Quest Psychology Services

Why people come here

You may feel unsure whether ADHD, autism, anxiety, burnout, or another pattern explains what you or your child are experiencing. You may feel stuck without clear answers and want a better understanding of what is going on.

What I do

I offer assessment and counselling for children, teens, adults, and families seeking clarity, understanding, and practical support. I also support presentations that can be missed or misunderstood, including those often seen in women. Assessment helps identify how the brain works and what may be contributing to the difficulties you are facing. Counselling helps turn that understanding into meaningful change in daily life.

What you get

My approach is thoughtful, clear, and focused on helping people better understand themselves or their children. Whether you are looking for answers, support, or a path forward, the goal is to provide insight that feels useful and actionable.

Getting started

If you are looking for assessment or counselling for yourself or your child, you can book an appointment to take the next step.Free consultations are available if you have questions or are not sure if you need assessment or counselling.

Riley Morrell

Registered Psychologist

Hi, I’m Riley. I’m a psychologist who provides assessment and counselling for children, teens, adults, and families.

I do this work because I genuinely care about helping people understand themselves. When things have felt confusing, missed, or hard to put into words, having a clearer picture can make an enormous difference. I want clients to feel supported and understood.

I work with children, teens, adults, and families, and I am especially passionate about neurodiversity and autism. I also care deeply about the kinds of presentations that are often overlooked or misunderstood, including those that can show up in women. Whether someone is coming for assessment, counselling, or both, my goal is to offer clarity that is thoughtful, practical, and genuinely useful.

My style is warm, curious, and direct. I take my work seriously, but I do not believe the process has to feel cold or distant. Good psychology, to me, is not about forcing people into neat categories. It is about understanding how they think, how they experience the world, and what will actually help.

Outside of work, I am a huge nerd. I love board games, Dungeons and Dragons, Magic: The Gathering, video games, sci-fi, fantasy, and spending time with my two cats. I think those interests say a lot about me: I like complexity, stories, systems, and the many different ways people make meaning of their worlds.

Autism is a form of neurodiversity that affects how a person communicates, relates to others, processes sensory information, and experiences the world. It is not one single presentation, and it can look different from person to person. Some autistic people may experience differences in social communication, strong or highly focused interests, a need for routine or predictability, or sensory sensitivities. Autism is best understood as a pattern of strengths, differences, and support needs rather than a simple checklist.

At Quest, autism assessment is thoughtful, comprehensive, and grounded in the full picture of a person’s life. The process may include an intake interview, developmental history, review of relevant background information, standardized questionnaires or measures, and clinical observation. When appropriate, I also consider how autism may overlap with or look different from concerns such as ADHD, anxiety, burnout, or presentations that have been missed in women and gender-diverse people. The goal is not just to determine whether someone meets diagnostic criteria, but to offer a clearer understanding of how they think, experience the world, and make meaning of their experiences, along with practical next steps and recommendations.

ADHD is a neurodevelopmental difference that affects attention, impulse control, activity level, and executive functioning. It can show up as difficulty focusing, staying organized, following through, managing time, regulating emotions, or shifting attention when needed. For some people, ADHD looks more outwardly restless or impulsive. For others, it shows up more quietly through overwhelm, forgetfulness, procrastination, mental clutter, or feeling like everyday tasks take more effort than they seem to for other people. ADHD is not a lack of intelligence, effort, or motivation. It is a different way of processing and regulating attention and action.

At Quest, ADHD assessment is comprehensive and grounded in the broader context of a person’s life. The process may include an intake interview, developmental and background history, review of current concerns, standardized rating scales or questionnaires, and information from other settings when appropriate, such as school, work, or family context. I also look carefully at overlap with other concerns that can affect attention and executive functioning, including anxiety, autism, learning differences, burnout, or the kinds of presentations that may be missed in women. The goal is not simply to decide whether someone fits a label, but to understand the full picture of how they function, where they struggle, where their strengths are, and what supports or next steps may be most helpful.

Learning differences or learning disorders can affect how a person reads, writes, understands language, or works with math. These difficulties are not a reflection of intelligence, effort, or motivation. Often, they show up as a gap between what someone seems capable of and how hard learning feels in practice. A person may work very hard and still struggle with reading fluency, spelling, written expression, number sense, or mathematical reasoning. For some people, these patterns are identified early. For others, they are missed for years and may instead look like frustration, avoidance, low confidence, or feeling like school or work takes more effort than it should. Learning assessments can be helpful at any age, whether someone is in school, entering post-secondary, navigating work, or trying to better understand long-standing challenges.

At Quest, learning assessment is comprehensive and focused on understanding how someone learns, where things break down, and what support may help. The process may include an intake interview, developmental, educational, and background history, review of school or other relevant records, standardized testing of cognitive and academic skills, questionnaires, and careful clinical interpretation. I also consider how learning challenges may overlap with other concerns such as ADHD, anxiety, autism, or burnout. The goal is not just to identify whether a learning disorder is present, but to build a clear picture of a person’s learning profile, including strengths, areas of difficulty, and practical recommendations that can support success at school, work, and in daily life.

Mental health concerns can affect how a person feels, thinks, copes, and functions in daily life. They may involve anxiety, depression, trauma, stress, burnout, mood changes, obsessive or intrusive thoughts, or patterns that are harder to make sense of without a fuller assessment. Sometimes the main issue is clear. Other times, symptoms overlap, shift over time, or reflect more than one thing at once. A mental health assessment can help bring structure and clarity to that picture by looking at the full context of a person’s experiences rather than focusing on one symptom in isolation. Mental health assessments are usually part of a larger assessment looking at autism, ADHD, or learning.

At Quest, mental health assessment is comprehensive, thoughtful, and grounded in understanding the whole person. The process may include an intake interview, relevant history, review of current symptoms, questions about functioning across different areas of life, and standardized questionnaires or screening tools when appropriate. I also look carefully at how mental health concerns may overlap with neurodiversity, learning differences, stress, burnout, or other factors that can shape how symptoms show up. The goal is not simply to assign a diagnosis, but to offer a clearer understanding of what is happening, what may be contributing to it, and what kinds of support, treatment, or next steps may be most helpful.

Any assessment I offer at Quest can also be completed virtually.Virtual assessments (a.k.a. teleassessments) are completed fully online from your home by a trained clinician. Modifications to support the process while maintaining the quality and integrity of the assessment. Depending on the type of assessment, this may involve intake and interview appointments by video, questionnaires completed electronically, and testing activities completed online or adapted for a virtual format. I am trained in virtual psychological assessment and use approaches that are informed by current guidance and best practices for tele-assessment.

Methods

I draw from cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), motivational interviewing, goal‑focused, and mindfulness‑based approaches depending on what fits best for you.

Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) can help identify patterns in thoughts, emotions, and behaviour, and build more effective ways of understanding and responding to what is happening in your brain, particularly when anxiety, rumination, or self‑criticism are high.

Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) focuses on identifying what matters to you and supporting action toward those values, even when difficult thoughts or feelings show up.

Motivational interviewing supports change by clarifying your goals and strengthening motivation when ambivalence, burnout, or overwhelm get in the way.

Goal‑focused work helps turn insight into action by breaking goals into realistic steps and accounting for executive functioning challenges such as planning, initiation, and follow‑through.

Mindfulness can help strengthen awareness and regulation, and support a different relationship with difficult thoughts, emotions, and sensory experiences.

Counselling with Children and Teens

Counselling with children and teens looks different from counselling with adults, and I tailor the process to the person in front of me. Depending on age, needs, and goals, this may involve conversation, creative or concrete activities, skill-building, and support for emotional understanding and regulation. With children especially, play can be an important part of the process, because play is one of the main ways children learn, communicate, and work through their experiences. When helpful, I also work collaboratively with parents or caregivers so that the young person is supported both in sessions and in daily life.

Trauma and Neurodiversity

My counselling approach is trauma-informed, neurodiversity-informed, and grounded in evidence-based practice. For me, being neurodiversity-informed means seeing the person in front of me rather than reducing them to a label, and understanding their patterns in context. Being trauma-informed means I work with care, safety, and respect for how past experiences may shape the present, without assuming there is only one path forward.