Are you anxious or depressed? Have you experienced trauma?
Have you recently ended a relationship or suffered some other loss?
Are you longing to find a ‘felt sense of security and inner peace’ within?
Therapy for Adults with Developmental (Childhood) Trauma
Emotionally Focused Individual Therapy (EFIT) is a highly effective approach for treating trauma, loss, and childhood abuse. It can help those who continue to be affected in adulthood by childhood trauma such as physical, sexual or emotional abuse, witnessing parental violence, severe bullying, racial discrimination and mistreatment or transgenerational trauma. When intense feelings of anxiety or depression may be connected to events never addressed in your past, EFIT will help.
EFIT, like all EFT approaches, begins with creating a safe and trusting therapeutic relationship. It helps with emotional regulation and has an attachment focus. That means significant attachment relationships from your past are examined as having an influence on present relationships. Change comes from a deeper understanding and curiosity about yourself, reduced self-judgement and greater self-awareness and self-compassion. Growth in deeper self-acceptance and self-love leads to more satisfying relationships. Your work is both within yourself and between significant others. EFIT is collaborative, growth oriented, and experiential. The past is understood as it influences you in present relationships and situations.
“The ideal outcome of attachment-based therapy is an individual who is balanced emotionally, mentally open, flexible in terms of action, deeply engaged and alive and, above all, able to learn to grow.” (Johnson, 2019, p. 75)
Expected outcomes from therapy include:
- active engagement with one’s own vulnerabilities and needs,
- ability to communicate coherently and directly these needs to significant others,
- ability to accept comfort and affirmation from others and
- ability to give emotionally attuned support to another.
Therapy for Depression, Anxiety and Loss
Therapy helps you deal with present or past relationships or difficult or intense emotions. Your feelings of anger, anxiety, panic, sadness, or depression will be addressed by helping you reflect on your relationships and within yourself.
After marriage or a long-term relationship ends, it is often important to address the past and current feelings of sadness, fear, anger, guilt, or shame. Perhaps your former partner has damaged your self-esteem and you want to rebuild your ‘self’. When you or your partner decides to end a relationship, there are often many unresolved internal issues and the need to grieve the losses. By reflecting and processing emotions, it is possible to learn more about yourself and your own needs. This can be very helpful to sort out – particularly if you want to be in a new relationship sometime in the future.
EFIT aims to address a how a particular situation triggers you, what you perceive, what bodily sensations become activated, what meanings you attach to a situation and what actions you usually take reactively. By examining these aspects of your in-the-moment experience and then assembling the emotions that occur, I help you through encounters with others in your mind to process new experiences that lead to emotional growth and inner sense of peace. These experiential encounters can lead to profound changes and may help you make personal transformation.
The length and frequency of sessions are either 45 minutes, twice weekly or 60 minutes once a week. Often, the interval between sessions can widen once there is relief of distress and stability is attained. The frequency and length of therapy necessary to create a lasting transformation within you will vary.
“I came for counselling for several periods over the past six years. First, it was for work-related stress, then family and relationship issues and finally my own personal struggles. I had recently separated from a 10-year marriage and was unhappy with my job. Counselling helped me when I felt overwhelmed by a nasty protracted legal battle with my ex. A few years later, with my new partner, Allan helped me to sort out issues with my new partner, money issues with his ex, with his daughter and with my daughters.
However, the key time was last year when I came to see Allan because I had to take a stand with people I loved. Ultimately, the problem at the core of my life was my own family – my brothers, mother and father. I had not realized that I had not truly dealt with my family, who in the past, had caused me so much pain. As a loyal daughter and sister, I had tried for so many years to keep the relationships going. But in doing so, I had allowed them to take advantage of me and my generosity. At times I tried to cut them off completely but that did not seem right. I had to learn how to put boundaries up and stop their manipulation of me. Allan gave me the strength to establish boundaries. Once I discovered the courage to put limits on things, I felt a huge weight lifted from me. Now, I am much better and more able to cope. I found a way to take control of my life without losing valuable connections with my family. Now, within a few days, rather than weeks and months of agonizing, I can work through life changes. Once I learned to take control out of the hands of others, I learned to take charge of my life.
I have met quite a number of therapists over the years, and I would say Allan has been better than most of them – by far. He just knows how to give the right amount of feedback. Some therapists listen and listen and listen and don’t give enough. Allan is a really effective listener and has an effective way of ‘clearing the fog’ for me. When I was going around in circles, he would replay the essence of what I was saying so I was clear about my own thoughts and feelings. Then, I could figure out for myself what to do.
As a woman, I always went to see a female therapist figuring they would understand me and be better at helping me. Allan has this remarkable way of connecting with the female perspective and at the same time helping one to understand how men might see things. My partner had seen therapists in the past and told me he thought they were all ‘Bozos’. When he saw Allan, he felt totally differently. He saw his approach to be much more like a coach.”*
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In-Person and Online Therapy Available
When you book your phone consultation you will receive an email reply to your questions and a link to my online calendar. You can then book an Initial Phone Consultation appointment into my online schedule. I want to know a little bit about your situation so I know whether I am the right therapist for you. Many people may want to know what to expect. We book the first session at the end of this telephone consultation.- First Two Sessions.
The Individual Therapy session is 60 minutes long. This will give me a chance to learn about your concerns, get some background information and learn about what you would like to accomplish. I usually gather a history about relationships you have had in your life: your relationship with your parents in your first 12 years of life, and then all other significant relationships you have had – including the most current one. This helps me notice any repeating patterns and learn how you deal with separations, loss, and challenges. I will note any traumas in childhood or at any other times in your life. - Subsequent Sessions. All subsequent sessions are 60 minutes long, when you come once weekly. Some people come twice weekly for 45-minute sessions.
If you think you could benefit from counselling, please book your Free Initial Phone Consultation, so I can learn how I can help and make your first appointment.
New Insights Counselling has in-person services in midtown Toronto at Yonge and Eglinton serving North York, Etobicoke, East York, Scarborough and is available online throughout Ontario.
