disturbing and misunderstood trends of our time–peers replacing parents in the lives of children–is now more relevant than ever. The latest edition includes new material on how social media and video game culture are affecting our children, and what parents can do.
CLICK HERE
The Gifts of Imperfect Parenting: Raising Children with Courage, Compassion, & Connection By Brene Brown
We all know that perfect parenting does not exist, yet we still struggle with the social expectations that teach us that being imperfect is synonymous with being inadequate. These messages are powerful and we end up spending precious time and energy managing perception and the carefully edited versions of the families we show to the world. On The Gifts of Imperfect Parenting, Dr. Brené Brown invites us on a journey to transform the lives of parents and children alike. Drawing on her 12 years of research on vulnerability, courage, worthiness, and shame, she presents ten guideposts to creating what she describes as “wholehearted” families where each of us can continually learn and grow as we reach our full potential.
CLICK HERE
Connection Parenting by Pam Leo
CONNECTION PARENTING is based on the parenting series Pam Leo has taught for nearly 20 years. Pam’s premise is that every child’s greatest emotional need is to have a strong emotional bond with at least one adult. When we have a bond with a child we have influence with a child. Pam teaches us that when we strengthen our parent-child bond we meet the child’s need for connection and our need for influence. “…here is a concise, simple, eminently readable and instructive summary of the knowledge Pam has gained through these years of devoted service. I can’t recommend this book highly enough and will surely promote it at every opportunity.” ~ Joseph Chilton Pearce, author, MAGICAL CHILD
CLICK HERE
Whole Brain Child (Developing Mind)
12 Revolutionary Strategies to Nurture Your Child’s Developing Mind: Survive Everyday Parenting Struggles, and Help Your Family Thrive. In this pioneering, practical book, Daniel J. Siegel, neuropsychiatrist and author of the bestselling Mindsight, and parenting expert Tina Payne Bryson demystify the meltdowns and aggravation, explaining the new science of how a child’s brain is wired and how it matures. The “upstairs brain,” which makes decisions and balances emotions, is under construction until the mid-twenties. And especially in young children, the right brain and its emotions tend to rule over the logic of the left brain. No wonder kids can seem—and feel—so out of control. By applying these discoveries to everyday parenting, you can turn any outburst, argument, or fear into a chance to integrate your child’s brain and foster vital growth. Raise calmer, happier children using twelve key strategies. Dr. Siegel is also the author of The Mindful Brain and The Developing Mind.
CLICK HERE
Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids
How to Stop Yelling and Start Connecting Based on the latest research on brain development and extensive clinical experience with parents, Dr. Laura Markham’s approach is as simple as it is effective. Her message: Fostering emotional connection with your child creates real and lasting change. When you have that vital connection, you don’t need to threaten, nag, plead, bribe—or even punish. This remarkable guide will help parents better understand their own emotions—and get them in check—so they can parent with healthy limits, empathy, and clear communication to raise a self-disciplined child. Step-by-step examples give solutions and kid-tested phrasing for parents of toddlers right through the elementary years.
CLICK HERE
Boy Smarts: Mentoring Boys for Success at School
Educators and parents hoping to inspire boys to excel at school now have a new tool at their disposal; Boy Smarts – Mentoring Boys for Success at School. In this book, you will find 100 imaginative and practical guidelines for authentic engagement in meeting boys’ varied learning needs. The guidance offered here can help parents and teachers in the challenging task of understanding each boy as an individual while also working toward a community plan to raise boys’ school achievement. The common sense approach offers to lay the groundwork for an action plan to mentor boys for school success – a manual for kick-starting boys integrity.
How Do I Get Started?
Book Appointment
Once we have done the complimentary session, If we are a good fit, we will schedule our first appointment
1st Session!
We will address your concerns, history, goals, and expectations, and leave with a sense of hope.
Once you become a client, you get access to lots of FREE clinical and relationship resources to help you at home. Fill out contact form below to schedule a consultation with Grace.
Contact Me
Ask a question or book an appointment below.
1480 Foster Street #26 White Rock, BC V4B 3X7
grace@gracemcdonald.ca
A Tribute to Anne Walsh
Anne is a local talented artist who lives in Crescent Beach, and her paintings capture the beauty of our community. I’m honored to have her work on my website, to illustrate the importance of taking care of your family.
Grace's portrait shots by Erin Ocampo