Team
ALICE, B.A., M.C., RCC (she/her)
My name is Alice Kim (she/her), and I am a registered clinical counsellor (#20002) at Shwim Counselling & Consulting. I am a cisgender, middle class, able-bodied, heterosexual, racialized, immigrant and settler woman working on the stolen lands of the səlilwətaɬ(Tsleil-Waututh), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) Nations. I was born in South Korea and immigrated to Canada at the age of ten.
Academically, I hold a Bachelor’s degree in psychology and family studies at the University of British Columbia and a Master’s degree in counselling at City University in Canada. Prior to my counselling practice, I have experience working in the non-profit sector as a youth worker, and am passionate about community care, practicing solidarity, and collective healing. Outside of my practice, I enjoy being in nature, spending time with loved ones, dancing to music, and cooking vegan meals!
Languages offered: English, Conversational Korean
mY THERAPEUTIC APPROACH
To me, embodiment, relational connection and personal sovereignty are the cornerstones of the human experience. My deep curiosity of these layers of existence stems from my own lived experience of pain and turmoil in my relationships with myself, my body, and with others. I am on my own ongoing journey of embodiment, relational healing, and self sovereignty, and I’m honoured to be walking alongside you in yours.
Through values of humanity, connection, safety, intentionality, curiosity, and courage, I combine talk therapy with neuroscience-informed somatic (body-based) approaches. I hope to support you in strengthening your capacity to move through your past and current experiences with greater ease and resilience, and to become an active participant of your own life with a sense of empowerment and radical self-acceptance. With warmth, sensitivity, compassion, transparency, and shared vulnerability and humanity, I will meet you where you are and collaborate with you on what feels most supportive for you in your healing.
My approach is also rooted in anti-oppressive ideologies. I aim to support you to better process your experiences within your intersecting social/cultural identities (e.g. race, gender, class, sexual orientation, etc.), contextualize your challenges within harmful systems/structures of power in our society, and reclaim your agency. I honour that you are the expert of your own experience and strive to continuously decolonize my practice through challenging my own biases and patriarchal, hetero-normative, Eurocentric, and colonial counselling theories and practices.
EDUCATION & TRAININGS
City University of Seattle in Canada
Master’s Degree in Counselling Psychology
University of British Columbia
Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology
The Embody Lab
Somatic Attachment Therapy Certificate Program
Mental Health Foundations
Emotion Focused Family Therapy Training
The Trauma-Informed Practice Institute
Trauma-Informed Training Level 1 & 2
Psychotherapy Network
Pat Ogden’s Complex Trauma Master Class: Sensorimotor Therapy in Action
EMDR Consulting
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) Training
The Embody Lab
Somatic Intimacy and Relationship Coaching Certificate Program
Embodiment
“Embodiment is moving from a disconnected reactive state and returning to my body wisdom.” — Annie Marie Marron
Embodiment to me refers to a restful state of being; feeling connected to and aware of our inner felt experience in the body. Research teaches us that unprocessed past and current overwhelm/pain (trauma) can become stored in the body, keeping us stuck in protective survival states of fight, flight, freeze, and shut down. These responses, while adaptive and life-saving at the time, can later manifest as physical pain or illness, unhelpful patterns, disembodiment, and disconnection with our authentic selves, others, and the world around us. Given that trauma is (re)experienced in the body, transformative healing, too, must involve the body. In our work together, I prioritize creating safety in our relationship as a foundation. With this safety, I will support you to (re)build inner and outer resources and gently process your past/present experiences. Together, we will strengthen your nervous system’s flexibility and capacity while creating new pathways for resilience, regulation, and re-connection. Ultimately, my hope is for you to live an authentic, embodied life- one in which you can safely feel and move through the full spectrum of human experience: discomfort, pain, fear, grief, as well as a deep sense of somatic goodness - ease, presence, comfort, aliveness, pleasure, joy, connectedness, play - and everything in between.
RELATIONAL HEALING
“I suppose that since most of our hurts come through relationships so will our healing.” — Paul Young
My therapeutic work is deeply informed by the lasting impact of early/past attachment relationships on how we relate to ourselves and others. Because many of our wounds are relational, and we are neurobiologically wired for connection, I believe that healing, too, happens within safe, attuned relationships. Within our therapeutic relationship as a secure container for relational healing and growth, I strive to show up as an empathic witness - meeting you with presence, care, and attunement. Together, we can process, repair, and integrate your past relational experiences, so you can move toward a felt sense of embodied safety in your connection with yourself and others.
Self-SOVEREIGNTY
“Reclaiming yourself is the most radical form of healing.” — unknown
I believe that self sovereignty - the inherent ownership, authority, and integrity we have over our own lives, body, choices, power, and narrative - is our birthright. To me, self sovereignty means to freely explore, embrace, enact, embody, and empower our authentic self - being aligned and deeply connected to who we are at our core. Throughout our life, our trauma histories, cultural conditioning, and societal forces can disrupt and fragment our sovereignty. Yet within each of us lies the capacity to reclaim what is ours: the freedom, courage, and wisdom to feel, choose, own, and live our truth. For many of us, healing and evolution are sacred journeys of (re)discovering our authentic self and cultivating embodied sovereignty over our body, mind, soul, and life.
