Bringing Mind‑Body & Walk‑and‑Talk Therapy to Kingsway Counselling
We’re delighted to announce that Jacqueline MacKinnon has joined Kingsway Counselling as a Licensed Counselling Therapist‑Candidate, bringing with her a warm, embodied, client‑centered approach that complements our commitment to holistic mental health and healing. Offering support to adults aged 18 and over, Jacqueline uses therapeutic modalities designed to reconnect mind and body, support self‑compassion, and foster growth through both traditional in‑office and nature‑based sessions.
Who Is Jacqueline MacKinnon?
Jacqueline is deeply committed to helping individuals build resilience, reduce stress, and develop greater self‑understanding. She believes that healing happens not only through talk, but also through how we live, move, feel, and sense ourselves in our bodies. With a grounding in embodiment, she guides clients to reconnect with their inner experience, to recognize how emotions are held physically, and to foster emotional regulation from a place of safety and trust.
Her approach is gentle, attuned, and paced to suit each person’s comfort. Whether one is navigating transitions (career changes, relationship shifts, loss), recovering from chronic stress or trauma, or simply seeking a deeper, more integrated sense of self, Jacqueline offers a variety of pathways toward healing.
What Services Does Jacqueline Offer?
Jacqueline’s work with clients centers around two complementary modalities:
1. Mind‑Body Therapy (in‑office)
Mind‑body therapy integrates insights about how emotional states, past experiences, and present‑moment stress are stored in the body, influencing everything from posture and breathing to tension and energy flow. Sessions under this modality might include:
- Body awareness practices: cultivating gentle attention to sensations, posture, breath, gestures, and noticing where in the body there might be tightness, constriction, or holding.
- Grounding techniques: helping clients feel rooted and present through breathwork, somatic practices, guided imagery, or mindful awareness of the here and now.
- Emotional regulation strategies: learning to work with emotional responses, and identifying triggers, tolerating intensity, soothing the nervous system.
- Trauma‑informed care: recognizing that trauma lives in the body, offering safety, choice, and pacing in how exploration proceeds.
This modality is particularly helpful for people struggling with anxiety, trauma, chronic stress, as well as for those seeking to deepen their self‑awareness and improve their ability to respond (rather than react) in challenging situations.
2. Walk‑and‑Talk Therapy (Outdoors)
To complement the in‑office mind‑body work, Jacqueline offers walk‑and‑talk therapy along scenic trails in the region. This modality leverages the power of nature, movement, and open space to support reflection and healing. Key features include:
- The healing effects of nature: exposure to natural surroundings helps reduce rumination, lower cortisol (the stress hormone), and promote mental clarity. Trees, fresh air, birdsong, wind through leaves: these are more than backdrop, as they work therapeutically as well.
- Gentle movement: walking loosens physical tension, encourages circulation, can promote the release of held emotion, and allows energy to flow more freely.
- Spatial metaphor: as clients walk, they may find new perspectives.Just as paths wind, shift, and turn, so may one’s thoughts, feelings, identity. Movement often inspires insight.
- Flexible pace: sessions proceed at a pace that feels right. We stop to rest, to breathe, to look around. You set the rhythm. The active yet grounded nature of walk‑and‑talk can feel less constricted than in‑office settings for many people.
Walk‑and‑talk therapy is especially suited to those who feel restless in traditional therapy, or who find that change happens more naturally when there is space to move. It also benefits those who wish to work outdoors, in daylight, with less barrier between body and environment.
Benefits of Jacqueline’s Approach
Jacqueline’s style, which bridges mind, body, and environment, offers many tangible and intangible benefits. Here are some of the ways her clients may be supported:
|
Benefit |
What It Looks Like in Jacqueline’s Therapy |
|
Greater self‑awareness |
Not just what you think or feel, but what your body says. You may begin to notice patterns of tension, habitual holding, breath changes, that signal stress or past hurt. |
|
Improved emotional regulation |
Learning tools to calm anxiety, tolerate high emotion, respond rather than rebound, using body‑based cues as well as cognitive awareness. |
|
Trauma healing |
Safely exploring where trauma lives in body and memory, integrating somatic work to accompany traditional talk therapy, thereby reducing overwhelm. |
|
Stress reduction |
Walking in nature, grounding practices, and somatic release all contribute to lowering stress markers, improving mood, sleep, and overall wellbeing. |
|
Deeper self‑compassion & resilience |
Building a more caring relationship with oneself; learning to move through life’s transitions with kindness and steadiness. |
|
Flexibility of environment |
Having options, in‑office or outdoors, so that therapy feels accessible, comfortable, and attuned to what feels safe and possible for each person. |
Who Can Benefit Most?
Jacqueline works best with adults (18+) who are:
- seeking support for anxiety, chronic stress, or trauma recovery
- navigating life transitions (new job, relocation, change in relationships, loss, retirement)
- wanting to increase their mind‑body awareness (to feel more grounded, more embodied, more fully themselves)
- preferring therapy outside of the “traditional” therapy room
- needing a gentle, patient pace; someone who values safety, attunement, and collaboration in therapy
What to Expect in a Session
Here’s how working with Jacqueline typically unfolds:
- Initial Consultation: You’ll meet (in‑office) to explore your history, your goals, and what feels safe for you. Jacqueline will explain how mind‑body or walk‑and‑talk therapy might fit with your unique needs.
- Therapy Plan: Together, you’ll design a plan, how often to have sessions; whether mind‑body, walk‑and‑talk, or a combination would work best; and what goals you might like to work toward (stress‑reduction, learning tools, processing trauma, etc.).
- Regular Sessions: These might begin in‑office to establish connection, then move outdoors (if walk‑and‑talk feels helpful), or integrate mind‑body exercises in both settings.
- Integration & Reflection: Between sessions, there may be invitations to notice body‑sensations, to practice grounding, to reflect on how movement, nature, and mindfulness are integrating into your daily life.
Why Kingsway Counselling Is Excited
Jacqueline’s addition to our team enriches the therapeutic palette we offer here at Kingsway. Her mind‑body and walk‑and‑talk therapies deepen the commitment we’ve long held: healing is not just about thoughts, but about the whole person. We believe the body is wise, that calm can be found in connection, with self, with nature, with breath. Jacqueline embodies these truths in her work.
If you’ve been searching for a way to come home to your body, to move through pain, worry, or uncertainty with more ease and trust, we invite you to connect with Jacqueline. Whether indoors, outside among trees and open sky, or somewhere in between, she is here to walk with you — at your pace, in your rhythm, with kindness.
How to Get Started
Ready to reach out?
- Book an Appointment Online to set up an initial conversation with Jacqueline.
- You can choose mind-body therapy (in office) or walk‑and‑talk. Just let us know what feels more comfortable.
Thank you for welcoming Jacqueline MacKinnon to Kingsway Counselling. We are excited about the healing, growth, and transformation she will help foster in our community.
If you or someone you know has been longing for a practice that honours both body and mind, that values movement and nature as part of the therapeutic journey, Jacqueline is here to support that path.
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Kingsway Counselling: Supporting Whole‑Person Healing, Mind and Body, In a Safe, Compassionate Space
