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PSYCHOTHERAPY & COUNSELLING SERVICES

Therapy for
Life Transitions & Stress

Toronto & across Ontario • Online Sessions
Burlington • In-person Sessions

Feeling overwhelmed by a change in your relationships, work, or identity?

Entering a new stage in life and experiencing stress and worry?

Feeling uncertain about how to move forward toward your goals and what you want in life?

What are life transitions?

Life transitions are meaningful changes that can impact many parts our lives, such as in the areas of relationships, jobs and school, health, or personal identity.

Sometimes, we experience changes that are in line with what’s important to us - such as starting a different job or entering a new relationship.

Sometimes, life transitions are marked by things we don’t want or didn’t choose, such as experiencing loss or facing a health issue.

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Stress is our body's natural response to demands or pressures in our environment or within our own bodies and minds. Stress can affect our emotions, trigger body responses (such as our fight or flight response), and impact our ability to think clearly and make decisions.

How we respond to stress can be impacted by aspects like the resources that we have available to us to help us cope or adapt, our previous experiences with stressful or traumatic situations, intergenerational trauma and resilience, and the type and duration of the stressor.

And what do we mean by stress?

Is it normal to experience stress during periods of life transitions?

Life transitions often include an adjustment period where we experience emotional, psychological, and sometimes physical stress as we adapt to new circumstances.

This is a normal aspect of change - any life transition we experience (even if it is a wanted change!) will often bring about some normal and natural, yet difficult, feelings such as anxiety, grief, or sadness.

When should I seek support for in periods of change and stress?

When we have access to adequate supports and when the stressors or life transitions we experience feel manageable, these experiences can help us grow in move toward our goals and our valued life direction.

However, seeking support during life transitions and when stress becomes overwhelming is important for our mental and physical health.

Consider seeking professional help if:

  • You feel overwhelmed: If the experience of a life transition or stressors leave you feeling constantly overwhelmed, anxious, or being unable to cope effectively, it may be time to seek support.

  • Your relationships are becoming, or have already become, affected: Changes in your relationships such as withdrawing from others, irritability, or tension could be a sign that your connections with others and your emotional wellbeing are being impacted by stress.

  • You’re experiencing physical symptoms: When prolonged or overwhelming, stress can have a toll on our bodies and can lead to physical experiences such as difficulty sleeping and fatigue.

  • You’re about to or are currently experiencing big life changes: When life events create big shifts in our experience of ourselves or others - such as losing a job, moving, losing a significant person in our life - it can often be helpful to seek support to navigate the emotional complexities they bring.

How can Yellow Leaf Therapy help with life transitions and stress?

At Yellow Leaf Therapy, we support you through these moments of change - walking alongside you with warmth and compassion while offering mindfulness-based tools to navigate current stress and the journey ahead.

Here are some examples of things that we may do in therapy sessions:

  • Practice ways to notice difficult emotions and sensations rather than being overwhelmed by them

  • Learn ways to create space when difficult thoughts, feelings, or sensations are overwhelming

  • Build insight about how your coping responses for this current life transition or stressor may be connected to protective patterns that have helped you deal with difficult or traumatic things in the past

  • Notice and build connection with different parts of who you are

  • Work together to identify or move toward your values, goals, and hopes

  • Social Worker, Psychotherapist

    Session Location:

    Ontario, Canada - Online

    Rate for Individual Therapy:
    $160 / 50-minute session

More about our approach

  • I primarily work with mindfulness and acceptance-based approaches.

    My therapy approach is trauma-informed and grounded in an anti-oppressive framework.

    I believe that who we are is shaped by the world around us and the generations before us. This means, for example, that our strengths and difficulties can be connected to both our individual lives as well as to various larger structures and systems. I have experience supporting clients in curiously and gently noticing and reflecting on the stories that we have learned about ourselves and others, how they shape our lives, and how they may be (or may not be) supporting our well-being.

    Therapeutic modalities and frameworks that inform my approach include:

    • Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)

    • Trauma-informed Stabilization Treatment (TIST), which can be known as “parts work”

    • Sensorimotor Psychotherapy

    • Internal Family Systems (IFS)

    • Ego State Therapy

    • Attachment Theory

    • Feminist Therapy

    • Anti-oppressive Practice (AOP)

    • Emotion-focused Family Therapy (EFFT)

    • Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT)

    • Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)

  • I have completed my Master of Social Work (MSW) and am a Registered Social Worker (RSW) with the Ontario College of Social Workers and Social Service Workers (OCSWSSW) [Registration Number: 843711]. This means that I am required to follow the standards and code of ethics outlined by the OCSWSSW.

    I engage in ongoing professional development and training. Some of my completed and ongoing trainings include:

    • ACT (Acceptance & Commitment Therapy) for Perfectionism and People Pleasing [Russ Harris]

    • Level 1: Trauma-Informed Stabilization Therapy (TIST) [Janina Fisher, PhD]

    • Level 2: Trauma-Informed Stabilization Therapy (TIST) [Janina Fisher, PhD]

    • ACT for PTSD, Anxiety, Depression & Personality Disorders [Dr. DJ Moran]

    • EFFT (Emotion-Focused Family Therapy) [Dr. Adele Lafrance]

    • DBT (Dialectical Behaviour Therapy) [Broadview Psychology]

    • CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) [Broadview Psychology]

    • Attachment and Families - Strategies for Engaging and Helping [CRTI Crisis & Trauma Resource Institute]

    • Shame and Self-loathing in the Treatment of Trauma [Janina Fisher, PhD]

    I engage in regular clinical supervision with Oona Fraser, M.A., R.P. (CRPO registration# 003448).

  • Mindfulness is popularly defined as noticing what is occurring in the present moment without judgment.

    Many Western therapies that are widely used, such as Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) - Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Internal Family Systems (IFS), and some forms of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) - use aspects of mindfulness.

    Mindfulness has also been an important presence in many spiritual, religious, and knowledge traditions for thousands of years. Within these spaces, mindfulness often has additional meanings that were often removed when mindfulness began to be used by Western therapies. For example, Thich Nhat Hanh, Zen Buddhist Master, says that an important aspect of mindfulness is to support the insight of ‘interbeing’ – in other words, to notice the interconnection between all beings.

    I am a spiritual person (though I do not identify with a particular religion) and daily practices such as meditation help me to nourish myself so that I can be attuned and present.

    In our work, I approach mindfulness from a secular (non-religious) perspective. In our therapy sessions, we use mindfulness to, for example, notice the different parts of you and notice how these different parts are present in your moment-to-moment experience through thoughts, emotions, or sensations. Noticing with mindfulness may also support you in noticing interconnection between yourself, your experiences, and the experiences of others around you.

  • In my work, a trauma-informed approach broadly means that we move at a pace that feels comfortable for all parts of you.

    It means that you can ask questions, pause, or change your mind at any time.

    It means that we work together to notice what support feels helpful, or unhelpful to you, and to respect that understanding.