Please note that Albert is now full time at the Cowichan Campus where he still provides counselling to all VIU students. Appointments for distance counselling or at the Cowichan Campus can be made by calling 250.746.3509.
Hello, my name is Albert Seinen, and I have been counselling at VIU since 2005. I am grateful to be part of this dynamic community and especially to be part of the lives of students. I have a MEd in Counselling Psychology and have been a member of the Canadian Counselling and Psychotherapy Association since 2000, certified since 2001.
For some of us, opening up to a stranger and confiding painful struggles and experiences is a big risk. We all have parts of ourselves that we don't feel safe to show to just anyone and it takes courage, strength, and trust to open up to a stranger. We develop rules from our families, cultures, and experience about how we think we can or cannot behave. What we can or cannot show about ourselves. Sometimes these rules become rigid rituals that prevent us from being flexible and open to the life that surrounds us. This always impacts our self-esteem and our connection to others and the world. Talking about our struggles begins the process of changing them and our relationship to them. I strive to be fully present with all the resources I possess from my years of counselling and living, in order to help you experience the resources that you possess that have been taking care of you through all that you have lived through. I invite you to leave the story of what you think about your self to be in the present moment where you experience your self. Healing, at its deepest level, occurs when we experience life through our felt sensations. When we meet together in our shared sense of the present moment, all that is shared is sacred. The life that protected us can be transformed to the life that we want. It is here that I would hope to journey with you.
I would like to thank Cowichan Tribes, whose traditional territory I reside in and the Snuneymuxw people for allowing us to work in their territory. I am inspired by Virginia Satir as well as by other Somatic, Mindfulness, Humanistic and Attachment theories. If desired, I offer EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) which can be useful for trauma, anxiety, and intrusive memories.
My passions include music, hiking, friendship, and learning. My family has a small farm we call Dandelion farm, which we share with a goat, a miniature horse, some sheep, cats and a dog, an orchard and a vegetable garden. Within the cracks of time I build all kinds of things and try to create music and poetry. I love the company of trees.