Culturally sensitive online psychotherapy for newcomers in Barrie, where you may be one of only a few people at work or school who shares your story. Sessions in English and Farsi. Available in Barrie and across Ontario.
Roya is booking now. Ghazal is booking by waitlist (3–4 weeks).
At the 2021 Census, about three in ten Ontario residents were immigrants. In Barrie the share was lower, 16.9 per cent, and the most common birthplaces of the city's immigrants were the United Kingdom, India and the Philippines. That can make being new here feel more isolating than the provincial numbers suggest. Community is harder to find in a city with a smaller immigrant population, and the pressure to establish yourself financially can crowd out the emotional work of settling in. Plenty of newcomers spend years adapting on the outside while quietly struggling on the inside.
Ghazal immigrated to Canada from Iran and has worked with immigrants and refugees from all over the world: the Middle East, South Asia, East Africa, Latin America, Eastern Europe, and beyond. She doesn't just understand the theory. She knows the loneliness of starting over, the grief of distance, and the quiet courage it takes to build a new life.
Therapy that respects your cultural background, family values, and the complexity of navigating two worlds, without pathologizing your experience.
Sessions in English and Farsi (فارسی), or a mix of both. Express yourself in whichever language feels right.
Schema therapy, CBT, and emotion-focused techniques, grounded in research and tailored to your unique story.
Talk about what brought you here, ask questions, and see if it feels right. No pressure.
Together, we'll identify what's weighing on you most and build a path forward using proven therapeutic approaches.
60-minute online sessions from anywhere in Ontario. Consistent, confidential, flexible.
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.
Free 15-minute consultation available. Receipts provided after each session for submission to your extended health insurance plan.
Book a free 15-minute consultation around your classes, shifts or permit paperwork. No commitment, no pressure.
Or call (647) 699-5142 · WhatsApp · Email
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NoorMinds provides virtual therapy for immigrants to residents throughout Ontario. Select your city to learn more:
Not everyone building a life in Barrie is a permanent resident. At the 2021 Census, about 3,100 people in the city, roughly 2 per cent, were non-permanent residents: people living here on study or work permits, refugee claimants, and family members living with them. For them, settling in comes with a clock attached. A study permit, a work permit or a pending application can make every other decision feel provisional, from signing a lease to letting yourself make friends, and the uncertainty can sit in the body long after the day's classes or shifts are done.
Permanent residents and citizens carry their own version. Maybe you came through Toronto first and moved north for more space, or came straight to Barrie for a job, and found the practical side manageable while the inner side quietly piled up: grief for the people and places you left behind, parents ageing far away, a career that does not yet reflect what you built at home, children growing up more Canadian than you expected. None of this is a failure to adjust. It is what migration asks of people.
Immigration is not only a matter of language, either. Newcomers who share a first language with most of their neighbours, as many arriving from the United Kingdom do, can still be caught off guard by how foreign the details feel: the humour, the school system, the unspoken rules about friendship and family. Because nobody expects them to struggle, that kind of adjustment often goes unacknowledged, even by the person going through it.
Barrie has help for the practical side. YMCA of Simcoe/Muskoka runs settlement and language programs in the city, and the County of Simcoe's newcomer portal lists settlement services across the region, Barrie included. What those services are not designed for is the loneliness of being one of the few people at work who shares your background, or the exhaustion of explaining yourself in a second language all day.
Ghazal Sheikhtaheri, a Registered Psychotherapist (Qualifying), CRPO #21300, came to Canada from Iran herself, and her work with newcomers spans the Middle East, South Asia, East Africa, Latin America and Eastern Europe. Using schema therapy, CBT and emotion-focused techniques, she helps people with questions of identity and belonging, with shifting roles inside the family, and with the pressure to seem grateful while worn out.
Sessions are online, weekly and 60 minutes, in English, Farsi or both, so they fit around classes, shifts and the drive home rather than adding one more trip. They are available to people in Barrie and across Ontario.
Unaffiliated with NoorMinds and fully independent, these services cover the practical side of arriving in Barrie, alongside or between sessions.
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