I.
EFT-informed approach
Emotionally Focused Therapy is the gold standard for couples work, backed by decades of research showing lasting improvement in relationship satisfaction and secure attachment.
Online across Ontario · English & فارسی
Couples Therapy in St. Catharines
Build a relationship that feels safe again. Online couples therapy for St. Catharines partners at every stage, from a first shared lease to retirement, using Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) and Schema Therapy, in English or Farsi.
Ghazal SheikhtaheriGhazal
Founder & Clinical Director
RP (Qualifying) · CRPO #21300
Waitlist · 3–4 weeks
Both partners are welcome on the free 15-minute call, or just one. Tina and Roya are booking now; Ghazal is booking by waitlist (3–4 weeks).
Sound Familiar?
Do any of these feel familiar?
- You keep having the same argument over and over: different topic, same hurt, same shutdown.
- You feel more like roommates than partners, and now that the house is quieter, or one of you has retired, the distance is harder to ignore.
- One of you pursues while the other withdraws, and neither of you knows how to stop the cycle.
- Trust has been damaged by betrayal, dishonesty, or simply years of unspoken resentment.
- It feels like one partner is doing all the emotional work, and the other doesn't see the problem.
- Cultural or family expectations add an invisible layer of pressure that outsiders don't understand.
The Approach
What couples therapy looks like at NoorMinds
Couples therapy here is built on Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), the most researched and evidence-based approach for couples. EFT helps you and your partner identify the negative interaction cycles that keep you stuck, and creates new patterns of emotional connection and safety between you.
Ghazal also integrates Schema Therapy into couples work, which helps each partner understand the deep emotional patterns formed in childhood, and how those patterns get triggered in the relationship. When you understand why your partner's behaviour hits so hard, and why your reactions feel so automatic, real change becomes possible.
Why NoorMinds
Four reasons couples choose this practice
II.
Deeper pattern work
Schema Therapy helps each partner understand the childhood wounds driving their reactions, so you stop blaming each other and start understanding what's really happening.
III.
Culturally sensitive
As an Iranian immigrant herself, Ghazal understands how cultural background shapes relationship expectations: family involvement, gender roles, and the weight of unspoken rules.
IV.
Bilingual sessions
Available in English and Farsi (فارسی). Both partners don't need to speak Farsi. Sessions adapt to whatever language mix works for your relationship.
Pricing
Simple, transparent pricing
Free15-min consultation
$225Couples · 60 min
$350Couples · 90 min
Insurance receipts provided. Many extended health plans cover psychotherapy with a Registered Psychotherapist. Ghazal holds the Registered Psychotherapist (Qualifying) designation, so please confirm your plan covers it. Full fees & insurance details
90-Minute Extended Session · $350
By popular demand. The extended format gives couples more room to slow down, move through difficult conversations without feeling rushed, and explore the deeper patterns shaping the relationship. Many couples choose the 90-minute format for their first session, when there's the most ground to cover.
Separate receipts can be issued for each partner where plans allow.
Questions
Common questions
What is Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT)?
EFT is the most researched couples therapy approach in the world. It helps partners identify the negative cycles keeping them stuck, like pursue-withdraw or attack-attack patterns, and guides them toward new ways of responding that create emotional safety and secure attachment. Research shows 70-75% of couples move from distress to recovery with EFT.
Does online couples therapy actually work?
Yes. Research shows online couples therapy is as effective as in-person sessions. Many couples find virtual sessions more convenient and less stressful: you're in your own space, there's no commute, and scheduling becomes easier. All you need is a private room and a stable internet connection.
My partner is reluctant. Should I wait until they're ready?
It's common for one partner to be more ready than the other. A free 15-minute consultation can help. Sometimes hearing what therapy actually involves makes it less intimidating. If your partner isn't ready yet, individual therapy can also help you understand your own patterns and shift the dynamic from your side.
How long does couples therapy take?
It depends on the depth of the issues. Some couples notice meaningful shifts within 8-12 sessions. More complex situations, like healing after betrayal or long-standing disconnection, may take longer. We'll discuss realistic expectations during your consultation.
Do both partners need to speak Farsi?
No. Ghazal, Tina and Roya all work in English and Farsi. Sessions can be conducted in English, Farsi, or a mix of both, whatever works for your relationship. If one partner speaks Farsi and the other doesn't, sessions adapt naturally.
What's the difference between couples therapy and individual therapy?
