There are five freedoms:
The freedom to see and hear what is;
The freedom to say what you feel and think;
The freedom to feel what you actually feel;
The freedom to ask for what you want;
The freedom to take risks on your own behalf.
Virginia Satir

About

Sarah White

I believe that shifting the ways with which we see people is the most important intervention to changing behaviours. When we see behaviours for what they really are, it becomes much easier to stay anchored in the truth that behaviour is just what we see on the outside that gives us information about what is happening inside. In the context of exploring the brain and behavior, regulation is about balance of the energy and arousal in our nervous systems. I am curiously approaching behaviours through a lens of regulation, connection, and felt safety and not, for the most part, focusing on the behavioural symptoms or diagnoses. My work with your family will build and enrich these three areas of regulation, connection, and felt safety, which are the key ingredients to feeling and doing well for all of us. Being fully regulated is a huge privilege in our world right now, and in therapy I don’t ask you to “do more”. Rather, my first goal is to offer support in “doing differently” and building from there.

About

We cannot model to our children skills we do not have.

More often than not, parents are repeating patterns unconsciously, often stuck in their own bubbles of shame and inadequacy.

It’s so painful to face our children’s struggles.

And we cannot be with our children in pain because our reactions to their pain are impossible to be with.

Perhaps because we were left unnoticed in our feelings and struggles as children.

Insight or technique alone will not heal this pattern.

What heels is building capacity - the ability to remain present with emotion as we are feeling it. Being with the discomfort without jumping to fix or flee. By admitting when we simply do not know the answer. This how we choose relationship over self-protection This how we stay in relationship - with others and with ourselves.

This is the re-parenting that heals - whether done with our outer children, inner child or with other adults.

Repair begins when we are willing to stay at the edge of our own limitation and say - to a child, a partner, or ourselves:

“I don’t understand yet, but I’m not leaving. I’m right here and together we will figure this out.”

ADHD is not a behavioural problem.

It is an executive functioning problem.

It is our job to help kids understand how brains work, and more importantly, the unique ways that their particular brain works.

Then we can provide strategies and accommodations for the ways it is “under construction”🚧🧰.

And how we can utilize the special strengths and abilities their brain does have that others may not.

What do their sensory systems tell us?
What does your sensory systems tell us?

What does their unique system need to come back to connection?
And what does your unique system need to be able to invite her into connection?

Both of equal importance & value 💛

Early lessons in safety and security between mother and baby may not be measurable or visible, but they are powerful.

Beginning with pregnancy, scientists are learning maternal anxiety, stress and fear can be passed on to a baby in utero, specifically in the last trimester. Additionally, a mother‘s unrepaired emotional scars from her own upbringing adversely impact her maternal instincts.

Maternal stress and anxiety pass insecurity to a daughter through touch, vocal tones, and breathing patterns, and later through behaviour and choices that put both mother and baby in harms way.

Dr Shore, a neurobiologist who studies infant brain development maintains that early experiences can positively and negatively influence the organization of the brain, and that these experiences are embedded in the attachment relationship.

He maintains that attachment experiences, specifically impact the development of the right brain which begins a growth spurt in the last trimester of pregnancy and continues through the first year after birth.

We must understand the vital role of support systems in pregnancy.

Emotional, physical, mental, social & community support systems. 🩵

Mothers are bombarded with misguided advice about infant and young children’s needs, especially sleep.

For an infant or toddler falling asleep is a moment of separation and must be understood this way.

Infants have not changed since we were hunting and gathering, but our modern world somehow expects babies to sleep alone in cribs for extended hours. Only recently, the science that supports keeping mom and baby close during sleep is gaining recognition.

We are learning, or relearning, about infant sleep and how normal it is for babies to wake frequently. They are designed to feel the nearness of the mother‘s body in order to feel calm and avoid unnecessary hormones that the body releases when it senses danger. Breast-fed babies benefit from frequent feedings throughout the night, so the closer they are to mom the easier it is for both.

For a baby separation from the mother‘s body means danger. Too many parents don’t realize how damaging hours of separation can be for dependent newborns.

