Welcome to There Counselling. My name is hart caplan, and I am registered Clinical Counsellor.
My practice focuses, though not exclusively, on people who are regularly called neuro-diverse or neuro-divergent, but for a variety of reason, I don't like either of those names. I use the language of neuro-deviants, and... I am one myself. You can read more on the fun there is to be had with naming at the following post: An immodest proposal on the language of neurological difference.
I am available to work with individuals, couples, and families. Please click on the There logo below to fill out a short intake form:
Therapeutic statement
Over the past 5 years of professional practice, I have spent my time pursuing one single question: how can I best be of assistance to clients? There are no specific therapies (sometimes called modalities) that do a better job than others. If there were clearly superior and inferior ways of practicing counselling psychology, it would be something like malpractice to offer an inferior modality to a superior one. In 2025, there are somewhere between 400-500 different modalities available. Good luck to us all in choosing the best one!
The main problem I find facing clients is lostness. That might sound odd or surprising. Most practitioners will tell you that the main problems in their client populations is depression or anxiety. Depression and anxiety are medicalized ways of describing the experience of lostness. Depression is the experience of being lost in the present, of not knowing which direction to take. Anxiety is lostness cast into the future, the anticipation that you will be unprepared to make the right decision in an hour or a week or year. Lostness is not a diagnosis; it is not a disease. It is a fundamental part of the experience of being a person. And it is simply the case that the more complex our world becomes, the more likely we are to experience lostness, and… our world is wildly complex. The complexity of modern life logically produces a greater sense of confusion and indecision, both of the world in which we live, our relationships in it and to it, and to our very sense of self. The fear and exhaustion clients experience in the face of lostness is what we diagnostically call depression and anxiety and a host of other phenomena we call psychopathology.
My practice is based on the simple phrase, “questioning builds a way.” If lostness is the main problem, then the solution is to construct a path or a way. Importantly, this is not an abstract idea. My central aim in counselling is to help clients chart a path, to build a way. Those paths are both conceptual and concrete: that is, they are both ways of thinking and practices of living. We will touch on the cognitive, the emotional, the bodily, and the existential.
Questioning is the catalyst; ways are built by clients with the patience and courage to change.