Working with a licensed couples counsellor, you’ll find an empathetic and neutral third party dedicated to helping both separated and committed couples. Faren is passionate about supporting relationships in all stages—whether you're navigating a broken or devastated connection, still feeling the butterflies, or finding yourselves in a place that feels a bit too ordinary.

Couples counseling offers a safe and supportive space for partners to address challenges in their relationship and work toward healthier attachment, boundaries, and dynamics.

Both partners are encouraged to share their perspectives openly, take responsibility for their role in the relationship, and build on qualities and skills such as active listening, empathy, attentiveness, vulnerable communication, choosing delight, and sharing the mental and emotional load.

The Prepare/Enrich course package is a six-session option designed for couples preparing for marriage or those seeking to enrich their existing marriage. The course begins with a science-backed formal assessment that each partner completes individually. This assessment explores personality traits, family of origin, and relationship dynamics, providing Faren with valuable insights into your relationship.

Using the facilitator’s report, Faren will guide you through the remaining course material, highlighting aspects that are relevant to your unique profile as a couple. Additionally, Faren will lead exercises and counseling sessions designed to set you up for success and bring meaningful change to your relationship.

Marriage is a significant commitment and a decision that can feel daunting for many couples, but it can also bring an abundance of blessings and growth. Recognizing this, the creators of Prepare/Enrich developed an assessment that has been proven to reduce divorce rates by 30%. By taking this course, you are taking meaningful steps toward making one of the most important decisions of your life.

Yes, abuse and infidelity are heartbreaking and difficult situations to face, but help is always available.

In these circumstances, the first step often involves exploring the reality of the couple's presenting issues, establishing boundaries to ensure each person’s physical and emotional safety, and collaborating on a treatment plan tailored to their journey ahead.

Yes! As long as your partner is willing to attend without coercion and consents to the therapeutic process, it is absolutely worthwhile to pursue couples counseling, even if they are initially reluctant. Faren is experienced in working with resistant partners and helping them engage meaningfully in the process.

Rest assured, Faren has extensive experience dealing with narcissists in both her personal and professional life. She has developed effective strategies for working with narcissists, designed to see through guises of grandiosity and people-pleasing. Additionally, couples counselling with Faren is an unbiased service tailored to each individual, ensuring both partners feel their needs are heard.

For couples counselling in Canada, psychotherapists are often faced with complex situations, including partner-to-partner abuse (intimate partner violence or domestic violence). The handling of such cases depends on legal, ethical, and professional guidelines.

In couples counselling sessions, therapists typically do not disclose private information shared by one partner without consent unless there is a serious safety concern. Reporting partner-to-partner abuse is not automatically mandatory unless specific circumstances arise. These circumstances may include:

1.      Risk of Serious Harm or Death: If there is an imminent risk of serious harm or death to one partner (e.g., threats of lethal violence), the therapist may have a duty to warn the endangered partner or contact law enforcement.

2.      Children at Risk: If the abuse involves children witnessing the violence or being in an unsafe environment, therapists are legally required to report the situation to child protection services.

If abuse is identified, Faren may recommend individual counselling for each partner to address the abuse and its effects. Continuing joint sessions in abusive situations can be unsafe and counterproductive.

Faren is careful to avoid influencing couples either way and instead focuses on guiding them through their own considerations and reality. While marriage should be protected to the highest degree, the belief that marriages should never end, regardless of circumstances, is a dangerous and unbiblical ideology.

While we aim to work within the beliefs, morals, and values of the client, we firmly believe that all forms of pornography use constitute infidelity, break family bonds, and can cause betrayal trauma within a relationship—an issue often overlooked and minimized by society and pop culture.

Research shows that the brain processes visual stimuli from pornography in ways that can activate neural pathways similar to those engaged during real-life sexual experiences. The distinction between virtual and real is blurred in the brain, leading to responses as though the events depicted are occurring in reality. This disrupts the dopamine system in the brain and can have severe consequences on an individual's personal and social life.

If you or a loved one are struggling with pornography or would like further resources to address its impact on relationships, please reach out to us at contact@farenzayda.com.

Emotional and psychological abuse involves patterns of behavior that harm an individual’s emotional well-being and mental health. It often includes tactics such as withholding, neglect, manipulation, verbal aggression, intimidation, humiliation, gaslighting, isolation, or subtly controlling behavior. These actions are intended to undermine a person’s confidence, attachment, security, or sense of self-worth.

Unlike physical abuse, emotional and psychological abuse doesn’t leave visible scars, but its effects can be profound, leading to anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, and difficulty trusting others. Examples of this abuse include constant criticism, threats, withholding attention, or using guilt and fear to control someone’s actions or emotions.

Faren works within your worldview, respecting your unique morals, values, and beliefs. She does not force her own perspectives but acts as a third party, providing support and guidance that aligns with your individual needs.

In couples counseling, differences in beliefs are natural, and Faren tailors each session to address the unique convictions and dynamics of the couple. Her approach prioritizes understanding, communication, and mutual respect, empowering couples to navigate challenges while honoring their individual values and strengthening their connection.

Faren is a Canadian Certified Counsellor (C.C.C.) with the Canadian Counselling and Psychotherapy Association (CCPA) and is a licensed psychotherapist (qualifying) with the College of Registered Psychotherapists of Ontario (CRPO). She holds an MA-counselling psychology and practices under the clinical supervision of Upstream Counselling and Brad Wilton, RP.

She is a trained facilitator for the Prepare-Enrich course and has worked with couples in both a ministry and clinical setting, under supervision.