WREN ZHU, REGISTERED CLINICAL COUNSELLOR IN VANCOUVER, BC.
Healing starts with comfort
Let’s quiet the self-doubt so you can show up with more confidence and less apology.
You’ve spent so much of your life trying to “fit in,” but,
WHAT IF YOU WERE MEANT TO TAKE UP SPACE?
You were always told you were “too much” or “too sensitive” so you decided acceptance meant never speaking up and keeping your discomfort to yourself. Now you go along with what everyone else wants. Always being there when they need someone, but feeling like you don’t matter unless you keep being the person everyone relies on. No one makes you feel truly understood. You’re always liked, but you’re never truly seen.
The constant effort to make yourself small is numbing you inside and out. And even if it doesn’t look like much effort, constantly putting others before yourself has made you beyond exhausted. You’re cracking under the pressure of making it seem like you’re not falling apart from the outside. On the inside, you never stopped feeling like you’re falling behind.
Let’s find ways to put yourself first for a change.
I work with people who want to undo a lifetime of shame, fear, and isolation, and like you, are often diagnosed as neurodivergent later on in life. You’ve white-knuckled your way through life so far, but now you aren’t sure of who you are and how to handle the uncertainty you’re feeling. You’re used to figuring things out on your own, but those same strategies don’t seem to work anymore — and it feels deeply frustrating.
You’ve been resilient for so long — you had to be. Now all you want is to break out of the pattern you’ve been falling back into, whether if its anxiety, perfectionism, the weight of trauma, or family or cultural obligations.
Maybe you’ve tried therapy before and left disappointed, feeling like you just talked in circles without real progress. Maybe you were told medication would help, but it hasn’t either. Either way, you’re craving something deeper, something that actually gets beyond the symptoms and goes for the root of the problems.
You’re never “too much” here.
I believe therapy is foremost a place of comfort, where you can feel free to be yourself, without filters. So you can really get to know yourself, see your experiences through compassion, and nourish empathy for the parts of you that need it the most. You’ll walk away from our time together with everything you need to move forward into a life where you feel truly accepted and belong in.
We’ll begin by making sense of the patterns and experiences that shape your internal landscape. Reshaping the patterns in your present means we start in safety, and deepen into helping you understand the complexity of your experiences. Once you recognize how your past shapes your present life, we can create the space necessary to help you move forward and make choices aligned with your values, and continue to grow long after our work is over.
As a fellow neurodivergent person, I get that conventional talk therapy can sometimes feel deeply frustrating and leave you feeling worse and not better. I believe counselling approaches should embrace the uniqueness of who you are, and my experience and training focuses on providing an experience beyond surface-level symptom relief, because you deserve therapy that embraces your complexity and everything you’ve been carrying. When we work together, I want you to know that you’re never too much, and we’ll make space to welcome all of your experiences.
I believe therapy should be:
Comfort
Healing starts with a sense of comfort in your body and soul. Cultural obligations and trauma often leaves us in discomfort and pain, so creating comfort itself is an avenue for change. In therapy, I help clients feel safe and supported in your body, because safety and comfort is more necessary than ever when we seek to break out of old patterns.
Bespoke
By keeping my practice small, I’m able to keep things focused and give you the best support possible. If we work together, it’s because I’m confident I have the skills and expertise necessary to help you experience change. If I’m not the right person to do that, I will always find you to someone who can.
Training & Education
Education & Licensure
Registered Clinical Counsellor - British Columbia #21205
M. Counselling - City University
B. Sc. Biochemistry - University of British Columbia
B. Sc. Computer Science - University of British Columbia
Professional Training
Frank Anderson - Internal Family Systems - Trauma Treatment Program
Janina Fisher - Certified Clinical Trauma Professional Training Level 1 & 2
Leanne Campbell (ICEEFT) - Emotionally Focused Individual Therapy
Ellen Frank - Social Rhythm Therapy
Certified Autism Spectrum Disorder Clinical Specialist
ADHD Clinical Services Provider
Counselling With Wren
Contact
counsellingwithwren@gmail.com
209-2150 Western Parkway, Vancouver, BC
As an uninvited guest on stolen, ancestral territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), S’ólh Téméxw (Stó:lō), Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh), I commit myself to the continued work of assessing and responding to the ongoing impact of colonization.