Katrina Kosciolek

Professional Details

Full Name & Credentials

Katrina Kosciolek, MACP, CCC, RCC

Professional Title

Canadian Certified Counsellor / Registered Clinical Counsellor

Educational Background

Hello, my name is Katrina Kosciolek and I hold a Master of Arts in Counselling Psychology. I am a Canadian Certified Counsellor and a Registered Clinical Counsellor with over 20 years of experience guiding individuals in Calgary through high-conflict transitions, parenting issues, and work-life balance concerns. My education heavily emphasized advanced cognitive behavioural interventions, allowing me to bring research-backed, practical strategies straight into our sessions. This outcome-driven approach aligns seamlessly with the ShiftGrit Core Method, where we systematically map your autopilot loops, disrupt self-sabotaging patterns, and create permanent change.

Core Clinical Specialties

Anxiety, corporate and lifestyle burnout, relationship loops, identity issues, and addiction recovery.

Client Populations You Serve

Younger adults, corporate professionals, first-generation immigrants, refugee survivors, parents, and LGBTQ+ / gender-diverse individuals.

Trainings & Certifications

I am formally certified in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT), and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), which helps clients break negative thought loops, build robust distress tolerance, and take action to live in a way that is most meaningful to them.

In combination with the ShiftGrit Core Method, these trainings allow me to tailor therapy to your unique situation and needs, while also providing a clear direction, structure, and somatic safety for our sessions.

Specialized Experience

Beyond my core practice, I am formally certified in Nutrition and Mental Health as well as Sleep and Mental Health, allowing me to treat the physical baseline of emotional exhaustion.

My clinical foundation is backed by over two decades of frontline experience managing acute crisis stabilization, domestic violence, and suicide prevention. I have experience working with individuals from highly diverse cultural backgrounds and navigating complex generational trauma.

ShiftGrit Core Method & Clinical Approach

My clinical approach

My clinical approach is empathetic, collaborative, and intentional. I care deeply about my clients and believe that people are trying to do their best with what they have, while also being actively shaped by their environments. While I have specialized training in the therapy process, you are the ultimate expert in your own life. Input and feedback from my clients are highly valued and essential in achieving sustainable change. I am also intentional about the use of time in sessions to bypass open-ended venting and ensure that we are actively on the right track with how your therapy is going.

Adapting to different populations

As a clinical counsellor with over 20 years of experience, I have worked with diverse populations from many walks of life, including young professionals, corporate parents, newcomers, and youth. Whatever your unique set of social identities, such as gender, culture, ability, or spirituality, and lived experiences may be, I approach your story with radical openness, deep empathy, and a desire to work together to find the best path forward for your life.

My favorite aspect of the ShiftGrit Core Method

I appreciate how the ShiftGrit Core Method addresses root causes of mental health concerns through uncovering and eliminating identity-level limiting beliefs. Rather than continuing to put all your effort into managing symptoms or blaming yourself for experiencing the same cycles over again, clients can experience lasting changes across multiple domains of their lives.

Personal Background & Story

Before becoming a therapist, I was

Someone who always possessed a deep, natural drive to protect, support, and help others who were walking through difficult chapters. This inner calling was born out of my own early life experiences as a first-generation immigrant, and later as a single mother rebuilding a life from the ground up. Driven to turn these natural gifts of resilience into a career of service, I spent over two decades working on the front lines of children's services, supporting individuals and families as they overcame generational trauma, relationship loops, and intense life crises. Through a period of deep self-reflection, I pursued my Master's degree in Counselling Psychology to transition that frontline experience into a proactive space where I can help clients achieve lasting, identity-level transformation.

A past role that shapes my therapy today

While frontline crisis intervention and private practice therapy may seem different on the surface, my 20-year background in children's services has led me to view therapy in a more structured, intentional, and measurable way. Clients come into therapy wanting to feel better, and my high-stakes history means I am completely unshakeable in the face of heavy emotional storms. It allows me to guide clients in a clear direction, helping them cut through surface-level chaos to experience real, sustainable improvements in their daily work-life balance and relationships.

A lesson I've carried from my personal life

Living in the present moment is a lesson I have come back to throughout my life. Sometimes, the mind wants to cling to past events or future scenarios, especially when we are overwhelmed by parenting stress, relationship friction, or workplace burnout. Other times, our default way of being can become living distracted to avoid negative thoughts or feelings, filling up our internal pressure cooker. Having navigated intense life disruptions myself, I know how easy it is to live in survival mode. True peace only happens when we anchor ourselves in the present, allowing our minds and nervous systems to safely relax and connect.

Personality & Connection

When I'm not in therapy

You can find me completely stepping away from technology to restore my own internal energy. I love filling my space with music, laughter, and gathering with friends and family. On any given weekend, I am usually out checking out local cafes, meeting up with close friends, sharing dinners with my family, and getting out into nature.