In his book, Nighttime Parenting, Dr. William Sears explains how and why babies sleep differently than adults. Little ones are designed for survival, so they wake easily to co-regulate themselves with their mother. Sears explains that infants who wake up alone feel startled as they search for their mothers. Increased adrenaline and heart rate lead to crying and difficulty going back to sleep.

Babies build a robust physiology through closeness with their parents during the night. As adults, they experience fewer sleep disturbances than adults who slept alone as infants.

Especially Joy & Kindness ✌🏼

Here’s to a fabulously brave 2026

Your body knows the story of how early love felt.

In the first two years of life, before memory becomes explicit, “thinking” isn’t thinking at all - it’s feeling.

Infant and toddler “thought” is a body-based, emotional experience informed by the early environment.

Since the thinking brain develops some time after age three, for a baby, feelings are facts. Emotions are stored in the body and create a certain reality or belief system.

The world is safe and so am I or The world is scary and I’m all alone.

Stored sensations like these become implicit memories. Implicit memories reside deep within the limbic structures of the brain, silently whispering messages of safety or danger to the rest of the body.

Early experiences impact the developing central nervous system through feelings and bodily sensations. In this way, “remembering” things from your early years is more of a sensation than a conscious awareness.

Early emotional experiences literally become embedded in the architecture of our brain.

When an infant’s vulnerable nervous system picks up that things are not safe nature calls forth a fear response. Fear releases cortisol and adrenaline, which can be toxic for developing brain regions.

When fear isn’t soothed and happens regularly, a baby stores the fearful sensations in her cells, building a body and brain poised for danger.

Understanding implicit memory explains why sometimes we have no idea why we act the way we do.

We can’t see the distress living in our bodies.

We are a society hungry for love but wary of human connection 💞

Your purpose is not the thing you do. It is the thing that happens in others when you do what you do.⭐️

Grateful to have a seat at the table.

My life has been so profoundly touched & healed on this journey ❤️

Wishing us lots of healing and a bigger sense of belonging for2026. 🌎

Happy Winter Season 🩵

When we lose our temper our amygdala, the emotional alarm center of the brain, overrides rational thought and floods our system with stress chemicals that keep us reactive for hours.

But when we can notice and interrupt the impulse and instead pause or choose calm, our prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for logic and self-control, strengthens its connections and reshapes our brain over time, making it easier to think clearly, stay balanced, and avoid being controlled by fleeting emotions.

“Savouring is an evidence-based psychological tool that you can use without adding any time to your day.

It has a significant impact on wellbeing, mental and physical health, and also improves relationships and job performance

What will you be savouring this holiday season and as we say goodbye to 2025?

😋⭐️💗🤩🎄🏔️⛄️❄️ 🧠👁️🐶🐹🌸🌞🌎

To be rooted is to be held.

To belong.

To return to something steady when everything else tilts.

Rootedness is the psychological equivalent of oxygen.

Without it, we drift.

With it, we endure.

Healing isn’t always dramatic. Sometimes it’s simply the act of placing your hand on the bark of a tree and remembering that you belong to a world that has been offering you steadiness long before you knew you needed it.

Grateful for finding rootedness through reparenting & self compassion 💙

Creating congruence for our nervous systems 💞

It’s hard to fail. It feels bad, and for many kids it’s experienced as shameful and embarrassing.

Projecting blame is a way to deflect and protect themselves from these difficult feelings.

You are their people-the ones they trust to always have their back and keep them safe and secure. You are always there for them and they know it.

This also means-in their minds-that you can solve all their problems and prevent all pain. So, when that doesn’t happen, they are angry and take their distress out on you.

And parents who find themselves compulsively apologizing to their child are usually scared of their child’s anger, frustration, sadness, or any difficult feelings.

They are not allowing their child to sit with a difficult feeling and recognize that nobody is to blame for it, and that sometimes, things just don’t go the way they want and it’s nobody’s fault.

