MORE - Mia Klassen
Mia is a Registered Professional Counsellor (RPC) who works with her husband Daniel, specializing in solidifying identity and trauma therapy. Through her grief of losing her sister to sex trafficking, Mia developed a great compassion for vulnerable individuals. Mia's training and experience allow vulnerable individuals to feel heard and understood, sometimes for the very first time.
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Mia experienced a great deal of trauma beginning very early in her childhood. Due to unfortunate circumstances, Mia did not mentally or emotionally attach to those who should have been her natural caregivers; and those who were charged with her care, were often the ones abusing her. Without receiving relational training from significant others necessary for natural human development, Mia, at first, lacked the understanding that what was happening to her was indeed abuse. Mia even lacked the words to express the harm that she was experiencing.
The shame-based approach to life held unwittingly by her parents and ingrained within the society she lived, allowed - even encouraged, the abuse to continue. She knew no way to escape her unhappy, young life. Mia suffered through many horrors in her formative, growing years. Mia left her home initially to live on her own at the tender age of twelve; though at this time, Mia certainly was not tender. Mia began a long journey of self discovery that opened avenues to her eventual healing. This experience, though repressive, demeaning, and death-inducing, provided Mia with awareness and compassion to successfully engage with the many others, who have, or are, going through trauma.
Mia developed a huge reservoir of resiliency and strength through her early struggles in life. When she was more healed, she developed a passion for learning, and helping others. Having the deep knowledge of personally living with individuals with significant mental illness and addictions, Mia validates and support others in their own journeys to healing. Mia strongly advocates connection, comfort, and understanding in rebuilding one's own identity, so that the client may develop the positive relationships with others they so desperately need. As a young adult, wife, and parent, Mia began working within the human services field - mostly with dual diagnosis, amassing nearly a three-decade long career as a supportive living/mental health worker. In this time, Mia returned to school, graduating with a diploma In Life Skills and Career Development. From there, Mia studied much further and went onto graduate (with distinction) a Master’s degree in Christian Counselling specializing in severe trauma. Mia is currently a Registered Professional Counsellor through the Canadian Professional Counselling Association and an accredited member of the Alberta Counselling Therapeutic Association.