For fun, I

Am naturally an extrovert who draws energy from being active, staying connected, and moving my body. My absolute favorite way to start the day is heading to the gym for an early morning workout or going for a refreshing run. I love spending high-quality, meaningful time with my daughter, listening to music, and playing with our pet bunny.

For self-care, I

Love connecting with my friends by meeting up for a great coffee or going out for dinner together. I also love going for regular massages to help my body release physical stress, slow down, and feel completely grounded and recentered again. I find that the boring basics are absolutely essential to my overall well-being, such as making sure I get adequate, high-quality sleep every night and maintaining a nourishing, balanced diet.

A favorite ritual or routine is

My morning mindfulness routine. Spending 15 minutes in quiet meditation before opening an email or logging into my laptop allows me to calm my own nervous system.

Therapy Style & Client Experience

People like working with me because

I bring a unique blend of fierce clinical precision and deep, gentle warmth. My absolute intent is always to help you in the best way that I can, and I believe effective therapy requires balancing fierce clinical strategy with maternal warmth. Clients leave our sessions feeling profoundly seen, safe, and validated, but also excited and clear about their next steps because they appreciate the combination of my gentle kindness and firm clinical leadership.

What clients can expect in a first session

In your first session with me, you can expect an active, structured clinical workspace, not a casual, unguided venting conversation that leaves you spinning in your loops. Together we will complete a thorough intake to look at the whole ecosystem of your life, including your history, family relationships, strengths, and immediate concerns. I will collaborate closely with you to set your exact goals, ensuring we are always on the same page. By the end of our first hour, you will leave with a clear roadmap of what our next sessions will look like, including using our structured method to uncover the identity-level limiting beliefs driving your pressure cooker and building an active plan to permanently eliminate them.

I work best with clients who

Are drowning in burnout, anxiety, high-conflict relationship loops, wrestling with low self-esteem, deep-seated perfectionism, parenting issues, generational issues, and cultural issues. If you are a corporate parent or young professional craving inner peace and a way to protect your boundaries, I would love to work with you. I especially appreciate working with individuals who are ready to map out their autopilot patterns, and if you haven't yet, there is zero judgment. We will untangle those cycles together.

Passions, Inspirations & Favorites

The most impactful book I've read is

Laziness Does Not Exist by Dr. Devon Price. It completely reframes how we look at overworking and low self-esteem, proving that what we call laziness or procrastination is actually our physical system screaming for a boundary because it is utterly exhausted. This lens is incredibly helpful when working with the ShiftGrit Core Method because it helps clients realize that their constant corporate burnout, parenting stress, and frantic need to do more and be more is not a personal failure. Instead, it is their primitive threat brain, the Walnut Brain, running an outdated survival script. This book reminds me daily why our absolute intent must be to help clients release that societal pressure and step permanently out of survival mode.

A quote or mantra I live by is

"Real, lasting change is always possible." Having had to navigate intense life disruptions firsthand, rebuilding a life, safety, and identity completely from the ground up as a first-generation immigrant and a single mother, I know that human beings are never static in their personalities, pain, or circumstances. No matter how deeply a client is currently caught in exhausting, high-conflict relationship loops, self-sabotage, or chronic burnout, there is always an absolute path forward. This perspective drives the profound care I have for my clients, inspiring unshakeable hope that with the right structured tools, their lives can completely transform for the better.

A psychology topic I can't stop exploring is

The profound intersection of women's health and corporate burnout. I am deeply passionate about researching how intense systemic pressures, work-life balance drain, and difficult family transitions physically impact female biology, sleep architecture, and emotional wellness.

Clinical Interests & Specialties

Clinical: Anxiety (functional, general, and social anxiety)

I have a special interest in working with individuals navigating the exhausting loops of general, social, and high-functional anxiety because, as human beings, we all crave a genuine sense of internal safety and belonging. It is incredibly common for people with functional anxiety to appear completely successful and put together on the outside, while their mind is working overtime, trapping them in constant overthinking, perfectionism, and a hidden fear of judgment. It is deeply rewarding to witness how transformative and healing it is when clients use active reconditioning to turn off those internal false alarms, drop their heavy armour, and build real self-esteem and authentic connection with the world around them. We may hurt in our anxiety loops, and we also heal when we learn to safely relax.

Corporate Burnout & Lifestyle Depletion

I have a special interest in working with young professionals and high-functioning adults who are completely spent from trying to solve everyone else's problems while quietly drowning behind closed doors. Balancing executive career demands with an exhausting daily performance can cause severe lifestyle depletion, directly fracturing your self-esteem and your sleep. When your mind and body treat everyday workplace stress like an active threat to your survival, your system turns into an over-pressurized pressure cooker. When clients use active reconditioning to release that trapped internal steam and rewrite their core survival rules, their entire lives shift for the better. It is entirely possible to step out of autopilot survival mode and live with genuine psychological equilibrium.

