Sydney Walker, M.A.

Registered Counselling Therapist – Candidate (RCT-C)

Sydney is a Registered Counselling Therapist-Candidate (RCT-C) with a background in contributing to mental health research at the IWK Health Centre. She brings an evidence-based lens to her work, integrating research-informed approaches into a warm, relational therapy space. She has also gained extensive clinical experience through her work with organizations such as Kids Help Phone, CAM’s Kids Foundation, Victorian Order of Nurses, and March of Dimes Canada, reflecting her commitment to supporting individuals across diverse contexts. 

Sydney’s Therapeutic Approach: 

Therapy offers a space to slow down, make sense of your inner world, and begin to understand the patterns shaping your relationships, emotions, and sense of self. Sydney often works with individuals who are already thoughtful and self-aware—people who have spent time trying to understand themselves, yet still feel stuck, overwhelmed, or disconnected from meaningful change. 

Her hope is that clients come to feel truly seen, understood, and met with compassion as they explore their inner experience. Her work is grounded in an attachment-informed perspective, particularly how needs for safety, closeness, and responsiveness might show up in present-day relationships and can be understood and responded to in more supportive and adaptive ways.

Sydney recognizes that even distressing symptoms often reflect understandable responses shaped by a person’s history and relationships. Her approach goes beyond symptom reduction; Sydney supports clients in understanding how symptoms may function as protective responses and in exploring the underlying emotional needs they may be pointing toward.

Clients Sydney works with may struggle with the following concerns:

• A strong inner critic or persistent self-doubt
• Anxiety and a constant stream of “what if” thoughts
• People pleasing and difficulty setting boundaries
• Feeling overwhelmed by emotions, or anger that seems to come out of nowhere
• Perfectionism or feeling like nothing is ever “enough”
• Knowing what they “should” do, but feeling stuck or unsure where to begin
• Burnout, exhaustion, or feeling like they are always running on empty
• Challenges in relationships, including feeling misunderstood or disconnected
• Overthinking interactions or worrying about how they are perceived
• Difficulty identifying or expressing their own needs
• Feeling responsible for others’ emotions or struggling with guilt
• Patterns of avoidance, shutdown, or withdrawal when things feel too much
• The impact of unresolved childhood experiences or emotionally neglectful environments
• A sense of disconnection from themselves or uncertainty about who they are

In therapy, clients can expect not only to learn skills to regulate their nervous system, shift self-critical patterns, and navigate relationships differently, but also to develop a deeper understanding of themselves that supports lasting change.

Couple’s Therapy

Sydney also has a special focus on working with couples, with training in Gottman Method Levels 1 and 2 and Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT). She supports couples navigating common challenges such as communication breakdowns, recurring conflict, emotional disconnection, trust concerns, and difficulty feeling understood or supported. Her approach focuses on identifying and shifting the patterns that keep couples stuck, while helping partners better understand each other’s emotional experiences and rebuild a sense of safety, connection, and responsiveness.

Sydney’s approach is informed by various modalities including; mindfulness-based therapies, Internal Family Systems (IFS), Psychodynamic, Emotionally-Focused Therapy (EFT), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and more.

Publications:

Factors related to post-traumatic stress disorder in parents of children with neurodevelopmental disabilities: A systematic review and narrative synthesis

Areas of Focus: Relationships | Couples | Individuals | Gottman Method