When Sleep Isn’t Simple: Evidence-Based Tools for Helping Clients Sleep Better

Sleep difficulties don’t just affect your clients at night. They can shape how clients show up in the counselling session.

Many clients struggle with sleep, yet counsellors may be unsure about how to move beyond basic sleep-hygiene recommendations. Drawing on 20 years of counselling experience, graduate training in neuroscience, and specialized training in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-I), Theresa brings together sleep science, sleep hygiene, selected CBT-I approaches, and an understanding of the anxiety–sleep cycle to offer practical tools for helping clients sleep better.

This clinically focused workshop will explore the neuroscience of sleep, what happens when sleep becomes disrupted, and the factors that contribute to and maintain sleep difficulties.

We will also touch on how disrupted or insufficient sleep can affect clients’ mood, attention, emotional regulation, cognitive functioning, and ability to engage meaningfully in the counselling process.

We’ll explore:

• The neuroscience of sleep and what happens when sleep becomes disrupted
• Factors that contribute to and maintain sleep difficulties
• The impact of poor sleep on daytime functioning and the counselling process
• The anxiety–sleep cycle and how worry, arousal, and sleep-related behaviours can perpetuate sleep problems
• Practical sleep-hygiene strategies and selected evidence-informed CBT-I approaches that can be integrated into counselling practice
• How sleep intersects with anxiety, trauma, neurodiversity, life transitions, and perimenopause and menopause
• When additional assessment, adaptation, or referral may be appropriate

You’ll leave with strategies and resources to use immediately with clients, to help them to better understand and improve their sleep, while also recognizing how sleep may be influencing the broader therapeutic work.

Speaker: Theresa Jackson, RCC

Theresa is a compassionate and experienced registered clinical counsellor (RCC) dedicated to supporting people on their journey of personal growth. With nearly 20 years of experience and dual master’s degrees in Counselling Psychology and Neuroscience, she brings a compassionate, evidence-based approach to lasting healing.

Theresa works with children (5+), adults, and couples, offering a supportive space to navigate anxiety, depression, trauma, sleep challenges, identity, and life changes. Her work is inclusive, trauma-informed, culturally aware and neuro-diverse affirming. Theresa’s current areas of focus include working with couples, supporting individuals through life transitions and self-discovery, helping people navigate perimenopause and menopause, supporting neuro-diverse clients, and helping people navigate anxiety, trauma and sleep difficulties. Theresa intentionally holds a few spaces in her practice for children and teens. She also is a registered provider with the First Nations Health Authority (FNHA) and the Crime Victim Assistance Program (CVAP).

Theresa takes an integrative, individualized approach to therapy, guided by each client’s goals. Her work draws from person-centred therapy, CBT, DBT, SFBT, expressive and somatic approaches, and interpersonal neurobiology. She has additional training in the Gottman Method, EFFT, SPACE for parents, and CBT-I for sleep concerns. Grounded in neuroscience, her work includes psychoeducation to help clients better understand their nervous system and support emotional regulation and growth.

Theresa is known for her warmth, humour, and the ability to create a welcoming environment where clients feel heard and supported. Her goal is to foster strong therapeutic relationships that encourage self-exploration and meaningful change, helping clients to lead more balanced and fulfilling lives.

Originally from British Columbia, Theresa has called Victoria home for 25 years, where she lives with her partner, three children, and her cats Miso and Mochi. She is co-founder and co-clinical director of Gather Clinical Counselling.