Psychotherapy

Welcome! I’m Pearl, a registered psychotherapist who specializes in helping people get unstuck from thought patterns that hold them back.

If you’re feeling ready to make a life change, move beyond overthinking, or quiet your harsh inner critic, you’re in the right place. With compassionate, personalized therapy, I’ll guide you through the process of letting go of old thought patterns—often shaped by past experiences or trauma—and moving into a life aligned with your true self.

This is a place to:

  • sort out your thoughts,

  • make sense of your feelings

  • gain a different perspective

  • learn coping skills

  • and connect to your authentic self.

Through experience or trauma, you may have developed coping mechanisms/ thought patterns that had served you well but that no longer support you in living a fulfilling life. Those coping mechanisms / thought patterns are fogging the way to your authentic self, and you may be experiencing the following:

  • Anxiety and Constant Worry: Do you often feel restless or anxious, even without an apparent reason? Anxiety is a sign that your mind is working overtime, trying to protect you from past fears.

  • Overthinking and Indecisiveness: Overanalyzing and going back and forth on every decision can leave you exhausted, drained, and paralyzed.

  • Inner Critic / Negative Self-talk: The harsh voice in your mind might make you doubt yourself, replay mistakes, or prevent you from stepping into new experiences.

  • People-Pleasing: A tendency to put others’ needs above your own can lead to burnout and frustration.

  • Self-Sabotage: Are you struggling to move forward on your goals because of procrastination or self-doubt? These behaviours often indicate deeper fears and thought patterns.

If you are experiencing some or all of the above, I can help. Through our work, we’ll examine the root causes of these patterns and identify new ways to experience life without anxiety, harsh self-criticism, or constant overthinking.

My Therapeutic Approach

In my practice, I combine narrative therapy, mindfulness, and an internal family system (see FAQ for definition) to take a compassionate and personalized approach to help you reshape your thought patterns so you can connect to your authentic self deeply, to let your strength and value guide you to a fulfilling life.

When you choose therapy with me, you can expect to:

  • Understand the Roots of Your Thought Patterns: By uncovering how past experiences shaped your current thinking, we’ll reframe these perspectives to promote growth and healing.

  • Challenge Limiting Beliefs and Expectations: We’ll identify and replace the beliefs that no longer serve you, allowing you to move forward with greater clarity and ease.

  • Build Self-Compassion and Self-Acceptance: By learning to speak kindly to yourself, you’ll find it easier to quiet the inner critic and trust yourself.

  • Create Coping Strategies: I’ll help you develop tools to manage anxiety, reduce overthinking, and foster more confidence in your daily life.

  • Connect Deeply to Your Authentic Self: This helps you to build that strong foundation, safety and self-trust to

Through our work together, you’ll gain insight, clarity, and the tools you need to embrace change and live more fully aligned with your values and goals.

FAQs

    • $150 for 50 mins per session (covered by most insurance plan that covers psychotherapy in Ontario)

    • In - person at 658 Danforth Ave, Suite 303, Toronto, 2 mins walk from Pape station. Tue (11am to 6:30pm) & Sat (10am to 3pm)

    • Virtual- Through Jane app, you don’t need to download anything extra on a laptop/ desktop. Tue, Wed, Thu (11am to 6:30pm) & Sat (10am to 3pm)

  • How you tell your story about who you are, and how you became the person you are right now is so important. Your life narrative affects the relationship you have with yourself and it affects the actions you take on a daily basis. So using this lens, we will be walking down memory lane together, to understand yourself better. This process usually helps you build awareness, compassion and acceptance of you and your past. We can also assess how some of these narrative may not work for you anymore with the goal you have in mine. So, we can then explore how to we can re-author your narrative to help you be who you want to be and achieve the goals you have in life.

  • Mindfulness is more than just meditation. It is a mindset and an attitude on how to approach life. A lot of the time, our mind is in the past and the future, and we’re taken away from the present moment. In the long run, this can cause stress, and anxiety, and life can feel like it’s on autopilot, and you’re losing control of your choices. Within our session, we can work on different mindfulness techniques, and you can take this away for the rest of your life to help you connect to your inner resources and build mental resiliency.

  • Have you ever said, ‘There’s a part of me that wants to do this, and there’s a part of me that don’t’. The Internal Family System believes that we are made of different parts within us. Sometimes when a part of us is repressed, too dominant, or when their needs are unmet, it can result in inner conflict, and this can show up as a general stuckness in life. In our work together, we can look explore these different parts together, so we can build awareness, compassion and harmony so you can have a better relationship with yourself, and help you reach the goals you’ve been wanting to achieve.

  • The first few sessions are a get-to-know-you time. I need to understand more about your history, your overall well-being, and your goals. (I have an intake form for us to go through for the first session). After I understand more about your history and needs, I’ll share with you what I think we should focus on first, and we’ll take it from there.

    I’ll check in with you around the third to fifth session to see if we are on the same page. By then, we’ll be able to establish a clear focus and pace.

    For each session, we’ll begin with a check-in, and you can bring whatever’s on your mind.. Most often or not, it relates back to your goals, and we’ll start processing, with questions and some exercise I might suggest.