Metro Vancouver · Online
Online counselling in Burnaby, BC
Online counselling for people in Burnaby is with Camille Granda or Savneet Singh, both Registered Clinical Counsellors, by secure video in English, Punjabi or Tagalog depending on the counsellor, with a free 15-minute consultation and no referral needed.
Burnaby looks west for services and is covered by Fraser Health. A mismatch that costs people weeks.
Also serving Metrotown, Brentwood, Lougheed and the rest of Metro Vancouver, by the same video sessions.
Updated
Many extended health plans reimburse a Registered Clinical Counsellor, depending on the plan, so check yours; MSP does not. Receipts are issued for every session, and the fees are published in full. On a calendar-year plan, sessions held by 31 December count against this year: using benefits before the plan year ends.
Burnaby is a city that mostly faces west. People work in Vancouver, look for services in Vancouver, and reasonably assume the health authority covering downtown covers them too.
It does not. Public mental-health intake for a Burnaby address runs through Fraser Health, not Vancouver Coastal. That is a small administrative fact with a real cost: people discover it at the wrong end of a referral, having already waited, and start again in a different queue.
Who you’d see in Burnaby
Taking new clients and seeing people in Burnaby by secure video. Each is a Registered Clinical Counsellor; the registration is on the profile and can be checked on the BCACC register.
Camille Granda, RCC, CCC
English and Tagalog · Trauma, Anxiety and chronic stress, Grief, loss and life transitions
In her words: “I want sitting with me to feel like the biggest belly breath you have ever taken.”
Savneet Singh, RCC
English and Punjabi · Anxiety, Depression, Trauma and attachment
In her words: “Comforting, safe and supportive, is what I aim for.”
Individual sessions are $140 for 50 minutes, after a free 15-minute consultation; card at booking. Every fee, and what plans reimburse.
How private is the video?
Bookings and client records are held in Cliniko, the practice’s booking and records system, in an account on Cliniko’s Canadian region. Records are encrypted and access-controlled. Sessions are by secure video: the link arrives by email and opens in your browser, with nothing to install. Sessions are never recorded, not for notes, not for supervision, not for training. The privacy policy sets out the rest.
The authority mismatch, and what it does not affect
The public route depends on your address, not your commute. If you live in Burnaby, Fraser Health is the intake route regardless of where you work. Checking that before making a referral request saves the weeks most commonly lost in this city.
None of it applies to private counselling. Registration with the BC Association of Clinical Counsellors is provincial. An RCC may work with any client in British Columbia, and no health-authority boundary, referral or diagnosis enters into it. For someone who has just lost a month to the wrong queue, that is worth saying plainly rather than leaving to be inferred.
Specialised private practice here is thinner than the population suggests. Burnaby's private sector does not scale with its size, which is why the default for anything specific has long been to travel west, adding a commute to the appointment least suited to having one afterwards.
What sessions cost, and what extended health will and will not reimburse, is set out on the fees page.
Why virtual, specifically here
What changes when distance stops mattering
No trip across the city
The commute west is the most common reason a course of sessions here ends early. New Westminster and Queensborough have a page of their own.
No referral, no diagnosis
Counselling with an RCC is accessed directly, whichever authority covers your address.
Punjabi or English
Including moving between both inside a single session.
Not sure which kind of support fits? A free 15-minute consultation is the fastest way to find out, and it is a fine outcome if the answer is a referral somewhere else.
Available in Burnaby
Ways we can help
Individual
1:1 for anxiety, depression, life transitions, identity, family dynamics.
Individual Therapy in BurnabyCouples
Gottman-informed: communication, conflict, connection, repair.
Couples and Marriage Counselling in BurnabyAnxiety
The appointment becomes the third journey of the day, and the third one is the one that gets cancelled.
Anxiety Counselling and Therapy in BurnabyTrauma
It frequently surfaces only once life is finally stable enough to let it.
Trauma Therapy and Counselling in BurnabyDepression
You can live in the middle of everything and still be an hour from anyone who knows you.
Depression Counselling and Therapy in BurnabyQuestions from Burnaby
Counselling around a Burnaby commute
Burnaby sits in the middle of everything, which is exactly the problem. A large share of the city works somewhere else: downtown Vancouver, Surrey, the Tri-Cities, and the SkyTrain that makes that workable also makes a 5:30 pm appointment anywhere a fiction. The classic Burnaby counselling arrangement is a lunchtime office you can never quite reach or an after-work appointment that costs ninety minutes of travel for fifty minutes of session.
