About Me
I’ve known that I wanted to help people since I was a child. I remember watching struggles around me at the young age of 10 and thinking that it wasn’t fair, that every person deserves to feel happy. As early as high school, I began to focus my education on parenting and child development. While studying psychology and social work I tried out different roles, and I found that I always loved working with young adults and parents. I spent nearly a decade working at a children’s mental health agency and found the work to be immensely fulfilling and meaningful. Over time I’ve realized that working with women is really my passion. When we as women are healthy and well, everyone around us benefits.
Cynthia Marques, MSW, RSW (she/her)
My own experience as a woman and mom to young children has influenced my work significantly. I know that no two women will have the same experience, but I also feel strongly that having struggled myself, I can be with other struggling women in a special kind of way. I feel strongly that we as women need support from and connection to one another.
Becoming a parent was extremely hard for me, and I found it to be incredibly isolating at times. My experiences led to the decision to become certified in perinatal mental health so that I could support moms who were struggling as I once had. It is my hope that this certification along with my previous work and personal experience will help me to help as many parents as possible.
Finding a counsellor that you feel a good connection with is so important. I’ve experienced a poor match both as the counsellor and as the client, and I know how uncomfortable and ineffective it can be. Here’s a bit about me and my style so you can begin to get a sense of whether I would be a good fit for you:
I’m pretty casual and use humour often. While I value professionalism, I bring my authentic self to our discussions, and this includes a lightness that hopefully helps our conversations to feel genuine and natural.
I approach our conversations with curiosity and lots of questions. I believe that we all have strengths and skills, and that often by asking the right questions, your answers can reveal solutions that you hadn’t noticed before.
I’m both highly sensitive as well as highly organized. I find that this means I can sit with the tough feelings and really feel with you, and also help you move through them and plan ahead if and when you’re ready to make changes. I find that I use these skills differently depending on what is most needed at the time.
I can be direct. While I tend to follow your lead and explore together with you, I also value honesty and sharing what I am observing when it may be different from what you’re saying. I realize that my hunches aren’t always right, but I think it’s important to have an open and honest dialogue where we can explore together.
I realize that I know some things and don’t know lots of things. I have expertise and I am happy to bring that to our conversations if you would like me to, but I’m not the expert on you. You are the expert on your life and I always want to hear what you think, what you know, and what is and is not working for you. If what we’re doing isn’t working, we can change it or you can try working with someone else. I’ll never be offended if you express that something isn’t working for you.