holistic, psychodynamic psychotherapy

Working virtually with clients residing in Ontario, Canada.

Welcome! I’m Hilary (she/her) and I’m a Registered Psychotherapist, licensed in the province of Ontario. I take a holistic, psychodynamic approach to psychotherapy (more on what that means throughout this site, and specifically in the FAQs). My focus is on helping clients reduce anxiety, tap the wisdom of their bodies, understand their emotionality, and re-access their vitality—creatively, emotionally, mentally, physically, and spiritually. I believe that when each of these parts of self are cared for, we are able to live more creatively-fulfilled, integrated, and satisfying lives.

smiling female psychotherapist

Are you a(n):

 

  • artist

  • academic

  • educator

  • entrepreneur

  • millennial-ish/early career professional in tech, media, information and other creative industries?

    Many of my clients are!

 

Sound familiar?

 

They also tend to be ambitious, insightful, and highly sensitive people (which often translates to ‘high-achieving perfectionists’), and they come to therapy because they are experiencing anxiety, burnout, and overwhelm—and the deleterious effects these states are having on their relationships with their loved ones, their work, and themselves.

These issues can have various cognitive, emotional, somatic/bodily, and interpersonal manifestations: rapid heart beat, body tension (or dissociation), and feelings of physical panic; body image and self-esteem issues; fear of failure; loneliness, sadness, social anxiety; unstable sense of self/personal identity; relationship difficulties and communication issues; feelings of inadequacy; a highly developed internal critical voice.

 

My wish for you?

 

I believe relief from systemic, habituated anxiety and burnout is possible. Over and over in my work, I have the privilege of witnessing the mind/body/spirit’s inborn potential for change. This ballasts my fundamental belief that our human orientation is toward healing and wholeness (yes, even given the current world ether). It is a joy and a privilege to help my clients expand the perimeter of what feels possible, re-access their own internal wisdom, and shine like the talented, bright lights that they are.

In a world that teaches us to disavow (most of) our emotions, learning to understand our emotions as information—and learning to use and express that information productively—can be a radical, and radically empowering act.

 

For highly sensitive, over-achieving, recovering people-pleasers, this is particularly big work! Repression of, and dissociation from, our emotionality is a common survival tactic and, generally, a strategy that works well…until it doesn’t anymore.

Emotions are energy that needs to move. (They are literally neurobiological events in the body that trigger a hormone cascade, and those hormones need to be metabolized.) I understand fear, stress, suffering, and old stories/feelings of stuck-ness as energy without an outlet—a gap that the therapeutic relationship strives to bridge.

I provide a safe, non-judgmental space for honest self-expression, and I work with my clients to help them build their capacity to feel, metabolize, and get curious about their emotional lives. Learning to explore emotions with a spirit of curiosity and compassion allows us to become alert to the information beneath them. And then we can apply this information to our lives. This may look like cultivation of new boundaries, improvements to communication, better understanding of the way an old wound unconsciously drives a current behaviour, or the re-discovery of longings that went underground and values that have been neglected.

“What mental health needs is more sunlight, more candor, and more unashamed conversation.” – Glenn Close

  • rupi kaur quotation

    "it was when I stopped searching for home within others and lifted the foundations of home within myself i found there were no roots more intimate than those between a mind and body that have decided to become whole"

    —rupi kaur from the sun and her flowers

  • Simone Weil quotation

    "Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity."

    —Simone Weil

  • Christopher Robin quotation

    "Promise me you'll always remember: you're braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think."

    —Christopher Robin to Winnie the Pooh

  • ""Courage starts with showing up and letting ourselves be seen."

    —Brené Brown

  • Antoine de Saint-Exupéry quotation

    "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."

    —Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince