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I • Johns rejoins her home town after counselling in far north <>/Ot r By Henry Bury THE INTELLIGENCER Dianne Johns gave careful consideration to what logo she wanted on her business cards and brochures publicizing her new coun- selling service. She settled on a simple birch tree. "Birch trees survive long, cold winters and other hardships and the reason I chose the tree was that it was a good metaphor for counselling," said the 50-year-old Johns who set up her private practice at 176B Foster Ave., last month. "A tree is rooted and grounded. It reach- es out to the sky. It blooms and blossoms. And it renews itself every year. Any person, like a tree, faces hardships and therefore needs help to thrive." She offers "therapeutic" services in bereavement counselling, anger management, marital conflict counselling, parent-child con- flict management, post-traumatic stress dis- order therapy, anxiety and phobia counselling as well as teaching assertiveness skills and life and social skills for clients with psycho- logical disorders. Johns spent the past three years at a coun- selling centre in Hay River, Northwest Terri-; tories, about 120 km north of the Alberta border, before deciding to return to Belleville for the third time to establish her private practice. She said she learned a lot in her time spent as a community mental health therapist up north dealing with children, ado- lescents, adults, couples, families and indi- viduals with mental illness. "It was a wonderful experience," Johns said. "I learned so much about counselling and a lot about the human desire to have a better life. People work really hard to get their lives back on track but sometimes they need outside help to do that.." INTELLIGENCER PHOTO BY HENRY BURY Dianne Johns at her new counselling service at 176 B Foster Ave. .5 jot