Nanaimo Counsellors

Bruce Youngren M.A., RCC
For 30 years, Bruce has been honored to host healing and helpful counselling conversations built on respect, compassion and a belief in each person’s inherent value and capacity to live their lives to the fullest.

He specializes in assisting with substance use disorders, workplace stress, critical incident stress management, work/life balance, grief and loss, elder and family caregiving, emotional upset of many kinds and developing an authentic, congruent and balanced life. His approach is encouraging and goal oriented.  It is also addiction and trauma informed.

Together, we will explore patterns in your thinking, beliefs, behavior and emotions.  Patterns that may be keeping you from more fully connecting to yourself, the world around you, the relationships that are important to you and a deeply meaningful inner life.  When we reconnect to these things, we reconnect to our wellness, balance, and fulfillment. We are more likely to align ourselves with what matters most to us.   Together, we will shape practices and behaviors that reflect and serve who you are and how you wish to live your life.  We will identify what is already useful in your life and how to be intentional about it.

Over the years, clients say they appreciate Bruce’s kind, knowledgeable and authentic style.  He would be honored to join you on your path of personal discovery, recovery and transformation.  Bruce takes time to nourish  himself with regular tai chi practice, ongoing personal and professional development and especially, quality time with family and friends.

Yiana Belcher, B.A.A, B.Ed, MATCP, RCC
Yiana is a registered clinical counselor living on the unceded territory of the Snuneymuxw First Nations peoples. She is an artist, biodynamic gardener, budding woodworker, and former teacher in Ontario and British Columbia in public schools, an alternative school, and in the international Waldorf school community. As a volunteer in support of the living communities of eastern Ashtanga yoga master, Baba Hari Dass, Yiana helped for periods over three years to bring a caregiving initiative for seventy-six parentless children in northern India.

Yiana completed a master’s degree in Transpersonal Clinical Psychology, with a creative expressive therapy specialization, from Sofia University in Palo Alto, California. Following four hundred hours of practica working with couples, individuals, and families through the Cowichan Hospice Society, Cowichan Family Life, and Nanaimo Family Life, Yiana opened a private practice in 2017. In 2022 she contracted with the Vancouver Island Counselling Centre for Immigrants and Refugees in Victoria, working with war traumatized children and adults.

Last year, Yiana released a two-book set, called “The Pearl and the Hut” series, for the care of children and adult children of divorce in light of western evidence-based psychotherapies, world consciousness and spiritual philosophies, and international Waldorf education and curative pedagogy. Her book-related work was recently presented at an international conference in Manitoba.

Yiana is a non-practicing member in good standing with the BC College of Teachers, a member of the British Columbia Association of Clinical Counsellors, and a member of the Anthroposophical Society of Canada.

Adam Layne M.A.
Adam received his Masters in Counselling Psychology in May of 2023 and is in the process of becoming accredited through both the CCPA and the BCACC. Prior to this, Adam studied business, political science, biology and psychology at the undergraduate level.

A mariner for over twenty years, Adam can connect with individuals from all walks of life and is a strong proponent of meeting the client where they are at through person-centered therapy; individuals are drawn towards their own self-actualization and the therapist is merely a guide in the process of self-discovery. Alongside this backdrop, Adam is drawn to mindfulness through meditation, the importance of personal narratives, and how early attachments inform the nervous system within relationship to the self, the other, and how we meet the world each day and over time.

Adam is interested in working alongside individuals from all backgrounds and is particularly interested in meeting those that are experiencing loss, anger, life transition, depression and troubles within their relationships. It is his hope that through working together life becomes easier, more enjoyable, and that the “here and now” of life gains new meaning and poignancy.

Adam pauses in life by finding the trails seldom trekked, camping in forgotten places, fishing the deep canyons of wild Vancouver Island and enjoying the company of friends and family over great food.