thanks for being here
Hi, I’m Mahlia (she/they)
I am a registered clinical counsellor offering anti-oppressive mental health care to adults and youth navigating feelings of overwhelm, disconnection or isolation in a world that often feels like too much. Rooted in queer-affirming and trauma-informed care, this is a space to gently explore what it means to be fully human. There is room for all of you here.
May we be tender enough to feel; present enough to witness; humble enough to listen; courageous enough to act; accountable enough to change.
— Prentis Hemphill
my approach
My approach is holistic, meaning I attend to your whole (beautifully complex and intersectional) story—mind, body, history, relationships, culture—with humility, care, and gentle curiosity.
Much of my work is experiential which means I see therapy as an invitation to explore your life experiences, rather than explain them. This looks like moving beyond only verbal processing - to also attend to the emotional, somatic, creative and relational parts of your experience in real time.
I work with people who feel emotionally overwhelmed or disconnected—often due to past relational harm or the ongoing stress of navigating a world that hasn’t always made space for who they are. For many, therapy becomes a place to understand themselves more deeply, to build more nurturing relationships with themselves and others, and to move beyond survival toward a greater sense of integrity, meaning, self-worth, and joy.
While I draw from many different therapeutic traditions, our work together is always guided by what feels most supportive and meaningful to you. I prioritize collaboration, consent, and autonomy at every step.
Some of the frameworks that inform my practice include:
Intersectional feminist and queer-affirming perspectives
Interpersonal neurobiology and attachment theory (how our relationships shape us, past and present)
Somatic psychology (body-based tools for healing)
Mindfulness and self-compassion
Parts work (internal family systems and AEDP informed)
Harm reduction
Neurodiversity-affirming care
what I offer
My counselling services are offered both virtually and in-person in what is colonially known as Vancouver, BC
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Free consultation phone call
I offer a free 15 minute phone consultation to see if it feels like the right fit. This is an important part of the process and encourage folks to take this time.
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Individual counselling
Sessions fee is $174 for 50 minutes. I also offer 25, 75 or 100 minute sessions with the rates changing proportionally to the time allotted. Sliding scale and accessibility rates may be available!
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Relationship counselling
Session fee is $227 for 50 minutes. I also offer 75 or 100 minute sessions with the rates changing proportionally to the time allotted.
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Hormone and Surgical Readiness Assessments
$300 for two 50 minute sessions.
a little more about me
For the last 8 years I have worked in the mental health field, offering supports and care to folks who are navigating multiple systems of oppression. This has included anti-violence work addressing sexualized and gender-based violence, frontline harm reduction addressing houselessness and the toxic drug crisis, child and youth mental health care, and most recently, anti-oppressive therapy centered on queer, trans, and neurodivergent communities.
I have always identified as a big feeler, and have been told by many that I ask good questions. I suppose this is driven by an innate curiosity about how others experience -and survive - the world, and a genuine desire to hear more of the stories that shape us into who we are, where we come from, and where we might be going. I came to this work through recognizing the therapeutic potential of improvisational play, character development in clowning, and through a deep dive into other therapeutic practices such as meditation and generative somatics. What I offer to the people that I work with is inevitably informed by my life experiences, mentorship and learning along the way- and the influence of the many activists, advocates, organizers, writers, educators and healers who came before me, working to better our collective futures.
I am a queer, white, currently non-disabled, straight-sized femme of Ashkenazi Jewish and Irish/Scottish decent. I identify as an anti-Zionist, and believe in the self-determination and liberation of all people.
As an uninvited guest on the ancestral lands of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations, I continuously grapple with my own coloniality, and role in land and resource dispossession and occupation.
My intersecting identities shape the way I show up both in my work as a clinical counsellor, and the way I move through the world as a human being.
