Emotional and Relational Coaching
Dr. Alyssa Herzig, PhD
Do you struggle with big emotions, negative self-talk, insecurities or fears?
Is it challenging for you to identify, communicate or prioritize your wants and needs?
Are fears holding you back from following through on your goals?
Let's deeply rewire these old patterns so you can finally feel connected to yourself, live in alignment with your wants and needs and passions, and enjoy confidence, inner safety, peace, self-love, and self-worth!
"Alyssa has helped me immensely with negative self talk, self doubt, lack of confidence and lack of connection with myself. As a result I’m happier, finding peace and learning to love myself, believing in myself more and more and improving my relationships with those around me." Jo Taylor, Australia
About Me
Hi and Welcome! I'm Dr. Alyssa Herzig.
My mission and passion are to develop and share leading-edge knowledge and skills for guiding you to gently clear old pain, trauma, and patterns, and to accelerate you into peace, wellness and thriving.
I’m a professional coach. I was trained as a psychologist with a combined PhD in clinical psychology and research methods from Concordia University in Montreal. I have 12 years of experience offering psychotherapy and coaching in university, hospital and private settings. And I’m a passionate nerd, experiential learner, and therefore a vigorous experimenter and practiser of everything I teach. I’ve studied somatics at Somatic Body and have spent years studying and practicing tantra, ritual, energy work, and movement.
My Approach
I offer a completely safe, non-judgement space where I will welcome and show you how to accept every part of you.
My coaching approach is strongly grounded in mindfulness (present moment awareness), experiencing the body (somatics) and whole-self acceptance, with emphasis on identifying and meeting emotional needs. I integrate valuable theory and tools from frameworks such as Emotion-Focused Therapy (EFT), internal family systems (IFS), core energetics, Jungian psychology, psychodynamic, transpersonal therapies, as well as eastern philosophies, such as Buddhist and tantric perspectives.
What makes me different
My interests, education, and philosophy set me up to offer you a unique coaching experience:
As a rigorously trained psychologist, I am well studied and practiced in guiding you to uncover and rewire learned and conditioned unconscious patterns and beliefs. My approach is trauma-informed and I have worked with hundreds of clients with trauma. As well, my decade of supervised psychologist-in-training experience has allowed me to cultivate a technical expertise beyond the training of coaching programs.
My approach is somatic and experiential, which means I help you connect with the wisdom of your own body through felt experience. This method allows you to understand and rewire patterns on a physical, emotional and energetic level as well as on a mental level (which goes far beyond the intellectual level of most talk-therapies.
As a coach, my approach is very practical and directive (if you want). I offer clear tools and strategies and step-by-step instructions for implementing them at home to create the transformation you want.
My approach works well with secular and spiritual frameworks. For those who are open, I combine evidence-based practices with mystical practices to rewire and transform your nervous system and beliefs.
This is a safe space - I support LGBTQA+, ethical nonmonogamy, sex positivity, and spiritual, religious, as well as secular frameworks.
I also offer psychedelic integration sessions. This means, I can offer you a safe space for you to process after your experiences.
Why Emotional Coaching
Many of experienced unmet needs for safety, connection or autonomy in childhoods or in important relationships, which created painful emotions. Then, we weren’t taught how to relate to our emotions in healthy, effective ways. Instead, we were conditioned to fight, fear, and feel shame for our feelings and needs. We learned to fear, reject, avoid, suppress, and numb them.
As a consequence, we fear rejection or abandonment, feel debilitating anxiety and insecurity, exhaustion, and resentment; feel trapped behind masks and in roles that leave us feeling disconnected and empty; and feel disconnected from our power.
Fighting with and suppressing big emotions produces profound inner turmoil. Unwanted parts of ourselves get cast away into our unconscious, where they get triggered, sabotage us and run the show! We get stuck in patterns of deprioritize our most longed for needs. We feel overwhelmed or shut down when trying to confront our deepest fears. We may turn to addictive and control patterns to disconnect from the pain. And ultimately, we feel blocked from going for and enjoying what we truly want.
We need ways to regulate our nervous systems, identify and meet our emotional needs and to feel heard, cared for, validated, soothed, calmed, safe, and grounded.
