Culturally sensitive online psychotherapy for those navigating life between two worlds. Sessions in English and Farsi. Available in Markham and across Ontario.
Ontario is home to one of the largest immigrant populations in the world — nearly a third of residents were born outside Canada, settling everywhere from downtown Toronto and the surrounding GTA to Ottawa, Hamilton, the Waterloo Region, London, and smaller communities throughout the province. And yet the experience of being an immigrant here often feels isolating. Community is harder to find than the statistics suggest. The pressure to establish yourself financially in one of Canada's most expensive provinces can crowd out the emotional work of settling in. Many newcomers across Ontario 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 — most extended health plans in Canada cover sessions with a Registered Psychotherapist.
Free 15-minute consultation available. Receipts provided after each session for submission to your extended health insurance plan.
Book a free 15-minute consultation — no commitment, no pressure.
Book a Free ConsultationOr call (647) 699-5142
NoorMinds provides virtual therapy for immigrants to residents throughout Ontario. Select your city to learn more:
Markham wears its success openly, a prosperous, tech-forward city in York Region often called Canada's high-tech capital, with finance and professional services gathered alongside its technology firms. It is highly diverse, home to very large East Asian communities and a notable, growing Middle Eastern and Persian presence across the broader region, and its suburbs are affluent and family-oriented. Beneath that comfort runs a high-achieving culture, and with it the quiet pressures that high achievement so often brings.
For immigrants who have come far and worked hard to belong in such a place, those pressures can take a particular shape. There is the expectation to succeed visibly, to justify the sacrifice of leaving home, to make the family proud across the distance. And there is the part of you that, behind the accomplishments, still grieves what was left behind and wonders whether anyone here truly knows you. Achievement and loneliness are not opposites. They can live comfortably in the same accomplished life.
In this work we make room for the self beneath the striving. We speak about identity held between two worlds, about expectations that travel from family far away, and about the grief and self-rebuilding that follow starting over. Ghazal Sheikhtaheri is an immigrant herself, a Registered Psychotherapist (Qualifying), CRPO #21300, drawing on Schema Therapy and attachment- and emotion-focused work to reach the patterns beneath performance.
All sessions are online, so the pace of an achievement-oriented place need not keep you from care. Wherever you are in Markham, and anywhere in Ontario, you are welcome to meet in English or in Farsi, in whatever language lets you set the striving down.
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