my approach

  • A photograph of Renee Dumaresue taken by Jill Willcott. Renee is white with mid-length blond hair and bangs. They are in the centre of the photograph and are sitting in a grey chair against a white wall. Their right arm is resting on the top of the chair and they are looking towards the camera. Renee is wearing a button-up shirt that is blue with white strips.

I take an integrative and relational approach to therapy. This means that I engage tools and share resources that best suite the unique needs and goals that people hold for our work together. I may draw on techniques from several modalities, including narrative, attachment-based, mindfulness and body-based approaches.

I ground my practice in a commitment to prioritize the voice, collaboration and agency of those I work with. I am also attentive to the many ways that structural power, social systems, and past and present relationships can impact our lives and the shape of our struggles. Above all, I listen closely and centre what each person identifies as relevant to them, where they are, and where they wish to go.

Some of the areas where I have experience and may be able to offer support in navigating include:

  • relationships with partners, peers, family and others

  • non-normative relationship structures, such as non-monogamy, polyamory, queerplatonic partnership and forms of chosen family

  • gender, sexuality, including kink, BDSM, and other facets of identity and practice

  • sexual and reproductive health

  • chronic pain, disability, madness, and neurodiversity

  • feeling states of anxiety, restlessness, hopelessness, depression, sadness and grief

  • life transitions and daily living

  • gender-based, sexual, and intimate partner violence

  • power dynamics and harm

  • unwanted substance use or behaviours

  • health-care, housing and other social systems

I am informed by anti-oppressive, harm reduction, anti-racist and mad values. The care that I offer is also sex and kink positive and affirming of queer and trans identities and non-normative relationship structures.