My career started in a classroom. As I high school teacher, I could see which students were struggling, I just didn’t have the language to understand why, nor the tools to help. So I went back to school for a Masters in Counselling Psychology. What I learned changed how I see everything: most of what we call performance problems, disengagement, or resistance are better understood as adaptive responses to environments that don’t feel safe.
I’ve now spent over a decade working at the intersection of education, psychotherapy, and organizational life — as a senior psychotherapist at the University of Ottawa, as the founder of Integration Counselling, and most recently, I’ve completed an MBA learning how these insights translate into strategy and leadership.
My work is grounded in one conviction: People don’t fail to change because they lack information. They fail because something in them is still trying to protect something older than the goal.
I write about this at on my Substack (henrikvierula.substack.com). I’m always open to conversations with educators, clinicians, and leaders who are working at this same intersection.
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