Frequently Asked Questions
Is therapy covered by my insurance?
As a Registered Social Worker (RSW) registered with the Ontario College of Social Workers and Social Service Workers (OCSWSSW), my services are covered by most extended health benefit plans that include coverage for Registered Social Workers. Coverage varies by insurer and individual benefits plan, so I encourage you to contact your insurance provider to confirm your eligibility and reimbursement amounts before your first appointment.
Here are some questions you can ask your Extended Health Insurance provider:
1. Are services provided by a Registered Social Worker (RSW) covered under my plan?
2. Is a physician's referral required?
3. What is my annual coverage amount?
4. What percentage of each session is reimbursed?
Currently, I do not direct bill to insurance. However, upon receipt of payment an official receipt will be provided for you to submit to your insurer for reimbursement.
What can I expect from my first therapy session with you?
In your first session, we will spend time exploring your life history (i.e. early life experiences, family of origin relationships, peer relationships, challenges and strengths), your life presently (relationships, challenges, strengths), and your hopes and goals for therapy.
How many sessions will I need?
There is no set number of therapy sessions that is right for everyone. The length of therapy depends on many factors, including what brings you to therapy, your goals, the complexity of what you are working through, and how our work evolves over time. For some people, therapy may be relatively short-term; for others—particularly when working with trauma, longstanding patterns, relationships, or early life experiences—therapy can be a longer-term process.
When beginning therapy with a new therapist, meeting more regularly can be helpful in building a strong therapeutic relationship, developing a shared understanding of what brings you to therapy, and creating momentum in the work. For this reason, I commonly recommend beginning with weekly sessions for approximately the first 6–8 sessions when possible.
From there, we can collaboratively determine the frequency that best supports your needs, goals, availability, and financial circumstances. Many clients eventually transition to bi-weekly sessions and, as therapy progresses, may space sessions further apart or move to monthly appointments.
There is no expectation that everyone will follow the same schedule. However, I encourage clients to approach therapy as an ongoing process and to be prepared to invest time in the work. Meaningful and lasting change—particularly when healing from trauma or addressing patterns that have developed over many years—often takes time.
Can EMDR be done virtually?
Yes, EMDR can be provided effectively through virtual therapy, and many clients appreciate being able to engage in trauma processing from the comfort and privacy of their own space.
EMDR uses bilateral stimulation—typically through eye movements, tapping, or alternating sounds—to support the brain in processing experiences that continue to feel distressing or unresolved. In virtual sessions, bilateral stimulation is conducted via a website called bilateralstimulation.io, which is facilitated by the therapist.
Before beginning EMDR processing, we will spend time understanding what brings you to therapy, identifying your goals, and developing the resources and strategies needed to support you throughout the process. We will also discuss your physical environment, privacy, and what you may need before and after sessions to ensure that virtual EMDR feels appropriate and manageable for you.
EMDR is not the right approach for every person or at every stage of therapy. We will collaboratively determine whether and when EMDR is appropriate and integrate it with other therapeutic approaches based on your individual needs, experiences, and goals.
If you have questions that are not answered here, I welcome you to reach out to me and I’ll be happy to answer them.
What is the benefit of therapy?
Therapy offers a dedicated space to better understand yourself, your experiences, relationships, and the patterns that shape how you move through the world. It can help you make sense of how past experiences—particularly early relationships, trauma, and adversity—continue to influence how you think, feel, relate to others, and respond to stress today.
Depending on what brings you to therapy, our work may help you process difficult or traumatic experiences, develop greater emotional awareness and regulation, strengthen relationships, establish healthier boundaries, increase self-compassion, and shift patterns that may no longer be serving you.
Therapy isn't only about reducing symptoms or "fixing" a problem. It can also create space for curiosity, reflection, and deeper self-understanding. Over time, the goal is to help you feel more connected to yourself, have greater choice in how you respond to life's challenges, and move toward a life and relationships that feel more authentic and meaningful to you.
What is trauma therapy?
Trauma therapy is an approach to psychotherapy that recognizes how overwhelming, painful, or adverse experiences can continue to affect us long after they have occurred. Trauma can influence how we understand ourselves and others, our relationships, emotions, beliefs, behaviours, and the ways our bodies and nervous systems respond to stress and perceived threat.
Trauma therapy goes beyond simply talking about what happened. Together, we work to understand how your experiences have shaped you, develop greater safety and capacity to manage difficult emotions and sensations, and process experiences that may continue to feel unresolved. You do not need to recount every detail of a traumatic experience in order for meaningful healing to occur.
I integrate a variety of trauma-informed approaches, including EMDR, Internal Family Systems (IFS), Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, relational and attachment-based therapy, tailoring our work to your experiences, needs, strengths, and goals.
Trauma therapy is not about erasing the past. Rather, it can help the past feel more like something that happened to you, rather than something you continue to experience in the present—creating greater freedom, connection, and choice in how you live your life today.
What therapy approaches do you use?
I take an integrative approach to therapy, which means I draw from different therapeutic approaches rather than using one method with every client. The approaches we use are tailored to your experiences, needs, strengths, worldview, and goals for therapy.
My work is primarily relational, trauma-informed, and attachment-focused. I have advanced training in approaches including EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing), Internal Family Systems (IFS), Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, Emotion-Focused Therapy (EFT), and Relational Life Therapy (RLT). I also draw from psychodynamic, relational-cultural, somatic, and narrative approaches.
Different approaches can offer different ways of understanding and working with what brings you to therapy. Some focus more on processing past experiences, while others explore relationships and patterns, emotions, the nervous system and body, or the different parts of ourselves. We will work collaboratively to determine what feels most useful and appropriate for you.
Regardless of the approaches we use, our work is grounded in a client-centred, strength-based, anti-oppressive, anti-racist, intersectional, LGBTQ2SIA+ affirming, and sex-positive framework. There is no one-size-fits-all way to do therapy, and our work can evolve as your needs and goals change.