So you’re thinking about finding a therapist – someone experienced and qualified who you can talk to about experiences you’re having in your life that are challenging. The difficulty may not be about the practical aspects of what to do with the experiences themselves, but more about how you’re feeling and thinking as you go through them – the emotions and thoughts you live with. Maybe you’d like some private time and space spent discussing why you’ve been reacting the way you have been, and exploring whether extra understanding and change are possible.
I believe that all of our relationships, from being someone’s child, to a sibling, friend, student, and many more, influence the development of our personalities and expectations. In my opinion and experience, new relationship experiences throughout life offer hope of change and growth.
Identifying which relationship experiences have influenced us, and how, is to me a big part of what helps us to look at how we can be feeling and behaving in the world today. These underlying expectations can get us into situations we don’t fully want to be in.
Anything that is troubling you can be discussed in therapy. Feelings that you struggle with, experiences that leave you unsettled, troublesome interactions, ways of treating yourself that you’d like to change, situations that you find yourself in repeatedly and find hard to understand. Your strengths, too – the very ones that have helped you through your life experiences, are a very important part of the conversation.
In psychotherapy, we talk together on a regular weekly basis about your feelings, life experiences, memories, dreams, ambitions, joys, upsets and patterns, working to understand you and your relationship to yourself and to others in your life, whether they be family, friends, colleagues, or others. In Art Therapy, we do also talk, but you also have art materials available to use to express your thoughts and feelings. No particular level of artistic skill is needed for art therapy – many people who do not consider themselves artists at all are pleasantly surprised to find they can still use the art in therapy in ways that show without words, what matters to them.
Everyone who comes to my practice has the choice of psychotherapy, or weekly art therapy sessions, or moving back and forth from psychotherapy without art, to art therapy sessions and back again.
Individual adult women and men, and teens, are welcome in my practice.
What to expect
Call me at 416-427-6244 or email me at lindachapman@psychotherapyintoronto.com. After we’ve talked or emailed and arranged the first session we’ll meet, talk about what’s on your mind as you begin therapy, and if we agree to work together, arrange a regular time to meet. For information about fees, click here.
Traditionally, “meeting” has meant in person, in my office. These days, meetings can take place in my office, but may also happen online – by videoconferencing, or a combination of videoconferencing and telephone. When we have our first conversation, we’ll talk about what suits you best at this time, and any recommendation I might make will be part of the conversation too.
*There are professional guidelines concerning whether I can offer psychotherapy to you online, depending both on the province I’m registered in, and regulations about psychotherapy in the province where you live.
To find out if I am able and available to offer psychotherapy to you online, or to begin our work together this way, please email me. If you do not receive a reply within 2 business days, feel free to follow up an email with a phone call, or a follow-up email.