Hi! I’m Katya Sivak!

I live and do my work on the traditional and unceded territory of the Coast Salish peoples.

My Journey here

I was shaped by mountains, migration, contradiction, and the stories carried through bloodlines that have known both survival and harm.
I come from a multiethnic and multicultural family. My ancestors are from Siberia (Altai Mountains) and Ukraine.  They were farmers, bee keepers, artists, teachers, and healers and I always felt their endurance, creativity, wisdom, and love in me
From early in life, I sensed a deep orientation toward witnessing human experience — toward understanding suffering, connection, and the many ways people learn to survive the worlds they inhabit.​​

My life, like much of my work, has been shaped by learning how to live honestly within contradiction: descendant of both colonizer and colonized, inheritor of rupture and resilience, seeker of healing in systems that too often misunderstand what healing actually requires. ​

My educational training  began as a researcher at UBC Behavioural Psychology Labaratory. I was called to investigate Postraumatic Growth of genocide survivors, Astronauts, and women working in the harsh environment of Antarctica. This work opened up some glorious and dark chapters of my ancestral history. My own life is made possible by the interconnected legacy of both colonizer and colonized. Oppressor and oppressed.

​ I wrestled deeply with my ancestral history. I already knew that my people were the first to fly to space, but I also learned some darker chapters of my people’ history. I learned about quiet genocide my Russian ancestors committed against my Ukrainian people. I felt it in my bones and my blood boiled for months. It is a secret that half of my family denied and the other half silently grieved. Diving deeper into my ancestral history, I found out how, on one side of my family tree, my Slavic ancestors were perpetrators of colonial violence against Native Siberian People. And how, on the other side of the family tree, my Siberian ancestors were survivors of colonization.

Deep lessons.

​I also realized that research was not for me. I longed to be with people, not research them. When I began my Masters Degree in Counselling Therapy I thought I was on the right path. However upon completion of my degree I was extremely disappointed in my profession. Childhood traumas surfaced, ancestral traumas followed, a sense of not belonging as an immigrant on this land intensified, and therapy did not help. Spirling depression, anxiety and trauma symptoms pushed me into a deep search for healing.

​I went through a number of therapists, women’s circles, intuitive healers, shamanic apprenticeship, dreamwork, work with sacred healing plants and finally received deep and profound healing from mama Earth and my Ancestral Medicine. I did not leave the profession. Instead, as I began reimagining what healing itself could mean, I found myself  myself practicing at the edges of the very systems that trained me.

Over time, I began recognizing that many modern therapeutic systems ask us to understand suffering as something located within individuals, while ignoring the larger social, historical, political, and relational conditions that shape human distress. This realization fundamentally transformed how I understand healing and continues to guide the way I practice today.

Today, I continue to study, seek, listen and learn from the Land, the ancestral, traditional and unceded territory of the Coast Salish peoples, where I settled, live, work and play. ​

On a Personal Note

I identify as cis-gendered presenting-femme female, queer, able-bodied, middle-class, parent. Spiritually, I work wiht plant teachers and practice Siberian Shamanism & Slavic Spiritual Ways. I am not a shaman. I do not offer shamanic healing. But I bring my full self and invite my ancestors and plant allies into therapy. 

 When not working with people, I am out in nature - hiking barefoot, swimming in the ocean, foraging for wild herbs, and taking my son and daughter on many forest adventures. I hike barefoot regularly. I love cuddle parties, essential oils, don't kill bugs, and I am a voracious reader. I make lots of mess in the kitchen while cooking amazing dinners and enjoy hosting parties. I adore mangos and sunshine. I love being by the ocean & sounds of the rainforest.

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Professional Qualifications

I am a Registered Clinical Counsellor (#11114) 
I  recognize that my white-passing, cisgender, able-body, straight passing, and settler privileges allowed me to access education centred on colonial learning. I am continuously doing work to decolonize my education.

I hold an undergraduate degree in psychology form University of British Columbia, a Masters Degree in Counselling Psychology from University of Victoria and I am a Registered Clinical counsellor with the B.C. Association of Clinical Counsellors. 

I am a Registered Clinical Counsellor (RCC) with the B.C. Association of Clinical Counsellors.

I'm registered as a counselling provider with the Crime Victim Assistance Program, First Nations Health Authority .