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Edlanete
&
Welcome to Four Directions Holistic Counselling

At Four Directions Holistic Counselling, counselling is understanding the Two-Eyed Seeing approach in helping each client on their healing journey.  Life can be stressful, the feeling of being overwhelmed and navigating moments of challenges can leave us feeling like giving up.  Finding balance in the four areas of Physical, Emotional, Mental Health and Spiritual; can help you recognize and understand your healing journey.  As an Indigenous Mental Health Therapist, I am here to help you and offer a safe space to talk and heal.

Marsi Cho and Many Thanks,

Amanda Balsillie, MSW, RSW

Amanda Balsillie is the owner of Four Directions Holistic Counselling in Beaver County, Alberta. She is a member of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation, a fly-in community, in northeast Alberta. In this Mind Games exploration, Balsillie shares her motivation to provide her services using horses as part healing to Indigenous clients, however, she is not able to bill to NIHB, Canada’s Non-Insured Health Benefits Program for Indigenous peoples. She is able to bill other insurance providers. She says the experience has been upsetting. Balsillie says being out in nature is an integral component to the healing of Indigenous peoples as Indigenous culture is very connected to horses. In a two-year investigation TVO, the IJB and Toronto Star journalists revealed gaps in Canada’s NIHB program for Indigenous peoples. The journalists interviewed over 60 current and former clients, therapists, physicians, and Indigenous mental health advocates, many of whom described a “broken” system that, they claimed, sometimes does more harm than good.

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