Joanna Zelichowska Counselling

Hello and welcome.

I’m Joanna, a Registered Clinical Counsellor with over a decade of experience working across clinical, public health, and non-profit sectors. Across all of these settings, the one thread that has remained constant in my work has been supporting people in their relationship with food, their bodies, and themselves.

I believe that how we eat, how we care for ourselves, and how we feel in our bodies are rarely just simple lifestyle concerns. They’re often reflective of deeper patterns: how we show up for ourselves, how we form our sense of self, and how much capacity we have to sit with the complex emotions and challenges that shape our lives. These are some of the holistic threads I’ve been most interested in exploring with my clients and represents the heart of my work.

Within this area, I work with people navigating a wide range of experiences, including those who:

• Have been diagnosed with an eating disorder
• Have a long history of disordered eating, chronic dieting, or weight cycling
• Want to repair their relationship with their body image
• Are examining whether medical intervention for weight management is the right choice for them
• Are seeking support pre- and post- bariatric surgery
• Are currently using GLP-1 medications and seeking supportive counselling to make the best use of these tools

I approach therapy through and weight-inclusive, trauma-informed lens that holds complexity without judgment.

Beyond food and body work, I also support people through:

• Grief and loss
• Trauma
• Life transitions
• Depression
• Anxiety
• Navigating relationships of all kinds
• Existential explorations of identity, meaning and better understanding yourself and how you move through the world

I hold a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and a Master of Arts in Counselling Psychology, both from the University of British Columbia. My practice is informed by a range of therapeutic approaches including Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, Dialectical Behaviour Therapy, existential and humanistic therapies, and trauma-informed frameworks. I draw on whichever combination feels most relevant to you and what you’re working through. That said, I believe the modalities matter less than the relationship. What I’m most committed to is creating a space that feels safe, open, curious, and genuinely nurturing.