Summit Counselling Services — Specialty
Life Transitions CounsellingChange is hard. Even when it's exactly what you wanted.
Life will keep changing whether we're ready or not. Career shifts, relationship endings, new beginnings, loss, retirement, parenthood — every transition carries its own weight. Therapy gives you space to process it, and tools to move through it with more steadiness.
About Life Transitions Therapy
We are creatures of routine and consistency.
Change is hard. Hard, but inevitable. Life will continue to change and grow as you change and grow — and these shifts add extra stress and uncertainty that most of us underestimate. We are creatures of routine and consistency, and disruption to that — even when it's chosen, even when it's good — can leave us feeling unsafe, unmoored, or simply exhausted.
What we don't often acknowledge is that even positive transitions carry a physiological stress response. A promotion, a new relationship, the birth of a child, a long-awaited retirement — all of these activate the same nervous system response as unwanted change, because the brain treats novelty as uncertainty regardless of whether we wanted it.
Therapy for life transitions isn't about fixing what's broken. Most of the time, nothing is broken — you're simply navigating something significant, and doing it without a map. Our therapists help you process the grief of what's ending, build clarity about where you're going, and develop the tools to carry yourself through.
"Even positive changes cause stress for our bodies. Therapy isn't about fixing what's wrong — it's about navigating something significant with more support and less alone."
Areas of focus in life transitions therapy
- Career changes — job loss, promotion, field change, relocation for work
- Moving to a new city, neighbourhood, or country
- Graduating and entering adulthood
- Transition from teen to adult life
- Retirement from a long career
- Divorce, separation, or ending of relationships
- Marriage and new relationships
- Pregnancy and becoming a parent
- Changes in financial situation
- Coming out or transitioning
- Changes in your health or a loved one's health
- Shifts in relationships with friends or family
- Death, loss, and bereavement
- Empty nesting and shifts in parenting role
Common Transitions
The transitions we work with most
Life transitions are significant shifts — whether anticipated or unexpected — that change how we see ourselves and our place in the world. These are some of the most common we support.
Career & Work
Job loss, career pivots, promotions that don't feel as good as expected, burnout, relocation for work, or the complex identity shift of leaving a career you've built for years — work transitions often touch our sense of purpose and worth far more than we anticipate.
Relationship Changes
Whether you're navigating a new relationship, the end of one, the death of a partner, or the quiet grief of a friendship that's drifted — relationship transitions can shake the ground beneath everything else in your life.
Parenthood & Family
Becoming a parent, adjusting to a growing family, empty nesting when children leave home, caring for aging parents, or navigating postpartum mental health — family transitions are some of the most profound and most underserved.
Identity & Coming Out
Transitions around gender identity, sexual orientation, religious or cultural identity, or any significant shift in how you understand yourself deserve space, support, and a therapist who will meet you with genuine curiosity and care. See our 2SLGBTQIA+ care page.
Health & Illness
A new diagnosis, a significant change in your health or a loved one's health, recovery, or learning to live with a chronic condition all require adjustment that goes far beyond the medical. The psychological weight of health transitions is often underrecognized and undersupported.
Retirement & Later Life
Retirement is one of the most significant identity transitions adults face — and one of the least discussed clinically. Who am I if not my work? What gives my days structure and meaning now? Therapy helps you build that answer intentionally rather than stumbling into it.
Our Approach
Therapy your way — customized to your transition
At Summit, we believe in therapy that reflects the person in front of us — not a generic protocol. Life transitions come in an infinite variety of shapes, and the support that helps one person navigate a career change may look entirely different from what someone else needs to process a divorce or a retirement.
Our therapists work across the lifespan — with children, adolescents, adults, and seniors — and across every kind of transition. What they share is a commitment to understanding your unique story and building a treatment approach that actually fits it.
Sessions are available in person at our Brewery District, St. Albert, and Windermere locations, or virtually for clients anywhere in Alberta.
Therapeutic Approaches
How our therapists work
Our therapists draw on a range of evidence-based approaches depending on what the transition calls for — and what feels right for you.
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)
CBT helps identify and challenge the thought patterns that amplify the stress and uncertainty of change — the catastrophizing, the all-or-nothing thinking, the rigid expectations that make transitions harder than they need to be.
Somatic Experiencing
Major transitions are felt in the body as much as the mind — the tension, the restlessness, the exhaustion of sustained uncertainty. Somatic approaches help regulate the nervous system's response to change at a physiological level.
Acceptance & Commitment Therapy (ACT)
ACT helps you clarify what actually matters to you — your values, your commitments, your sense of meaning — and use that clarity to navigate change with greater intention and less suffering, even when the outcome is uncertain.
EMDR
When a transition is connected to traumatic loss or a difficult history, EMDR helps process the underlying material so it no longer activates in the present. Particularly useful for transitions involving grief, health, relationship endings, or identity change.
Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART)
ART offers efficient, evidence-based relief for the distress associated with specific transitions or losses — often producing meaningful results in fewer sessions than traditional approaches, making it well-suited for focused transition support.
Solution Focused Therapy (SFT)
For clients who want to spend less time analyzing the past and more time building toward what's next, solution-focused approaches offer practical, forward-looking support that builds momentum and confidence.
Mindfulness & Positive Psychology
Mindfulness-based approaches help build the capacity to stay present during uncertainty — rather than being pulled constantly into anxiety about the future or grief about the past. A grounding practice that supports most other therapeutic work.
Emotion Focused Therapy (EFT)
For transitions that carry significant grief, loss, or identity disruption, EFT helps access and process the deeper emotional experience — the sadness, the fear, the relief, the ambivalence — rather than moving past it too quickly.
Book a Session
Find us in Edmonton, St. Albert & Windermere
All three locations offer life transitions therapy in person, with virtual sessions available for clients anywhere in Alberta.
Wîhkwêntôwin ᐄᐧᐦᑫᐧᐣᑑᐃᐧᐣ (Oliver)
Grandin Plaza, 2nd Floor
Edmonton, AB
Common Questions
Life transitions therapy — your questions answered
Our Therapists
Therapists who specialize in life transitions
The clinicians below work with individuals navigating significant life changes. Use the Find Your Fit tool to explore further, or start with a free 15-minute consultation before committing to a session.
Related Support
Other areas we work with
You don't have to figure out what's next alone.
Your first phone consultation is free — no commitment, no pressure. Just a conversation about where you are and whether we're the right fit.
We acknowledge that our practice is located in Treaty 6 territory, on the traditional lands of the Cree, Saulteaux, Niitsitapi (Blackfoot), Métis, and Nakota Sioux Peoples, including our Brewery District office in Wîhkwêntôwin ᐄᐧᐦᑫᐧᐣᑑᐃᐧᐣ (Oliver). We recognize that healing and reconciliation is a responsibility shared by all.