Getting defensive to prove you are not to blame is not helpful. Children are not rational in these moments. Reasoning incites them further and conveys that your child’s accusation is valid-that there is something to defend.

In these moments, when children are not thinking rationally, trying to use logic to convince them will usually result in them doubling down and defending their position even more fiercely.

Instead being able to validate and help children manage these upsets helps them learn to cope when things go wrong and to take responsibility for their actions.

Give them space. Pause and be the calm presence they need.

Offer to help your child think through how they want to move forward.

Revisit the incident later in a quiet moment, if your child is open to it. Show acceptance and validation.

Share your own stories of times you have failed or had to face a challenge.

Brainstorm ideas for how your child might persevere.

For many of the children I work with, even these discussions in a quiet moment can feel overwhelming. It is very uncomfortable for them to reflect on emotionally charged experiences. In these cases, I find it best to just acknowledge that it was a difficult experience for them and that you are always there to help them think it through and try again when they are ready.⭐️💞

Trauma creates a sensitized stress response system which affects daily functioning, and the ways with which we interpret the world and our relationships.

Boundaries reveal what a relationship truly is, not what you wish it was.

Boundaries serve as clarifying tools.

When you set a limit and someone reacts with anger, manipulation, or withdrawal, they reveal their true level of respect for your wellbeing.

Boundaries expose reality, and reality is always kinder than prolonged denial.

Healing can be hindered by the pressure to return to “normal”.

True peace is found in the act of permission-permission be a wreak, to feel anger, to change your life completely, and to openly cherish the person who died.

Grief is a life long process of integration, not expiration 💙😥

It’s also the absence of all the good things that don’t happen in and with a family 🖤

We shout because our hearts are far apart 💙

~ Rumi

When connection is unsafe 🖤

For some children connection has been linked to both safe and unsafe.

Their nervous system still seeks connection as a biological imperative AND ALSO early pain or overwhelm can tangle connection with alarm bells of danger.

OUTCOME ~ closeness feels overwhelming

For children who are overwhelmed by connection we offer it in tiny small gentle doses so it has a chance to be experienced as safe. ⭐️

Over time drops of safety add up and children slowly learn that connection can soothe and connection and protection can begin to loosen and untangle making space for safety to grow.

It’s about small doses of connection & presence 💞

Behaviours are a manifestation of struggle

Focus on finding the struggle, not on fixing the behaviour.

We flourish when we are part of an ecosystem of connection 💞🌱

Did you know your symptoms stem from implicit memories?

Trauma memories get stored as patterns held in the mind and body that were either formed in childhood or at the moment a particular trauma took place.

Thoughts, images, emotions, and body sensations can all be memories.

Startling recounts of the Family Court System and its far too often dismissal of and failure to recognize family violence.

And the need for legal reform

Your body doesn’t forget who felt safe.

And it doesn’t unlearn betrayal through apologies.

It unlearns through consistent, safe experiences💛

October marks Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) Awareness Month

When attention, learning, or behavioural challenges show up - whether in a child, teen, or adult - it can be hard to know what is really going on. Is it ADHD? Anxiety? A learning difference? Or something else entirely?

At Expressive Child & Family Therapies we’re taking the opportunity to highlight how attention, focus, and learning challenges can look different across every stage of life ~ and how understanding these differences can lead to more compassionate effective care.

How ADHD Can Appear at Every Age

ADHD does not have one “look” - it evolves as we grow. Here’s how ADHD commonly appears across the lifespan:

In Childhood:
Kids may seem constantly on the move, struggle to sit still, or have big emotions that feel impossible to manage. Forgetfulness, impulsivity, and trouble focusing can make school and friendships challenging.

In Teens:
Hyperactivity may turn inward- showing up as restlessness, procrastination, disorganization, and sensitivity to stress. Academic demands and social pressures can highlight executive function challenges.

In Adults:
ADHD often appears as chronic overwhelm, distractibility, difficulty finishing tasks, and emotional exhaustion. Many adults describe feeling “busy but unproductive”, or like they’re always one step behind.

