Our Approach
Therapy doesn’t need to be a mystery. In fact, we believe that knowing what to expect — where you’re headed and how we’ll get there together — is key to meaningful progress. That’s why we’ve developed a therapy roadmap.
Because while every journey is unique, the path to meaningful change follows the same steps.

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1. The Catalyst
Recognize The Need For Change
It can be hard to believe you can change when you don’t feel in control. When the mountains inside look so big, they block out the sun and reinforce the same thoughts over and over again. Lost. Confused. Trapped. Alone.
We get it. We’ve been there, too.
And we know that these feelings, tough as they are, are also the very things that propel us towards growth and change. After all, it’s only when we’re lost that we realize we’re not where we want to be. It’s only when we’re confused that we try to understand, and it’s only when we feel stuck that we start to look for another way forward.
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2. The Search
Reach Out
Finding a therapist can be tough. Not knowing where to start or what you need can make it a frustrating process. Long wait times and mismatched therapists can lead to disappointment and exhaustion, leaving you wondering if it’s even worth the effort.
We get it, and that’s why we’re committed to making the journey easier for you.
Our Therapist Matching service takes the guesswork out of finding the right therapist by getting to know you, your needs, and your preferences, and matching you with someone who fits you best.
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3. The Warm Up
Restore Capacity
Starting therapy can feel like stepping into the unknown. Where do I begin? How will this work? Will I ever get out of these old loops? Sometimes we’re so in the weeds with what’s going on, it’s hard to see a way through.
We know what that’s like. That’s why our approach begins with creating a “map” — an understanding of what’s happening and how to move forward. Mapping out your experiences and gaining insight into your inner world can make things feel more manageable and less chaotic. As we uncover patterns together, we help you build the skills and resources to feel empowered and confident in navigating the peaks and valleys of your experiences.
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4. The Journey
Repair and Release
As self-awareness deepens, we may uncover old beliefs and unprocessed emotions. This is a natural part of therapy and is an opportunity for further growth.
That’s why this part of the journey goes beyond just coping; it’s about addressing and healing the root causes of your distress. Think of the mind as a computer running “old code” that no longer serves you. In this phase of therapy, we update that internal programming using neurologically-based, experiential therapies that target the old coding. By healing the root of the problem, you can move from coping with your burdens to being free of them, allowing you to navigate life with a new sense of lightness and freedom.
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5. The Summit
Reclaim You
As you shed the burdens of the past, you may find yourself navigating a sense of “newness.” What now? Who am I without the patterns, protections and beliefs I’ve carried all these years? We’re here to help you explore new possibilities as you close one chapter and begin another.
This phase is about rediscovering the authentic you beneath the old patterns and seeing how these changes show up in your daily life, relationships, work, and sense of self. Using mind-body therapies, we help you solidify your progress, ensuring these changes become a lasting part of who you are.
Because this journey isn’t just about healing; it’s about thriving and fully embracing your life.
Therapy From The Bottom Up
Our conscious, thinking mind excels at solving everyday problems but often falls short when it comes to addressing deeper emotional challenges. Unfortunately for most of us, if we could simply think our way out of pain, stress, or trauma, we would have done it already. But the reality is that the roots of these struggles often lie deeper, within the subconscious and unconscious mind—beyond the reach of logical thought.
Bottom-up approaches use experiential therapies that access these deeper layers. By engaging the body and nervous system, bottom-up approaches unlock patterns that thinking alone can’t reach, fostering transformative and lasting change.
Different Types of Therapy Affect Different Parts of the Brain
Client Journeys
Want to see what our approach looks like in real life? Check out the journeys of clients like you as they navigate growth, healing, and newfound clarity.

Sonia
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1. The Catalyst
Sonia had anxiety for a long time, but it got significantly worse when she became a parent. Not wanting her anxiety to influence her parenting or her daughter, Sonia sought help.
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2. The Search
Sonia spoke to her doctor and was put on an anti-anxiety medication and referred for Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). After giving both a good try and seeing minimal results, Sonia felt pretty defeated. The medication gave her side effects, and the CBT made her feel like a failure because trying to reason with her thoughts didn’t work. Luckily, a friend of Sonia’s was a client and recommended she try something that goes beyond talk therapy.
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3. The Warm Up
As is fairly common in anxiety, Sonia’s nervous system was chronically on alert. She was in sympathetic mode (fight, flight, freeze) most of the time and then would have periods where she crashed, feeling completely drained.
As we mapped out these nervous system patterns, Sonia realized she was continually bouncing back and forth between hyper and hypoactivation of the nervous system and that these cycles would feed on each other. The more anxious she got, the bigger the crash, and the bigger the crash, the more anxious she got.
Understanding this pattern, we used a combination of Internal Family Systems (IFS) to identify the internal patterns driving this cycle and Somatic Psychotherapy to build nervous system regulation skills. This gave Sonia a sense of confidence that she could navigate her anxiety when it came up and bring her system back into balance when it got activated.
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4. The Journey
During the Warm-Up, Sonia realized that a belief - “I’m going to fail” - was a big part of the anxiety cycle. She knew that belief had been in the background for a long time and even had a sense of where it came from. As we explored, we found that there were a few key experiences that had made her scared of failing.
Using EMDR, Sonia was able to work through these memories and the beliefs that they’d left her with. As she did, that fear of failing slowly dissolved, and she realized that mistakes, even failures, don’t mean I’m a failure.
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5. The Summit
We used a combination of IFS, Somatic Psychotherapy, and EMDR to fully integrate and embody this change, particularly what it meant for her as a mother. As this deepened, Sonia found she felt so much more at ease with herself and confident in her abilities as a parent.
Sonia still checks in now and then - mostly to catch up and show photos of her beautiful daughter - but she often notes how the sense of freedom that comes from not being held back by fear has stayed with her.

Charlie
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1. The Catalyst
Charlie had been experiencing depression for about a year following the loss of his job. When he realized that what he thought would be a temporary reaction wasn’t getting any better, he reached out for support.
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2. The Search
Charlie had done his fair share of therapy in the past and knew what did (and did not) work for him. He was specifically looking for Internal Family Systems (IFS) and Somatic Psychotherapy, and luckily, we came up in his search results.
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3. The Warm Up
Charlie had what he called “high functioning depression” - he still did what he needed to do, but it felt like going through the motions. He felt numb, disconnected, and just sort of beige. Since Charlie had found IFS helpful in the past, we started by exploring the parts of him that were connected to this numb-disconnected feeling.
Charlie noticed a lot of anger towards the depressed part because he saw it as the cause of his unhappiness. He realized this was a cycle; he felt bad, got angry and blamed himself, felt worse, got more angry with himself, and on and on it went until something inside just “turned out the lights” to stop it. We used IFS to work with the parts of him that were caught in this cycle and Somatic Psychotherapy to help him connect to and work with his feelings.
He found tools that helped him work with his nervous system when it went into OFF mode. During this part of our work, Charlie discovered his depression gradually lifting and that things weren’t as beige.
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4. The Journey
When Charlie recognized the anger, self-blame, shame, and shutdown cycle, he could immediately identify where it came from. He joked that it was a “family tradition,” something that had been passed down for generations.
It wasn’t a family legacy he wanted to be tied to anymore, so we used a combination of IFS and Somatic Psychotherapy to process some of the experiences and beliefs that he had absorbed in his early years. As we did, Charlie realized that something he hadn’t even known he was carrying - a deep sense of inadequacy - was releasing.
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5. The Summit
Charlie noticed a growing sense of peace and ease within himself as the “old programming and junk code” was updated and replaced. He said it was like he had a full crayon box now, which led us to use art therapy and other embodiment techniques to explore and deepen this change.

