Whether you arrived in Cambridge last year or your family came a generation ago, life between two worlds can be heavy. Culturally sensitive online psychotherapy in English and Farsi, available in Cambridge and across Ontario.
Roya is booking now. Ghazal is booking by waitlist (3–4 weeks).
In the 2021 census, 25.8% of people in the Kitchener-Cambridge-Waterloo census metropolitan area were immigrants, and among recent immigrants the top places of birth were India, Syria and Eritrea. Some came through work or study, some to join family, and some as refugees resettled in Waterloo Region. Cambridge also holds much older migration stories, including a Portuguese-Canadian community that has been part of the city for generations. And yet settling here can still feel isolating. Community is harder to find than the numbers suggest, and the push to secure work, housing and schooling can crowd out the emotional work of arriving. Many 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, in English or Farsi, from wherever you are in Cambridge. 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 provides virtual therapy for immigrants to residents throughout Ontario. Select your city to learn more:
Plenty of newcomers to Cambridge find their first Canadian job on a production line, in a warehouse, or on a night shift, whatever their training was before. An accountant working in logistics, a teacher on an assembly line, a nurse waiting for credentials to be recognized: the work is honest and it pays the rent, and it can also quietly wear away the sense of who you were. That loss rarely gets named, because everyone around you is focused on getting established.
Then there is family on the other side of the world. Money sent home, calls timed across many hours of difference, a parent growing older without you. For people who came as refugees, the losses can run deeper, and experiences of war or displacement deserve careful, trauma-informed pacing rather than questions about how well you are adjusting.
The small things add up as well. A first winter in Waterloo Region, with the sun setting before five in December, can make isolation feel physical. Forms arrive in a language you are still learning. Your children pick up English faster than you do and start translating for you at the bank or the doctor's, a reversal that can feel loving and humiliating at once. None of this is dramatic enough to tell anyone about, which is exactly why it builds up.
Immigration here also spans generations. Children of immigrants, raised between a family language at home and English at school, can feel too Canadian for their parents and not Canadian enough everywhere else. Ghazal Sheikhtaheri, a Registered Psychotherapist (Qualifying), knows that in-between place from her own life: she came to Canada from Iran and continued her training here.
Her work combines Schema Therapy with attachment- and emotion-focused methods, looking at the long-held patterns a move tends to stir up: the drive to prove yourself, the reluctance to burden anyone, the grief that feels ungrateful to admit. Practical settlement help from agencies in Waterloo Region can sit alongside therapy; therapy is where the inner side of arriving gets attention.
Sessions are online, which spares a trip across the city between shifts or school pick-ups. They take place in English or Farsi; if neither is the language you feel strongest in, say so in the free consultation, and you can decide together whether the fit is right. Ghazal and Roya see clients in Cambridge and anywhere in Ontario.
None of these organizations is affiliated with NoorMinds; they are independent services that newcomers may find useful alongside sessions or between them.
Also serving nearby
Related services