Across all ages, Attention Deficit Disorders can affect attention, motivation, and emotional regulation-but it also comes with strengths like creativity, energy, and out-of-the-box thinking.

We can be the bridge between the Child and the Integrated Parent

We know that we are engaged in intergenerational healing and the breaking of cycles.

We embrace this work 💞
It is an honour🙏

Yesterday was World Mental Health Day

We often think mental health treatment is therapy and medication.

But it is also:
Setting boundaries
Exercising
Practicing mindfulness
Meditation
Challenging our unhelpful thoughts
Affirmations
Breathwork
Asking for support from friends/family/community
Learning about mental health
Massage/self-care
Connecting with others
Journaling
Eating nourishing meals

Which ones help you stay well?💗

Co-regulation is necessary for children to be able to self-regulate💗

Psychological trauma is associated with numerous changes in the nervous system caused by cortisol release, spikes in adrenaline, fluctuations in neurotransmitters, and so forth, the result of which is a loss of neural homeostasis.

Due to this imbalance, the information processing system is unable to function optimally, and the information acquired at the time of the event, including images, sounds, affect, and physical sensations is stored in its disturbing state.

Stored in this distressing, excitatory, state specific form, that original material can be triggered by a variety of internal and external stimuli and can be expressed in various forms.

Consequently, dysfunctional traits, behaviours, beliefs, affects, and the body sensations are manifestations of the unprocessed memories.

~ Francine Shapiro

Capacity is staying embodied through activation.

When you build nervous system capacity, you can access the core part that exists beyond survival states.

You can be upset and grounded. Heartbroken and present. Nervous and courageous.

You stop trying to regulate yourself out of your humanity. You start trusting that your body’s responses carry crucial information, not pathology.

Always with a dash of entitlement and with its foundations built for self-protection.

We can usually find grandiosity’s origins in early attachment relationships when babies experience a lack of attunement leading to unmet needs.

Grandiosity or a sense of entitlement protects a child from emotional deprivation, transforming the “I don’t matter belief” into “I’m all that matters”.

And although adaptive, it becomes destructive.

Grandiosity devalues authentic experiences, causes harm and sabotages potential for genuine connection.

It’s poisonous to relationships 🖤

One of the most challenging aspects of overcoming grandiosity for a person is acknowledging that their beliefs may be more about self-protection than a reflection of reality.

This involves deep scary hard work & it’s so worth it.

People heal in safe relationships, not in isolation💞

We’ve been told to fix ourselves before love but emerging research shows healing happens in connection.

The key here is ~ not just with anyone, or only one, but across a web of safe, consciously designed relationships ~ romantic, platonic and communal.

Expressive Child & Family Therapies 🧑‍🧑‍🧒‍🧒
Our healing space

A newborn Rhino named Daisy found alone just hours old and Modjadji, a tiny Zebra foul rescued from storms. Both orphans who lost their mothers far too soon, but together they found comfort 🌼

Now Modjadji and Daisy eat, play and even sleep side by side - two survivors healing through each other’s presence.

Sometimes the family you choose is the one that saves you 💙🦋

1) Most behaviour isn’t defiance.
It’s not personal, it’s a missing skill, or
something happening internally for
them.

2) What you pay attention to, you get
more of.
Whatever you find that you are
constantly responding to you will get
more of. Try to shift your focus to notice
when your child is being cooperative and
showing effort.

3) Teaching happens best outside of conflict.
Children’s learning brains are “on”
when they are calm. When they are in
conflict they need connection before
correction or any sort of teaching.

Our gifts and our wounds are next door neighbours 🏠🏡

The world is a softer place when we carve out time for self care & nature

It starts with me, my inner home💕

Neuroimaging studies reveal that survivors of relational trauma often show increased connectivity between the amygdala and insula, heightening sensitivity to emotional cues.

This means even slight shifts in someone’s tone or mood can feel dangerous.

It’s not “being too sensitive”, it’s neurological hypervigilance 💙

There has been an official change!!!😱

But really this change has always been in the making and at the core of my values when it comes to supporting children. I just needed organic professional growth to get here 🙌🏼

My journey as a therapist started working with children. First as a school counsellor for 19 years and then venturing into the world of private practice, starting Expressive Child Therapies in 2018.

