Perhaps you are wondering what it would be like to start counselling 
Or are feeling ready to spend some time working with yourself with the guidance of a trained professional.

As a therapist, I am committed to building a relationship that supports your unique needs, develops your strengths and fosters your innate ability to heal and thrive. 

Often, we aren’t afforded the time, opportunity or privilege to learn the most beneficial ways to sift through what comes our way. We tackle things as best we can using strategies learned from previous experiences. In some situations, our default strategies end up taking us further away from what we want. This can prevent us from knowing or fulfilling our needs - we may get stuck not knowing how best to cope or how to move forward.

With supportive conditions, we are able to unlearn what no longer serves us and shift toward ways that are more beneficial to our well-being. Therapy is about creating a safe, trusting relationship where you can explore life’s challenges, connect to your power, joy, authenticity, understand what you need and how to meet your needs in deep connection to life.

I offer therapy services for individuals in downtown Toronto.

Uncertain about starting counselling or about talking to a professional about your struggles?
 
Email me to schedule a free 20-30 min phone consultation and let's talk about what I offer and if it fits what you are looking for.  
 

Born in India, I grew up in Nova Scotia, and now call Toronto home.

I was raised in a family that paid attention to power and privilege and the effects of it on people's ability to survive and thrive.

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I've consistently sought to learn about systems of power and privilege, inequity and inequality, in large global scale contexts and in our everyday human interactions - and how all of these intersect and dance together in the complex and beautiful layers we experience.

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I work hard to continuously unlearn oppressive ways of being that we grow up internalizing and strive to engage therapeutically with integrity, ethics, wholehearted presence and with the utmost intelligence and skill.

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My path of becoming a therapist was a windy road of figuring out where my skills and passion best meet empowerment, social justice and change. From my first volunteer role as a teenager on a peer crisis line to working with people in shelters, I have continuously sought roles where I expanded my capacity to be with people in a way they need and fits for both of us. Ultimately, my own therapy journey lead me to developing my clinical skills professionally. The therapeutic frameworks I offer and have trained in, are ones that I also benefit from in my personal therapy experience and therefore I resonate deeply with, beyond my clinical training. 

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 I work from a humanistic perspective. To me, this means: people are inherently good and try their best while developing protective ways of navigating through life that may not serve them when they aim to thrive and not just survive.

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I welcome folks as you are, however you identify, orient and present. I am sex/kink positive, body positive, LGBTQQ2SI+ affirming, and work with people in relationships of varying romantic and intimate structures. I work from an anti-oppressive, anti-black racism, feminist and systems perspective that informs how larger and smaller systems and ways of being, weave together to shape our experiences.

I am trauma informed, use an Attachment Theory lens trained in EFT (Emotionally Focused Therapy), along with a parts work framework informed by IFS (Internal Family Systems) and Structural Dissociation Theory. I focus on engaging in non-talk therapy practices - primarily through Structural Dissociation and EMDR (Eye Motion Desensitizing Reprocessing) and DBR (Deep Brain Re-Orienting).

I am trained in all of these modalities beyond introductory training modules and continue to enhance my skillset here by focusing on ongoing trainings and continued supervision.

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In sessions, we could work to understand the logic of your parts (emotional and logical for example); how your inner system is structured and functions. How do parts of you respond to what, when and why - externally and internally? How have these parts functioned to protect you thus far to survive and how have they limited your ability to thrive when conditions change and you are able to move out of survival mode?  

With an understanding of how context in smaller systems like family, partnerships and larger systems like patriarchy and anti-black racism inform our experience, along with the impact of Capital 'T' and small 't' traumas, therapy models like parts work, EMDR can help people in their healing and becoming.

I am a trained therapist through my social work masters and am registered with the College of Social Workers.
 

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THERAPY

• Online video/telehealth and phone sessions available

• $155 per session for individuals

• Appointment hours: Monday - Thursday 11:30 - 4:00

• Free 20-30 minute phone consultation

• Official receipts for submission to insurance plans 

For information on workshop facilitation click here.

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Located in Toronto - serving residents of Ontario. 

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I only offer tele-health online video and phone sessions.
(No in-person sessions)

Email me at 
ninotchka.counselling@gmail.com
to schedule a phone consultation.

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