About Us:
Thrive Counselling Centre is the 2014 project of Dace Mars and Carson Kivari—built on the shoulders of their many teachers and mentors. Thrive is a healing space whose mission is to enable the deepest, safest, and most authentic expression of everyone involved. This means that clients and counsellors alike exist in an environment based entirely on becoming who we are more fully.
How is this done? Are these all buzzwords?
On the contrary: Thrive intends to help as many humans as possible exist as their most vibrant and fully realized selves but do so based on practical neuroscience and contemporary trauma-theory. Thrive’s Clinical Director, Carson, has trained and practiced since 2005 in Western Psychology, along the way developing a specialty in treating complex trauma in military veterans. He and Dace observed that the principles of emotional injury, as expressed in hurt soldiers, applied directly to civilians of all identity backgrounds. In 2014 it became their mission to translate the complicated and cutting-edge methods of trauma recovery they had learned to the general public. Their work exists on the idea that everyone has a nervous system. All identities, backgrounds, races and orientations have the potential for safe and empathic connection, and the right dose of education and humility can help us get there.
As the years went on, Carson continued to study the nervous system, practicing how to best help individuals, couples and families to escape chronic states of anxious, depressed, frozen or collapsed distress. Meanwhile, Dace studied traditional and shamanic medicine, seeking the greater picture of human well-being beyond the Western paradigm of just treating surface symptoms. As Thrive reinvented itself in 2019, the two reconnected as a sort of yin and yang. Along the way, they trained 20 practitioners, each selected to join the team because they were highly skilled, non-judgmental and fascinated with the field, but most important, they had open hearts that believed a better world is always within reach.
When you step into Thrive, you’ll likely feel right away that you’ve entered a space where people still believe in old-fashioned values of kindness, care and encouragement. The idea of love saving the day is a cliche for a reason. The only difference is that we observed more strategically how it could be supported by modern methods of attachment and trauma recovery as well as spiritual paths that have existed since time immemorial.
If you haven’t yet found the space that best resonates with who you are, consider Thrive—a counselling centre that based itself on creative imagination beyond what was already out there. Founded on a handshake and continued through trust and communication, Thrive is somewhere where sincerity and hope live.
If you’re open to a new path of discovery, we would be honoured to have you.