Antonela is currently a Masters of Counselling student in the final year of her program through Athabasca University with the hope of working towards registration as an RCC with the BCACC following graduation. She has a Bachelor of Arts in Applied Behaviour Analysis from Capilano University and previously studied Psychology at the University of British Columbia. Antonela has extensive experience supporting neurodiverse individuals and their support people having worked as a Behaviour Consultant for several years and in the field for nearly a decade. She has experience working with people of all ages and is fluent in English, Croatian, Serbian, and Bosnian.

Her personal experiences as a woman, second-generation immigrant, survivor, life-long learner, and advocate have shaped who she is a practitioner. You will find that she is compassionate, open, engaged, responsive, respectful, kind, and fair.

Antonela takes a flexible, accessible, person-centred, trauma-informed approach in her work and has often supported those experiencing intense stress, anxiety, depression, OCD, and various developmental and intellectual disabilities such as ASD, FASD, and ADHD. She is also passionate about supporting families, children of immigrants, women, women who have experienced sexual trauma, those with anxiety and/or depression, those experiencing challenges with self-esteem and/or life transitions, as well as neurodiverse individuals of all abilities and their support people.

She hopes to support and empower her clients through all aspects of life when they may be feeling frustrated and/or hopeless by focusing on client goals as well as providing appropriate support and education. She believes that therapy should be a safe space to invoke curiosity, reflect, and engage in self-growth. She is open to working with all while fostering a genuine, positive therapeutic relationship.

Antonela bases her practice largely in cognitive and behavioural modalities of counselling including Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), and Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT), however, she also utilizes tools from Narrative Therapy, Solution Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT), and Emotion Focused Therapy. She recognizes that therapy is not a one size fits all experience and will tailor her approach to suit you. Antonela believes that we are the primary decisive element in our own environments and we have tremendous power to recognize this, make choices, and take direct action in order to facilitate personal growth and change.

In her free time, you can find Antonela spending time with her fiancé; reading, binging a good show, going for walks, playing board games, hosting friends, exploring all the good eats the lower mainland has to offer, and planning her next trip.