BIO
Kenton Klassen, BFA, MA, RCC Psychodynamic Psychotherapist
I grew up in northern towns and cities across Western Canada, places marked by beauty, isolation, and complexity — places where the landscape teaches you the value of community. Moving often meant learning to read people quickly: their defenses, their longings, the ways they protect what matters. Those early experiences, along with years spent in industrial work, bartending, education, and the arts, shaped a lasting curiosity about the inner life we carry quietly beneath the ways we present ourselves to the world.
I am a psychodynamic psychotherapist and Registered Clinical Counsellor (R.C.C.), and the owner of Beyond the Pines Therapy. My work is rooted in the belief that much of what drives us — our patterns, conflicts, and hopes for connection — lives outside of awareness. Therapy becomes a place to slow down enough to hear those deeper currents. I hold a B.F.A. from The University of British Columbia and an M.A. in Counselling Psychology from The Seattle School of Theology & Psychology, with clinical training at the Dr. Peter Centre, Nightingale Counselling & Research, and Launchpad Counselling. I remain committed to ongoing analytic study and supervision and am a member of the Center for Object Relations.
Before becoming a therapist, I spent many years in theatre and film — work that demanded close attention to character, subtext, and the emotional truth beneath what is spoken. That training was also deeply somatic: years of breathwork, embodiment, and mindfulness practices that taught me how emotion lives in the body as much as in the mind. This artistic formation continues to shape my clinical sensibility: a respect for complexity, an interest in unconscious meaning, and an attunement to what is communicated beyond words.
Outside the therapy office, I’m often at the cinema, exploring the coastline with my family, working on creative projects, or reading novels that invite the kind of reflection I value in my clinical work
THERAPEUTIC APPROACH
Psychodynamic Psychotherapy (Psychoanalytic)
How is a mind formed? Many of our struggles arise from early relational experiences that shape us long before we’re aware of them. While some therapies focus on quick relief, psychodynamic psychotherapy works with the deeper structures that give rise to recurring distress. Through a steady, reflective relationship, we explore the patterns, conflicts, and emotional meanings that influence your present life.
My clinical orientation is grounded in British Object Relations, which examines how our internal relational world develops and affects how we feel and relate. I also draw from contemporary Jungian Analytical Psychology, which explores archetypal patterns and the human movement toward meaning and integration.
“There is a consistent finding in the research of patients making considerable improvement, long after treatment has ended.” - British Psychoanalytic Council
Click here to look at the research.
Dr. Jonathan Shedler briefly explaining how this type of therapy works.
Interpersonal Neurobiology / Attachment Theory
How is your nervous system connected to your mental health? Interpersonal Neurobiology studies how the brain, body, and mind develop and change within relationships. Attachment, affect regulation, and the nervous system’s responses to stress are central here. This perspective highlights how mindfulness, presence, and attuned relational experience support healing and emotional flexibility.
Family Systems / Cultural Systems
What role do you play in your family and culture? It can be deeply clarifying to step back and consider the larger systems that shape us — family dynamics, intergenerational patterns, and cultural influences. We are formed within networks of relationship, expectation, and history. I often draw on Bowen Family Systems Theory and various approaches to cultural development to help illuminate how these broader forces impact your sense of self and your relationships.
BEHIND THE NAME
The name Beyond the Pines draws from several sources that have shaped my thinking — a Thrice song inspired by Rumi’s A Great Wagon, and Derek Cianfrance’s film The Place Beyond the Pines. Each explores how the divisions we see in the world mirror the divisions within us: the ways we split off parts of ourselves, project what we fear, and struggle to recognize our shared humanity.
We are living through a period of intensifying social fracture. The idea of “beyond the pines” points toward a place past those divisions — a space where we can move beyond internal splits and hateful projections, and remember our interdependence. It reflects a commitment to the larger social responsibility of psychotherapy: helping people understand themselves in ways that reduce harm, deepen empathy, and support more humane relationships.
The name also gestures toward the Pacific Northwest, where I live and work, and toward the Arthurian image of entering the dark forest — a metaphor for the courage required to face one’s inner life. Real change often begins by stepping into that forest with someone you trust.
Because we are relational beings, transformation happens through connection. Beyond the Pines Therapy aims to be a place where your story can be explored in a steady, reflective relationship — one that supports both personal integration and a more compassionate engagement with the world around you.
“The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.”