Video sessions dissolve that arithmetic. A session happens from home in Brentwood, Edmonds or Metrotown without re-crossing the region, or from a booked meeting room or a parked car near work, and the travel time it would have cost is simply not spent. The practical requirement is privacy for the hour, not geography, and the booking calendar shows the open times each counsellor actually holds rather than implying them.
One Burnaby-specific note: SFU students on the mountain already have a no-cost route in Here2Talk, the province-wide 24/7 service for post-secondary students, alongside campus health and counselling. Private counselling is a complement to those, not a replacement. The fuller picture is on the student supports page.
Choosing between Burnaby options
- You want a room to go to, Burnaby and the neighbouring cities have plenty of in-person practices, and for some people leaving the house is part of what makes therapy work. That is a legitimate preference, and this virtual practice is honestly not the fit for it.
- Privacy from a shared household, A common reason Burnaby residents choose video with a camera in a parked car or a booked room rather than a home office: multi-generational households where a weekly "appointment" invites questions. Sessions here can also run in Punjabi, relevant to exactly the households where that privacy question is sharpest.
- Continuity beats geography, Renters move, Burnaby to New West to Coquitlam is a normal three-year arc. A virtual practice serving all of BC means the counsellor does not change when the postal code does.
- The travel problem, solved differently, An in-person appointment costs the session plus the trip to reach the office, and across the Lower Mainland the trip is often the longer part. A video session costs only the hour itself. Which hours are open is a matter of the calendar, which shows the real open times rather than promising particular ones.
Before you book
Which health authority covers Burnaby?
Fraser Health, not Vancouver Coastal, which surprises a lot of people who work in Vancouver. It determines the public intake route for your address, and has no bearing at all on seeing a Registered Clinical Counsellor privately.
Do I need a doctor's referral?
No. Counselling with an RCC is accessed directly. There is no referral, no diagnosis, and no waiting for a physician appointment first.
Is counselling covered by MSP?
No. MSP does not cover counselling with an RCC. Many extended health plans reimburse it, depending on the plan, so check yours; receipts carry the registration number insurers ask for.
Can I have a session on a work day?
Times depend on the counsellor, and the booking page shows what is open. Because there is no travel, a session costs the session rather than the afternoon around it as well.
Do you see people in Metrotown, Brentwood or Lougheed?
Yes, on exactly the same terms as Burnaby. Every session is by secure video, so Metrotown, Brentwood, Lougheed and the rest of Metro Vancouver are served the same way: a Registered Clinical Counsellor, a free 15-minute consultation first, and no travel at either end.
What does counselling cost in Burnaby?
From Burnaby, an individual session is $140 for 50 minutes, couples counselling $175 for 50 minutes and an EMDR intensive $190 for 90 minutes, and the first 15-minute consultation is free. The fee is the same anywhere in BC. Many extended health plans reimburse a Registered Clinical Counsellor, but whether yours does is plan-dependent, so check it for the RCC designation before the first paid session.
Who would I see in Burnaby?
People in Burnaby see Camille Granda, RCC, CCC, who works in English and Tagalog or Savneet Singh, RCC, who works in English and Punjabi. Each is a Registered Clinical Counsellor taking new clients by secure video, and the free consultation is with whichever of them you choose, so the person you meet first is the person you would work with.
Do you have an office in Burnaby, or is it online?
Online. There is no office in Burnaby or anywhere else: every session is by secure video, and the confirmation email carries the link. Nothing to install and no waiting room, so you can join from home, a parked car or a closed office in Burnaby.
More in the full list of frequently asked questions, or see fees and extended-health coverage.
A question before you book
Ask about counselling in Burnaby
Burnaby, in other languages
Elsewhere in BC
Sources
Counselling in Burnaby, starting with a conversation
A free 15-minute consultation over secure video. No pressure, no commitment, and no obligation to book a session afterward.
Book Free ConsultationNot ready to book? Send a line about what is going on. A reply comes within one business day, or read the guides first and come back when you want to.
Looking on behalf of someone else? What to send them, and what not to, including the funded routes most people do not know they qualify for.