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Cassandra Kustec, Registered Psychotherapist at Blue Shores Counselling in Collingwood and Stayner.

Cassandra Kustec

Registered Psychotherapist

  • Accepting Wait List Clients
  • Virtual / In Person
  • Daytime, early evenings
  • $175 / Session

Hi, I’m Cassandra Kustec. My work as a Psychotherapist is grounded in empathy, non-judgment, and a belief in tailoring counselling to each person’s experience.

 

I am particularly passionate about helping young clients make sense of their inner world – supporting emotional understanding and regulation and helping to create healthy parent-child relationships.

 

I have completed additional training in play therapy and sand tray therapy, as well as trauma informed therapy. I use these approaches to help children and teens, as well as their families. I often support young people experiencing anxiety, mood challenges and emotional overwhelm, while also working closely with parents to strengthen understanding, connection, and confidence in supporting their child at home.

My approach is compassionate, collaborative and strengths-based, helping families navigate the challenges of life.

Individuals

Parents

Teens

Children

Families

Play Therapy

Sand Tray Therapy

Family Counselling

Parenting Support

Anxiety and Mood Challenges

Emotion Management for children

Trauma informed therapy

Group Programs for trauma informed expressive art therapy for children and teens

CBT

Sandtray Therapy for children

Child-centred Play Therapy

Expressive Arts therapy integration

Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MCBT)

Trauma Informed Therapy

Internal Family Systems (IFS)

BA

MACP

Play Therapy

Sand Tray Therapy

Prepare and Enrich couples counselling

Trauma Specialist

Individual Prepare and Enrich Couples Counselling

Outside of my counselling work, I’m passionate about living an active and engaged life. I love being outdoors — hiking with friends, exploring nature, and soaking in quiet moments of calm. I also cherish time with my family and partner, and I prioritize physical health and connection through regular activity.


Earlier in my journey, I coached gymnastics and trampoline, creating supportive spaces for athletes of all ages, and volunteered at a suicide and distress call centre, deepening my commitment to compassionate care. I bring that same care and presence into every session, and I’m here to support you as you navigate your path forward.

 

Couple Therapy

Emotion Focused Therapy (EFT)

Emotion-focused therapy can help you understand and transform the emotional patterns that shape your experiences and relationships. Rather than avoiding emotions, EFT helps you safely explore them so they can become a source of insight and healing.

Research shows that working through emotions in this way can lead to powerful shifts in self-understanding and connection with others.

EFT is particularly helpful for relationship challenges, as well as anxiety, depression, and trauma recovery.

Gottman Couples Therapy

Gottman Couples Therapy is based on over four decades of research into what makes relationships succeed or struggle. This approach can help you strengthen friendship, improve communication, and learn practical tools for navigating conflict in healthy ways in your relationship. You and your partner can learn how to understand each other more deeply and rebuild trust and emotional connection. Many couples find that this work helps them move from feeling stuck or disconnected toward a more supportive and fulfilling partnership.

Polyvagal & Somatic Therapies

Polyvagal theory allows you to understand how your body’s threat and safety systems operate and why certain reactions, such as anxiety, shutdown, or hyper vigilance, can occur.

Understanding the biology of your nervous system patterns can be incredibly empowering.
Through gentle awareness and regulation techniques, clients learn how to release stored stress and restore a sense of safety and balance in the body.

Somatic work can be especially helpful for trauma, chronic stress, anxiety, and emotional overwhelm, helping you feel more grounded, regulated, and connected to yourself. In turn, you can experience more connected, present, and joyfully engaged in life and in your relationships.

You can move out of survival mode and toward greater calm, resilience, and emotional freedom.

Internal Family Systems Therapy (IFS)

Internal Family Systems (IFS) views the mind as made up of different “parts”: your protective parts, your wounded parts, and your inner wisdom.

Rather than fighting against difficult emotions, IFS helps you understand and heal the parts of you that carry pain, fear, or shame. Through this process, many people

Equine Assisted Psychotherapy

Equine-assisted psychotherapy involves working alongside horses in a therapeutic setting to support emotional growth and healing.

Horses are highly sensitive to human emotions and can provide immediate, honest feedback about how we relate and communicate. This experience can help clients develop self-awareness, confidence, emotional regulation, and trust.

At Blue Shores, we offer highly specialized Equine Assisted Psychotherapy that integrates trauma therapies, including EMDR and DBR in the presence of our horse friends. Many people find that working with horses in this way creates powerful breakthroughs that complement traditional talk therapy.

Play & Sand Tray Therapy

Play and sandtray therapy provides children with ways to express feelings and experiences that may be difficult to put into words.

Through creative play, storytelling, and symbolic expression, children can process emotions, build confidence, and develop healthier coping skills.

These approaches are widely used in child psychology and supported by research in emotional development and trauma treatment. Parents are often included in the process so children feel supported both in and outside of therapy.

Neurofeedback Therapy

Neurofeedback is a brain-based therapy that helps regulate how the brain functions by providing real-time feedback about brainwave activity.

Using specialized technology, you can learn to strengthen healthier brain patterns associated with focus, calmness, and emotional regulation. Research shows neurofeedback can support concerns such as ADHD, anxiety, trauma symptoms, sleep difficulties, and mood regulation.

Over time, this training helps the brain become more balanced and resilient.

Deep Brain Reorienting (DBR) Trauma Therapy

Deep Brain Reorienting (DBR) is a neuroscience-based therapy that works with the trauma responses that live in the deep areas of the brain.

DBR is both innovative and well-researched, with promising results for relief from PTSD symptoms. It focuses on subtle physiological reactions that occur before conscious emotions and thoughts arise.

DBR therapists help their clients’ nervous system process deeply held trauma and attachment wounds through this gentle therapy and can help clients heal from traumatic injuries (including complex trauma and attachment wounding).

Mindfulness Based Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (MCBT)

Mindfulness-based therapy combines psychological science with mindfulness practices that help you become more present and aware of your inner experience.

Instead of being overwhelmed by thoughts or emotions, you learn how to observe them with curiosity and calm.

Research shows mindfulness can reduce anxiety, stress, depression, and emotional reactivity while increasing resilience and well-being. Through guided exercises and reflection, clients develop the ability to respond to life’s challenges with greater steadiness and clarity.

EMDR Trauma Therapy

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is a highly researched trauma therapy that helps the brain process and resolve distressing memories.

When difficult experiences are not fully processed, they can remain “stuck,” continuing to affect emotions, beliefs, and relationships.

EMDR uses structured techniques and bilateral stimulation to help the brain reprocess these memories so they lose their emotional intensity. Many clients find that EMDR helps them move beyond trauma, anxiety, and negative self-beliefs toward a greater sense of safety, freedom and enjoyment of life.