Counselling for Children, Teens & Adults

Following a collision, the mind can stay on alert long after the body has healed. You may relive the crash without warning, see it when you close your eyes, feel your heart race at the sound of traffic, or find yourself avoiding the road entirely.

This is not weakness and it is not permanent. Trauma therapy works by helping your nervous system recognize that the danger has passed. We use approaches with strong evidence behind them, including EMDR, cognitive processing therapy and prolonged exposure, always at a pace you set.

You will never be pushed to describe more than you are ready to describe.

Persistent worry, a racing heart, breathlessness, the sense that something bad is about to happen. After an accident, many people find anxiety attaches itself to driving, to being a passenger, or to leaving the house at all.

Treatment identifies what your anxiety is responding to and gradually reduces its hold, using cognitive behavioural therapy, exposure work and practical tools you can use in the moment. Where driving is the trigger, we can measure the response objectively and treat it directly.

Losing your work, your independence, your routine and your sense of who you are will affect anyone. Low mood after an injury is common, and it deserves treatment rather than patience.

We work with cognitive behavioural therapy, behavioural activation and interpersonal approaches, and where mood has not responded to previous treatment we can arrange psychiatric assessment, TMS or neurofeedback. Depression that has resisted treatment before is not a dead end.

Child and teen therapy and paediatric counselling from age four in Grimsby and St. Catharines, from age five in Oakville, and from age ten in Kitchener, with in-home, in-school, and virtual appointments also available. Children rarely describe distress in words. It appears as clinginess, nightmares, refusing the car, trouble at school, stomach aches, or anger that seems to come from nowhere.

Therapy is adapted to age, using play, art and structured activity for younger children and more direct conversation with teenagers. Parents are involved in a way that respects a teenager’s privacy, and we will always explain what we are doing and why.

Grief after a collision takes more than one form. There may be the death of someone in the vehicle, or the loss of the life you had, the work you did, and the person you were before.

We give that loss room rather than trying to move you past it, and we help you find a way to carry it that does not consume everything else.

Injury changes households. Partners become caregivers, roles reverse, money becomes tight, and patience wears thin on all sides. Resentment and guilt often sit alongside love.

We offer individual, couples and family sessions, and support for the family members whose own difficulties tend to go unmentioned because someone else is more obviously unwell.

Sitting with people who understand without needing it explained is a particular kind of relief. Our groups bring together people working through similar difficulties, led by a clinician.

Groups run alongside individual therapy or on their own, and they are often the point at which people stop feeling alone in this. Ask us what is currently running.

Fear of driving is one of the most disabling consequences of a collision and one of the least often treated. The same is true of fear of travelling as a passenger, and of anxiety about crossing roads or walking near traffic after being struck as a pedestrian or cyclist. We assess all of these using virtual reality cleared as a medical device, with a small electrode recording your heart rate, in our clinic or in your own home.

That tells us exactly which situations provoke the response, so treatment works through them in a graded way. Progress is re-measured, so you can see it rather than hope for it.

It depends on what you are dealing with, and anyone who gives you a number before assessing you is guessing.

Focused trauma treatment is often a matter of months rather than years. Chronic pain, brain injury or long-standing difficulties usually take longer. We reassess at intervals using the same measures, so progress is tracked rather than assumed.

We will also tell you honestly when we think you no longer need us.

Usually weekly at the start, moving to every two or three weeks as things improve. Where someone is struggling considerably, or where intensive trauma work would help, we sometimes schedule more than one session a week. Treatments such as EMDR tend to work better with consistent, closer-spaced sessions early on.

Frequency is set with you around what you can manage practically and financially, not imposed.

Both are entirely normal and neither is a problem. Your clinician has seen it many times and will not be uncomfortable.

If you cannot find words, you do not have to fill the silence. Sitting quietly in a session is allowed and is sometimes the most useful thing that happens.

Not before you are ready, and never in more detail than you choose. Several of the treatments we use, EMDR among them, work without requiring you to narrate the event.

You can stop at any point. Being pushed to relive something before you are ready is not therapy.

Yes, at any time, and you do not need to explain yourself or worry about causing offence. The fit between you and your clinician matters more than almost anything else in therapy, so if it is not right, tell us and we will match you with someone else. Because we are a clinic rather than a sole practitioner, that is a straightforward change, and your history stays with us so you are not starting over.

The same applies to the approach itself. With more than thirty modalities across our team, if one is not working we can try another rather than persevering. If you have tried therapy before and it did not help, that often means the approach or the fit was wrong rather than that therapy will not work for you. Tell us what you tried.

Yes, subject to the legal limits that apply to every regulated health professional in Ontario: a risk of serious harm to you or someone else, and suspected harm to a child. We will always tell you if such a situation arises.

Where an insurer funds your care, they receive the treatment plans and progress reports needed to administer the claim, and they are entitled to request your clinical records. We will explain exactly what is likely to be shared before you begin, so there are no surprises. If there is something you would prefer not to have documented, tell your clinician and we will discuss how to handle it. Nothing is released to an insurer or anyone else without your written consent.

Our nurse practitioners can assess and prescribe, and our psychiatrists provide physician-level opinions on diagnosis and medication.

Many people do well with therapy alone. Where medication would help, we can arrange it rather than sending you elsewhere.

Where mood or anxiety has not responded to therapy and medication, Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation, neurofeedback and biofeedback are available at our Oakville clinic.

Treatment-resistant depression is not a dead end, and these are reasonable next steps rather than last resorts.

Specialized services →

Yes, if you want them to be. We offer couples and family sessions, and support for family members in their own right, since injury affects whole households.

With an adult client, nothing is shared with family without your consent.

Guide for family members →