Individual therapy focuses on your personal patterns and wellbeing. Couples therapy focuses on the relationship itself: the dynamic between you, the cycles you get caught in, and how to create a more secure bond together. Some people benefit from both simultaneously.
Things have gone stale between us here in the Niagara region. Is there relaxed, accessible couples counselling we can try from home?
There is. However settled life looks from the outside, the warmth between two people can fade without either of them deciding it should. Ghazal Sheikhtaheri, a Registered Psychotherapist (Qualifying), CRPO #21300, offers couples therapy online across Ontario, so the two of you can take part from home, in St. Catharines or anywhere else in Niagara. With Emotionally Focused Therapy and Schema Therapy, she helps partners make sense of the distance that has grown between them and start closing it, in English, in Farsi or in both. Tina Abadi, RP, and Roya Dadollahi Sarab, RP, also offer Emotionally Focused Therapy for couples online, in English and Farsi.
One of us has just retired and the other is still working. Is that something couples bring to therapy?
Yes. A change that large often shifts how much time, attention and say each partner has at home, and couples can end up arguing about schedules when the real question is about closeness and feeling needed. Couples therapy gives you both a structured place to talk about what the change means to each of you, before resentment settles in. You can do this by video in English or Farsi, or a blend of the two.
We’re caring for an ageing parent and it’s straining our relationship. Can couples therapy help?
It can help with what the caring is doing to the two of you: resentment about who does more, guilt, exhaustion, and old family roles resurfacing. It does not replace practical care planning or services for your parent, but it can make it easier to face those decisions as a team. Couples work is available with Ghazal, Tina or Roya, by video.
Next Step
Ready to reconnect?
Book a free 15-minute consultation, whatever stage your relationship has reached. No commitment, no pressure.
Or call (647) 699-5142 · WhatsApp · Email
Calls and messages aren’t monitored for emergencies. If you are in immediate danger, call 911. If you are in crisis, call or text 988, the Suicide Crisis Helpline, available 24/7.
NoorMinds offers online couples therapy to partners across Ontario, from the Greater Toronto Area to Ottawa, Hamilton, London, and beyond. Culturally sensitive, evidence-based care in English and Farsi.
Couples Therapy Across Ontario
NoorMinds provides virtual couples therapy to partners throughout Ontario. Select your city to learn more:
St. Catharines
Couples therapy for every stage of life together
St. Catharines has an older population than Canada as a whole: in the 2021 Census, nearly a quarter of its residents were 65 or older, compared with about one in five nationally. For couples, that shows up in the transitions that fill a relationship's later chapters: the last child leaving for university or a job in Toronto, one partner retiring a few years before the other, a parent who can no longer manage alone and suddenly needs one of you, or both of you, far more than before.
None of these is a crisis, and often nobody around you treats it as one. Yet each can quietly rearrange a relationship. The partner who retired first may want more time together just as the other is at the busiest point of a career. Caring for an ageing parent can reopen old sibling tensions, or leave one of you doing most of the caring while the other feels shut out. Emotionally Focused Therapy maps the loop that grows up around a change like this, where one partner reaches and the other withdraws until both feel lonely. Schema Therapy asks why this particular change stirs something so old in one of you: the fear of being left, of being a burden, of losing your place.
Work can add its own pressure. Manufacturing, including GM's propulsion plant, has long been part of the city's working life, and auto jobs can move from layoffs to new investment and back again, which shows how quickly a household's plans can change. Uncertainty like that tends to land on a relationship before anyone names it: shorter tempers, fewer real conversations, and each partner carrying the worry separately.
Couples in their sixties and seventies sometimes wonder whether therapy is meant for them, or whether habits built over decades can still move. A lot of Emotionally Focused Therapy is about exactly those long-standing cycles, and there is no age limit on wanting to feel understood by the person you share a life with. You join from home, whether in Merritton, downtown or near the water in Port Dalhousie; all you need is a laptop or tablet, a private room and a steady connection. Sessions are in English, Farsi or both.
Local support in St. Catharines
These are independent organizations, not affiliated with NoorMinds, that some couples find useful alongside or between sessions.
- Family Counselling Centre Niagara: a non-profit that has counselled individuals, couples and families across Niagara since 1964.
- Quest Community Health Centre: a downtown St. Catharines community health centre offering primary care, health promotion and outreach.
- Distress Centre Niagara: a free, confidential 24/7 distress line, with online and text support.
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