My Missions - To teach and show you, through embodied experience, how to:
1) process emotions properly (rather than stuff them down or avoid them) and
2) better identify, meet and communicate your emotional needs,
3) create an inner world that feels nurturing and supportive, and
4) step into your power.
The outcome of this is relief, peace, grounding, inner trust, and joy.
Who are my clients and what do we work on
To date, I have worked with hundreds of clients and have provided approximately 6000 hours of psychotherapy and coaching sessions. I have substantial experience working with clients with a range of mental health issues, such as depression, anxiety, trauma, adjustment disorders, and bipolar disorder. While working in hospital settings, I developed a specialization helping adults process and gently clear trauma, particularly the kind of trauma resulting from chronically unmet emotional needs in childhood.
Over the past three years, I have developed a particular focus and specialization in guiding people in letting go of shame and self-criticism and in cultivating self-worth, self-love, and self-acceptance. I want you to feel that you have your back and to feel safe in your body. I enjoy creating the safe and welcoming space for clients to explore their true selves. I deeply appreciate my work in guiding clients to identify and care for their most vulnerable or challenging parts, as well as their deep wounds, desires, needs, and challenging emotions. Through this integration process, they come to feel more empowered, grounded, and peaceful.
More recently, I have began working with clients to address challenges and goals in intimate relationships. In particular, this involves helping clients who are experiencing insecure attachments to better identify, honour, communicate, and meet their emotional needs and boundaries. This has involved working with clients to navigate ethical non-monogamy as well as to explore sexuality, in ways that feel safe and empowering.
In 2020, I received training in and began offering psychedelic integration sessions. This means, I can offer you a safe space for you to process after your experiences.
I have not described the full variety of goals I work towards with clients. I offer free 15 minute consultations, during which we can discuss your difficulties and goals and identify if my approach will meet your needs. Looking forward to working together. :)
"I love that her sessions combine practical, actionable approaches to problem solving with mindfulness techniques and connecting with the inner self on a deeper, more complex level. I take something away from every session, whether it’s a breathing exercise, a new tactic for self-soothing or a concrete, reasonable to-do list. She is kind, non-judgemental, knowledgeable and empathetic... My experience with Alyssa has been incredibly rewarding and I’d recommend her services to anyone looking to connect with both their mind and body in a deeper, more meaningful way."
- Kelly H., Montreal
How do we work in the sessions
What we do in sessions is tailored to your unique difficulties and goals. Here are some of the processes that I tend to focus on during sessions together:
Connect deeply with your body and your emotions. Bring conscious awareness into the physical body to identify and align with your felt experience, inner self, inner integrity, inner wisdom, core values, meaning, purpose, wants, in order to feel like you’re thriving.
Learn to identify and meet chronically unmet emotional needs, such as needs for acceptance, love, safety, trust, and validation. Learn to self-soothe.
Acknowledge and shift out of old patterns and pain learned from trauma, conditioning, and socialization and to move into thriving, connection, and presence. Live mindfully, deliberately and with empowerment.
Release suppressed or stuck emotions, and process trauma.
Learn to address and resolve internal conflict (e.g., between conscious and subconscious wants and needs). Learn to find balance between conflicting needs.
Identify, create space for, express and accept your rejected inner parts. This is a self-integration process which establishes internal harmony, trust, peace, and love
Resolve interpersonal and relational difficulties and goals, such as difficulties in forming secure attachment bonds and developing and setting healthy boundaries.
Learn to deliberately shift states by selecting and embodying neurological and feeling states through a variety of visualization and meditation tools.
Book a Coaching Session
One-on-one sessions are available through video conferencing and by phone.
50 minute sessions - $160 + tax
80 minute sessions - $180 + tax
*Please note, sessions are unlikely to be covered by your insurance unless you have flex coverage for coaching.
To book a session or a free 15 minute consultation, complete this form or send me an email at the address below:
A note on licensing and titles
My title is ‘coach’, not ‘psychologist’ as I am not registered with any provincial licensing body for psychologists. I have a PhD in Clinical Psychology from Concordia University, Montreal and 10 years of supervised experience. I am not licensed to diagnose or treat mental disorders. Instead, our focus is on imparting you with the understanding and skills to shift old patterns and behaviours, meet your emotional needs and goals, and cultivate inner harmony and peace.