Sam and Emilio
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1. The Catalyst
Sam and Emilio had been together for over a decade. Their relationship had encountered many trials over the years, but lately, they felt as though they were “stuck” in the same repetitive arguments. Emilio struggled to express himself, and Sam felt chronically unseen and unheard. They were starting to “feel more like roommates than partners” and longed for the deep connection they felt early on.
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2. The Search
Sam had been looking for support for a long time but was worried about finding someone who could emotionally support both herself and Emilio. She was looking for an Emotionally Focused Therapy approach to couples work and was drawn to us because of our emphasis on finding a good fit.
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3. The Warm Up
In the early stages of therapy, Sam and Emilio worked on understanding the sequence of their own emotional triggers and expressing their internal patterns to one another. Sam realized that she often felt unimportant and left behind, which led her to reach for Emilio with intensity and anger. Emilio didn't feel able to respond to that, which led him to feel inadequate and shut down.
They began to recognize how their individual patterns impacted their relationship and named this emotional dance “the twister.” They practiced catching and diffusing these cycles, and as they resolved these moments more adaptively, they began to feel more hopeful about their relationship and felt a sense of unity in addressing the twister.
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4. The Journey
In the next phase of therapy, Sam and Emilio examined their early attachment templates. They began to understand how their childhood upbringing impacted their beliefs about themselves and their needs and fears in relationships.
Emilio had acquired the belief that “if I can’t fix things, I am worthless and unlovable,” while Sam had been taught that she would always be alone because she is inherently broken. They came to recognize how frequently these old templates get replayed in their negative emotional dance and how these enactments exacerbate the breakdown of trust and intimacy.
Step by step, their therapist guided them to express their emotional wounds, witness one another’s experiences, and express compassion to strengthen their bond. These exchanges brought a level of closeness they had not experienced in their life and translated into meeting each other’s physical, sexual, and emotional intimacy needs.
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5. The Summit
Emilio and Sam no longer felt trapped and distant. They began to formulate and practice new templates for being with each other. They worked on increasing trust and healthy interdependence while allowing for mistakes and forgiveness when needed. It’s like they had a new roadmap for tackling the twister during emotionally charged situations, and conflict was now viewed as an opportunity to come together as a team and deepen their bond.

Max
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1. The Catalyst
Max came to therapy after a recent mugging. Since the event, Max had been struggling with flashbacks, a chronic sense of being “on alert,” and a persistent muscle twitch that he related to a particular part of the event.
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2. The Search
Max was referred by his physician, who recognized he needed a trauma-informed, mind-body approach. He went through our therapist-matching process and found a therapist who specialized in PTSD.
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3. The Warm Up
Besides the recent trauma, Max was psychologically and emotionally well off. He was well-resourced and skilled at working with his emotions, so the Warm-Up phase was brief.
We spent some time building an understanding of how the event had impacted his nervous system and used Sensorimotor Psychotherapy to build a few somatic skills that would allow him to feel confident in navigating his trauma responses.
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4. The Journey
Together, we decided that a combination of EMDR and Somatic Experiencing would be the best approach to processing the trauma. By the end of the first Somatic EMDR session, Max’s trauma symptoms had significantly reduced, and his muscle twitch was gone. We spent two more sessions working through the traumatic parts of the event, at which point Max’s symptoms had resolved.
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5. The Summit
We used embodiment exercises to anchor the sense of being safe and at ease that came after processing the trauma and a combination of visualization exercises and EMDR to explore the idea of being out after dark. With his symptoms resolved and a sense of confidence in his ability to be in similar settings without being triggered, Max finished therapy.

Paige
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1. The Catalyst
Paige had a complex trauma history that included medical and developmental trauma. When the protective mechanisms her system used to cope with the trauma became debilitating, she decided to seek support.
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2. The Search
Paige found us after many previous attempts at therapy were either unsuccessful or counter-productive. Paige had done a great deal of research and had come to the conclusion that her previous therapists had lacked an understanding of trauma and dissociation, so she went looking for someone more experienced in that area.
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3. The Warm Up
Paige’s system used dissociation and somatization as a way to cope with the difficult events in her life, so we started with building insight and understanding into how her internal system was organized.
We used Internal Family Systems (IFS) to map and work with the dissociation and Somatic Psychotherapy to help her reconnect to and feel safe in her body. As she worked with these tools, Paige began to feel less fragmented, and her dissociative symptoms lessened. She also gained confidence in her body and her ability to regulate her nervous system.
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4. The Journey
Paige had responded well to a combination of IFS and Somatic Psychotherapy, so we decided to continue to use those therapies to process the traumas her system was holding. We used IFS to find and work with the parts of her that held the trauma imprints and a combination of EMDR and Somatic Psychotherapy to help those parts process the traumas.
As Paige repaired and released more and more of the memories, she became more and more connected to feelings of joy and aliveness - what she called “the real me.”
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5. The Summit
Paige had spent a long time in the fog of trauma and dissociation, so we took time to explore what it’s like to live life as “the real me.” Continuing to use IFS and embodiment approaches, Paige found she connected with herself, with others, and with the world very differently as “the real me.” She felt strong, capable, and joyful and decided to return to university. Then graduate school.