Identity Crises & Relational Trauma

I have a special interest in working with people struggling to reclaim their identity after the aftermath of toxic, high-conflict relationships or domestic violence. Your sense of self is fundamental not only to thriving mentally, but it also dictates how you show up across all social aspects of your life. It can be deeply isolating to feel like you have completely lost touch with your own self-worth and autonomy after walking through a relational storm. When clients use active reconditioning to heal these deep relational wounds, their baseline threat alarms turn off, and many other cascading aspects of their life shift for the better as well. It is entirely possible to feel free, secure, and confident in who you are again.

Non-Clinical Concerns: Women's Health, Fertility, & Solo Parenting

My non-clinical interests include supporting women navigating the vulnerable, high-stress worlds of fertility challenges, single parenting, and work-life balance. People who feel the unrelenting pressure to be more and do more, carrying the weight of raising children while trying to build a career, are doing their absolute best, but they are also the most likely to lose touch with their own identity and self-worth. Having personally navigated intense life disruptions, I care deeply about these clients. My core intent is to walk right alongside you to address the root causes of this exhausting caretaking cycle, helping you reclaim your true self and live free from recurring patterns.

Clinical Methods & Orientations

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)

I like to integrate Acceptance and Commitment Therapy into my work with clients because this modality helps clients experience relief from their overactive minds, drop down into the body, and reconnect to the present moment. This approach integrates well with the ShiftGrit Core Method because mindfulness helps clients observe their anxiety and burnout patterns more readily, allowing individuals to tune into their true values and break free from their limiting beliefs more quickly.

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy is a structured, evidence-based modality that I utilize to help clients actively track the connection between their thoughts, feelings, and behaviours. It provides clients with practical, everyday tools to challenge automatic negative thought loops, manage overthinking, and reclaim their work-life balance. This approach is especially helpful in navigating present-day cognitive difficulties.

Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT)

I integrate Dialectical Behaviour Therapy into my practice because it provides clients with heavy-hitting, concrete strategies for emotion regulation and robust distress tolerance. It is incredibly effective for individuals navigating high-conflict relationship loops or intense personal crises, helping them find stability when their system feels overwhelmed. This framework aligns beautifully with the ShiftGrit Core Method because it gives clients immediate, practical coping skills and safety parameters to use in their daily lives while we do the deep work of reconditioning their core patterns.

Internal Family Systems (IFS)

Internal Family Systems is a compassionate, parts-work framework that recognizes clients' inherent protective systems and resiliency when faced with life challenges. I believe that clients come into sessions with a lifetime of survival scripts, like caretaking or perfectionism, that were built to protect them from old pain. This approach is helpful in safely uncovering and validating your internal parts without judgment, whereas the ShiftGrit Core Method helps us pinpoint and permanently eliminate the identity-level limiting beliefs driving those automatic loops.

A unique blend of the Core Method with other approaches

Yes, I specialize in blending the ShiftGrit identity reconditioning sequence with specialized sleep training and nutritional pacing. When a client's Walnut Brain is trapped in fight-or-flight, their body is biochemically depleted. Repairing their physical sleep architecture and blood sugar stability right alongside core belief work dramatically elevates their emotional recovery.

Growth & Professional Development

My biggest learning from supervision is

That the most impactful thing a clinician can do is maintain absolute directiveness. My supervisor trained me to track session data meticulously, proving that allowing a client to stay stuck in an unguided, circular venting loop actually delays their recovery. Shifting from supportive validation into active pattern disruption is the greatest act of respect you can offer a client.

An area of growth I'm focused on now

I am currently expanding my education around functional women's health, focusing specifically on how clinical nutrition and sleep interventions can be combined with behavioural therapy to support women navigating the acute stressors of executive burnout.

Free Form

Anything else you'd like people to know

I am fully committed to your therapeutic journey and operate with total transparency. My calendar features highly accessible evening availability to fit the lifestyles of busy professionals, and I look forward to working collaboratively with you. My absolute intent is to show up for you with both clinical excellence and profound, active care.

A metaphor, image, or story that reflects how I view therapy

To me, therapy is like untangling a heavy, hidden anchor that is keeping a ship stuck in a storm. When life gets chaotic, whether you are balancing a career, managing parenting stress, or fighting low self-esteem, it feels like you are pouring all your energy into rowing forward, yet you are not going anywhere. This is not because you are weak or broken. It is because your brain is automatically dragging a heavy childhood survival script behind you to protect you from old pain. Trying to just think positive or use surface-level coping strategies is like rowing harder against that massive weight, which only leaves your physical body exhausted. In our sessions, we skip the open-ended conversations about the storm. We go beneath the surface together, map the exact chains of your identity-level limiting beliefs, and use active reconditioning to release the anchor so your system can organically find its balance and move forward into sustainable peace.