ABOUT ME
I'm a Licensed Professional Counselor, trauma-informed therapist, mental health educator, and founder of Renew Restoration.
I believe people make sense when we take the time to understand what shaped them.
The anxiety. The overthinking. The need to keep everyone happy. The difficulty slowing down. The relationships that keep falling into familiar patterns. The ways we protect ourselves without always realizing we're doing it.
Those things don't come from nowhere.
My work is about creating space to understand what's underneath them, not so we can stay stuck in the past, but so the past doesn't have to keep quietly shaping what comes next.
I work with adults, teens, and families navigating trauma, anxiety, emotional overwhelm, burnout, relationship challenges, life transitions, and the lasting impact of difficult experiences.
Therapy with me isn't about finding what's wrong with you. It's about getting curious about what shaped you and discovering what healing can look like from here.
Why This Work Matters to Me
Long before I sat in the therapist's chair, I knew what it was like to sit in the client's chair.
My own process required me to look at longstanding patterns, understand where they came from, and recognize that some of the ways I had learned to navigate life were no longer serving me.
That experience didn't make me a therapist; my education, clinical training, and years of experience prepared me for that responsibility. But it did shape the kind of therapist I wanted to become.
I know that meaningful change can be uncomfortable. Understanding something intellectually and actually living differently are not always the same thing. Healing can require honesty, patience, responsibility, grief, courage, and sometimes the willingness to question things we've carried for a very long time.
That's why I don't approach symptoms as simply problems to eliminate. Often, they're telling us something.
We slow down enough to listen.
We explore the experiences, relationships, beliefs, roles, and survival patterns that may be influencing what's happening today. Then we work toward change that feels more sustainable, intentional, and aligned with who you are becoming.
Going Beneath the Surface
My approach is trauma-informed and depth-oriented because I don't believe lasting change comes from simply getting better at managing what's visible.
Sometimes coping is exactly what we need. But sometimes we've become very good at functioning inside patterns, relationships, or environments that are costing us more than we realize.
The work is not about blaming the past or pointing fingers. We go back for understanding, not to stay there.
We look at what happened, what you learned, what helped you adapt, what you're carrying forward, and what may need attention now.
The goal is greater freedom and choice, not perfection.
Beyond the Therapy Room
Renew Restoration has grown beyond the counseling room because I believe this kind of understanding should be accessible in more than one way.
In addition to my work as a counselor, I'm an adjunct professor, author, trainer, speaker, and clinical supervisor. I create educational resources, teach helping professionals, develop clinical frameworks, and work with organizations around trauma, behavioral health, human behavior, relationships, and the systems that shape how we function.
Whether I'm sitting with a client, teaching a clinician, writing a book, or creating a resource, the question underneath my work remains much the same:
What changes when we understand what shaped us?
Books by Catrina Labrie
For the work that continues beyond the room.
Writing has become another way for me to explore the conversations that often don't fit neatly into a therapy session, the things we carry quietly, the patterns we don't always recognize, and the healing that happens as we begin understanding ourselves differently.
Some struggles are easy to see. Others are carried quietly while life continues as usual.
The Secret Life of Silent Suffering explores what can happen when pain stays hidden beneath functioning, responsibility, and strength. Through reflection, clinical insight, and real-life stories, the book helps readers recognize the patterns that silent struggles can create and begin making space for healing, honesty, and a different way forward.
Restorative Disruptions
Sometimes healing asks us to interrupt what has become familiar.
Restorative Disruptions explores the patterns, beliefs, boundaries, and relationships that can keep us moving through life in ways that no longer serve us. Through reflection, practical tools, and insights drawn from both clinical work and lived experience, the book invites readers to notice what may need to be challenged, changed, or approached differently.
Because disruption doesn’t always mean something is falling apart. Sometimes it creates the space for something healthier to take shape.
Helping Teens Discover Their Worth
Growing up comes with a lot to figure out, friendships, family, expectations, emotions, identity, and the pressure to know who you are while you’re still becoming.
Restorative Empowerment: Finding Your Worth gives teens a place to slow down and explore some of those experiences for themselves. Through reflections, exercises, and practical prompts, teens are encouraged to better understand their thoughts and emotions, strengthen their confidence, navigate relationships, and discover what matters to them.
At the heart of the book is a simple reminder:
Your story matters. Your voice matters. And your worth was never up for debate.