Taking in all I could (afford 😩) about interpersonal neurobiology and how we develop in relationships I came to the knowing that in order to really help kids I needed to also work with their ‘relational ecosystem’, primarily meaning the whole family. Coinciding with this was the acute awareness that it all lead to intergenerational patterns, which honestly was very overwhelming.

But I forged on learning EMDR and specializing in using EMDR with children and parents (sometimes together). I began to work with parents focusing on their attachment trauma and I was honoured to feel and notice that having a family systems approach was much more applicable to true healing, for all family members.

Which leads me to the real point of my story, Expressive Child Therapies does not fully encompass all that I do anymore.
And I feel really proud of this💞
My sweet little business baby is now Expressive Child & Family Therapies

And I am loving working with parents, caregivers and adults. And it’s actually also making me see my role as a child therapist in brighter ways!!

And there’s still a child in every adult that I love to find and bring along on the journey🦋

I’m feeling grateful for all of the families I continue to have the honour of working with moving forward as Expressive Child & Family Therapies ⭐️

But you don’t have to carry them alone

A compassionate witness can ease the heaviness💙

We all have to be with our sensations and feelings to expand our tolerance for being with the uncomfortable.

With compassion and nervous system awareness💞

We would not be expected to play hockey if we have never skated😳

Same goes for uncomfortable feelings.
We can’t manage them if we never practice being with them and getting through to the other side.

“I’m bored”
I notice when children say these two words it can strike fear into the modern parent.

Somehow it has been taken in as a personal failure where we need to entertain them or rush in with a solution.

Boredom is not a void, nor a problem. Rather it is a quiet empty space where a child’s mind is finally forced to create, to imagine, and to build a world from the inside out.

A child who is never encouraged in boredom becomes an adult who cannot be alone. It is a child who becomes an adult with no rich inner life of their own, who is taught to seek distraction, not inspiration.

Next time your child says “I’m bored” the best response is a loving “I know, and I can’t wait to see what you find feeling bored”💛

Give them the gift of empty space and let them see what they can discover ⭐️

Oh yes, also need to mention…it’s almost time for back to school!!!
yahoooooooo😎🙌🏼

It’s difficult to sit in the unknown
Its a threat to the nervous system and it takes practice 💕

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@expressivechild

01.

Play Therapy

Play Therapy provides a safe and inviting environment for children and teens to express their feelings and find ways to create play and art that resembles the stressful experiences they are struggling with internally

02.

Teens

Is it normal teen angst or something more?

I hear this question a lot. Parents aren’t sure if their teen’s struggles are “just teen behavior” or if it is part of a greater mental health problem. My take is that if your teen is hurting, it is real hurt. If your teen is anxious, rebelling, unmotivated or struggling in relationships, it is real.

03.

Caring For Parents & Caregivers

Parent Therapy bridges the divide between adult therapy and child/family therapy.

It is deservedly said that being a parent is one of the hardest things we do as human beings.

04.

Family Play Therapy

Theraplay to support healthy child/caregiver attachment.

Learning Child Centred Play Skills and focusing on strengthening the relationship with our child through play.

05.

Adults

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is a comprehensive approach to therapy that integrates elements of psychodynamic, cognitive behavioral, interpersonal, experiential, and body-centered therapies to maximize treatment effects.

There are five freedoms: The freedom to see and hear what is; The freedom to say what you feel and think; The freedom to feel what you actually feel; The freedom to ask for what you want; The freedom to take risks on your own behalf. Virginia Satir

About

Sarah White

​

Follow us on Instagram

01.

Play Therapy

02.

Teens

03.

Caring For Parents & Caregivers

04.

Family Play Therapy

05.

Adults

There are five freedoms:
The freedom to see and hear what is;
The freedom to say what you feel and think;
The freedom to feel what you actually feel;
The freedom to ask for what you want;
The freedom to take risks on your own behalf.
Virginia Satir