Jackie Thrithardt (she/her)
Registered Clinical Counsellor (RCC) with the BCACC
Hi, I'm Jackie (she/her) — it's really nice to meet you!
I work with women journeying into perimenopause and menopause, and with adults who are burnt out and just tired. Tired of being the one everyone leans on. Tired of saying yes when they mean no. Tired of looking fine while everything underneath feels anxious, foggy, disconnected. If that's you, I get it, and you're in the right place.
My own body sent me into menopause a few years ago, right in the middle of already unraveling a lot of what I thought I believed — about relationships, about who I was supposed to be for other people. So I know this stage isn't a tidy little transition. It's disruptive. It asks you to grieve who you were before you have any idea who you're becoming, and that grief is real and it deserves to be witnessed, not rushed past.
In session I'm not going to hand you a five-step plan. We go slower than that, and deeper — into the parts of you that learned to shrink, or perform, or stay busy so you didn't have to feel the harder stuff. I'll call it beautiful when I see it, because I do — the resilience, the anger, the courage it takes to finally say what you actually need. Clients tell me I put them at ease fast, that I feel safe. I've built my whole life around being that for people, my own kids included.
If this feels like your kind of work, I'd love to connect. You can book a free 15-minute consult and we can get to know each other a little bit.
Areas of Focus
Perimenopause and Menopause
Burnout
Life Transitions and Identity Shifts
Grief (Body, Relationships, Career, Self)
People-Pleasing and Overfunctioning
Self-Worth and Self-Esteem
Relationship Patterns
Emotional Regulation and Core Beliefs
Women's Life-Stage Transitions
Sexuality and Intimacy
Queer Affirming Care
A bit more about Jackie
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Warm, perceptive, and easy to be honest with. Jackie picks up on things fast — the nerves, the small talk that means someone needs a minute before they can go any deeper, the parts of you that are still deciding if this is safe — and she just meets you there, gently, without making you explain yourself first. Ask her what people say after a first session and it's usually some version of the same thing: I felt at ease. I felt safe with her.
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Jackie works with women in the thick of perimenopause and menopause, and with adults who are burnt out and have been everyone's person for way too long — the ones who struggle to say no, who are driven and self-aware and still somehow stuck, who are in the middle of an identity shift and finding that the old ways of coping just don't work anymore. She's honest about who she's not the right fit for too. She doesn't work with children, and she's not the best match for active addiction, eating disorders, or OCD and specific phobias needing exposure work.
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perimenopause and menopause
burnout
life transitions and identity shifts
grief — body, relationships, career, self
people-pleasing and overfunctioning
self-worth and self-esteem
relationship patterns
emotional regulation and core beliefs
women's life-stage transitions
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Curious and relational, and not afraid to go deep. Jackie leans on coherence therapy, trauma-informed care, and somatic work, but the modality isn't really the point — the relationship is. She's not trying to help you manage a feeling and move on, she wants to know where it came from and whether it even fits who you are anymore, and that kind of work happens naturally, out of trust that builds session by session rather than off some five-step plan.
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Jackie offers in-person sessions in Kelowna and virtual counselling across BC. She’s a Registered Clinical Counsellor (RCC), and her services are covered by most extended health plans. You can book a free consult or first session right here.
Outside of Therapy
Outside private practice, movement has always been part of how I stay grounded — I spent over a decade coaching CrossFit and four years playing basketball at the college level, and I still love testing my own limits. These days that shows up more in hiking, running, and paddleboarding, but the thread is the same: I've always trusted what the body can teach me, long before I understood it clinically.
Music is the language of my soul, and I mean that literally — I want to know what songs matter to people and why. Give me a road trip, any road trip, whether it's a day trip to find some new local gem or a move clean across the country, and I'll have the music up, singing along or letting my mind wander through everything and nothing at all.
A few years ago, in the season of my kids leaving home, I inherited our family dog, a dalmatian named Domino. He moved across the country with me in what fit in my Jeep, and then moved back again two years later. He passed away last year, and he taught me more about grief than I expected a dog to. I still think about him on long drives.
I laugh loud and I laugh often, though I've learned there's a time and place to hold it back in session — I never want a client's own laughter, when it's covering something harder, to let them off the hook. Outside of that, though, it's pretty unmistakable.
I believe our parts all have wisdom, that grief and reinvention live side by side, and that a good bed rot day is basically an act of resistance.