Therapy for Immigrants in London, Ontario

Immigration has reshaped London. In the 2021 Census about 103,300 residents, roughly a quarter of the city, were immigrants, and close to three in ten identified as a visible minority, the largest groups being South Asian, Arab, Black, Latin American and Chinese. Arab residents alone were about 5.3 per cent of the population. For a newcomer this can mean finding a familiar grocery store, a place of worship or your own language sooner than you expected. It can also mean that your particular story, the place you left and the reasons, still goes unseen in a city that is diverse in general and not always in the specific way you need.

The cost of starting over is also material. Housing in London was far cheaper than in the GTA in 2021, with a median dwelling value of about $548,000, but low income was more common here than in Kitchener or Mississauga, at 13.8 per cent of residents by the census low-income measure. Newcomers often take survival jobs while credentials are assessed, share housing, or send money home. Financial strain sits on top of grief for the people and places you left, and it can leave little energy for the feelings underneath.

Established agencies such as the London Cross Cultural Learner Centre and LUSO Community Services handle much of the practical work of arriving. Therapy is for what paperwork cannot reach: the pressure to be grateful, a marriage or a parent-child relationship reshaping itself under new roles, the sense of being too foreign here and too changed for home. Ghazal Sheikhtaheri, a Registered Psychotherapist (Qualifying), CRPO #21300, came to Canada from Iran and has worked with immigrants and refugees from many parts of the world. She uses Schema Therapy with emotion-focused and CBT techniques, paced to you.

Sessions are online, so you can join from home after a shift, from a quiet room at work, or from anywhere in London or elsewhere in Ontario. They are in English, Farsi or a mix, and the free 15-minute consultation lets you ask questions before deciding. Sometimes the feelings that matter most were learned in another language; if that language is Farsi, you can use it here, and if it is not, you are still welcome to bring its words into the room.