Joyce
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1. The Catalyst
Joyce had been in a car accident seven years ago, which left her with whiplash and an injury to the shoulder. Despite “doing all the right things” to help with recovery - physiotherapy, massage, medical interventions - she continued to experience chronic physical pain. This left Joyce feeling powerless and hopeless. Her life was dominated by pain, depression, and fear about her symptoms spiking. This made her look for solutions outside of physical medicine.
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2. The Search
Joyce was referred to our clinic by her neurologist when traditional pain management strategies proved ineffective. After our initial consultation, she became hopeful and enthusiastic about understanding a mind-body perspective and treatment approach to her chronic pain condition.
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3. The Warm Up
As we explored the neuroplasticity aspect of chronic pain, Joyce realized that there was a connection between her physical pain and her emotions. Through somatic therapy, she learned how to interrupt her nervous system’s threat response (fight or flight) and calm her body. By doing this, she found she could better mitigate and, in many cases, “turn off” the misfiring pain signals.
Using Internal Family Systems (IFS), Joyce also began to map out the psychological states - such as anxiety, fear, and self-loathing - that were intertwined with the pain cycles. She learned that by actively addressing these parts of her, rather than trying to make them go away, the intensity of her physical pain dramatically decreased over time. She noted, “It’s like I can speak to my body now and let it know I’m not in danger.”
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4. The Journey
Joyce stayed curious about the triggers of her psychological states and the meaning of pain in her life. Through IFS and somatic mindfulness techniques, we uncovered that getting hurt in the car accident mirrored her history of being bullied as a teenager. She felt like the accident had re-triggered all the emotional wounds and fears of that time, leaving her once again feeling helpless and humiliated.
Using EMDR, Joyce could revisit and emotionally digest these stuck and painful memories and feel a sense of “it’s over now” at a gut level.
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5. The Summit
We used neurofeedback to reinforce the new, adaptive neural pathways that she had built and breathwork practices to help her access and release naturally occurring strong emotions in daily life. Joyce experiences periodic physical pain but reports that this is short-lived and far less intense. She reports feeling like she is finally in synchrony with her body and has control of pain when it surfaces.

Taylor
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1. The Catalyst
Taylor had recently completed a psychedelic journey, and while she’d gained some powerful insights, she struggled with feeling “too raw” after the experience and worried that the trip might have set her backwards. Having heard about the benefits of integration therapy after mind-expanding experiences, she was keen on utilizing this heightened phase of brain neuroplasticity to help her heal and grow.
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2. The Search
Taylor was specifically looking for someone who understands the depth and complexities of expanded states of consciousness and found our centre through an online directory.
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3. The Warm Up
Taylor began to articulate the highlights and lowlights of her psychedelic journey, including moments of insight and enlightenment as well as fear and confusion. With the help of her therapists, Taylor was able to normalize and understand both the mystical and pragmatic elements of her experience. Through art and somatic therapy techniques, Taylor was able to express the things she felt and saw during her journey that couldn’t be put into words.
Bit by bit, she began to make sense of her journey and translated images and symbols into insights about herself. Taylor was also given tools to slow down any flooding of raw emotions that emerged and take steps to protect herself from unhelpful socio-cultural messages. She said it was “like I have a little valve now to dial into and away from my trip.”
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4. The Journey
During her psychedelic trip, Taylor had become aware of the damaging impact of being abandoned by her father as a child. Using Internal Family System therapy, Taylor was able to identify the young parts of her who continued to carry this pain and helped her process these undigested emotions through EMDR.
Taylor also expressed that she carried this familiar “icky” feeling from her trip without having any context or cognitive memories attached to it. She and her therapist used somatic therapy to access and process this body memory. She was surprised that she could help her nervous system “let go” of nonverbal pain without having a full story attached to it.
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5. The Summit
Taylor came to understand integration therapy as not just a single event but rather a long-term, gradual, and mindful effort to unfold information gained from expanded states of consciousness into daily life. Using music and somatic therapy, she was able to access and reinforce resources from her journey when she felt triggered at work or home.
Taylor also participated in breathwork groups to help her return to the insight from her psychedelic journey, make new meanings about her inner experience, and release emerging residual pain in small bite-size portions.
All names and identifying information have been changed to protect client confidentiality.
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