Culturally sensitive online psychotherapy for newcomers building a life between two worlds in Kitchener, a city shaped by immigrants since the days it was called Berlin. Sessions in English and Farsi, in Kitchener and across Ontario.
Roya is booking now. Ghazal is booking by waitlist (3–4 weeks).
In the 2021 census, 29.7 per cent of Kitchener residents were immigrants, and more than 16,000 had arrived in the previous five years, most often from India, Eritrea and Syria. They joined long-settled communities with roots in the United Kingdom, Romania and many other places. And yet being new here can still feel isolating. A shared language or a familiar grocery aisle doesn't always mean a friend, and the work of getting established, from a first lease to a first Canadian reference, can crowd out the emotional work of settling in. 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 home in Kitchener or 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 Kitchener. 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:
Kitchener's story begins with immigration. From the 1830s the settlement here was called Berlin, and most of its nineteenth- and early twentieth-century residents were of German origin. In 1916, in the middle of the First World War, residents voted in a referendum to give up the name Berlin, and the city became Kitchener. K-W Oktoberfest, which began in 1969, is one visible legacy of that German heritage. More than a century later, it is still being shaped by people who arrived from somewhere else.
That long history doesn't make arriving any easier for the person doing it. Every newcomer still has to find a family doctor, learn the unwritten rules at work, and explain their name, their accent, their lunch. Kitchener has an established settlement network for the practical side, including the Kitchener-Waterloo Multicultural Centre and Reception House, the first point of service for government-assisted refugees in Waterloo Region. What that network isn't designed to hold is the inner side of migration: the grief that surfaces months after arrival, the parent who feels like a stranger to children growing up Canadian, the professional whose experience didn't seem to cross the border.
Ghazal Sheikhtaheri, a Registered Psychotherapist (Qualifying) with the CRPO, knows that inner side from her own move from Iran. She works with Schema Therapy and attachment- and emotion-focused methods, tracing the older beliefs about worth and belonging that migration tends to wake up, so you can understand what is happening rather than simply push through it. Roya Dadollahi Sarab, RP, also works with life transitions and grief, in the same two languages.
Sessions are online, so there is no bus ride across town after a shift or an English class, and nobody needs to know where you are going. You can speak in English, in Farsi, or move between them, whichever language holds what you need to say. If your parents live with you, or your children have started translating for you at appointments, those shifts in the family are welcome in the room too.
These are independent organizations, unaffiliated with NoorMinds, that can help alongside or between sessions.
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