You don't have to keep surviving on autopilot. If the past still controls how you feel, how you sleep, or how close you let people get, therapy can help you reclaim your life. Schema-based trauma therapy in English or Farsi, online for people in Ajax, at a pace that never pushes you faster than you can go.
Tina is booking now. Ghazal is booking by waitlist (3–4 weeks).
If you recognized yourself in any of these, you are not broken. These are normal responses to experiences that overwhelmed your capacity to cope.
Schema therapy goes beneath surface symptoms to address the deep emotional patterns trauma creates. This isn't about quick fixes. It's about understanding why you respond the way you do and changing those patterns from the root.
Trauma healing requires more than talking about what happened. Emotion-focused techniques help you process what's stored in your body and emotions, not just your thoughts. Every session is paced to what feels safe for you.
As an Iranian immigrant herself, Ghazal understands how culture, family systems, and migration shape the experience of trauma. Sessions in English and Farsi, because healing works best in the language your pain lives in.
Trained in both Iran (Kharazmi University) and Canada (Yorkville University), with over a decade of clinical experience. CRPO registered, with a verified Psychology Today profile.
A calm 15-minute conversation to share what you're experiencing and see if working together feels right. No pressure, no forms beforehand.
In early sessions, we explore how trauma has shaped your emotional world: the beliefs, the coping strategies, and the triggers that keep you stuck.
Weekly 60-minute sessions using schema therapy, emotion-focused techniques, and CBT. Always at a pace that feels safe. No rushing, no re-traumatizing.
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. Full fees & insurance details
Visa, Mastercard, Amex, e-Transfer, PayPal, and HSA accepted. Insurance receipts provided after every session.
Healing doesn't require you to be ready for everything, just ready for a first conversation, and it can start from home in Ajax.
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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 trauma therapy to residents throughout Ontario. Select your city to learn more:
Along the south edge of Ajax runs more than 7 km of continuous off-road trail beside Lake Ontario, part of the Great Lakes Waterfront Trail and named in 2018 for William Parish, the founding mayor who protected the waterfront as public open space. It is an ordinary local amenity: dog walkers, cyclists, families on a Sunday afternoon. For someone living with the after-effects of trauma, a place like that can also become part of recovery, somewhere to practise noticing the ground under your feet and the wind off the water while your nervous system is insisting that danger is close.
Trauma rarely announces itself as trauma. It shows up as sleep that never quite restores you, a startle out of proportion to the noise, a flatness where feelings used to be, or closeness you want but cannot tolerate. It can follow a single frightening event, years of growing up unsafe, a relationship that turned harmful, or war and displacement before arriving in Canada. It can also build slowly in people whose work keeps them close to other people's emergencies. None of these responses mean you are broken. They are signs of a system that learned to protect you and has not yet learned it can stand down.
Some distress is also collective. For people with family in places affected by war or unrest, news from home can reopen old fear, even years after leaving, and the body can react as if the danger were here. That deserves the same care as a single frightening event. There is an article on grief, fear and collective trauma for anyone who recognizes this, and it can be explored in sessions in English or Farsi.
Ghazal Sheikhtaheri, Registered Psychotherapist (Qualifying), CRPO #21300, works with trauma through schema therapy combined with emotion-focused and cognitive-behavioural techniques. Early sessions focus on understanding your reactions and what keeps you on guard, and on ways to settle your body when it floods. You will not be asked to retell everything, and what gets explored, and when, is decided together. Between sessions, grounding practice might happen on a walk by the lake, in the car before you go into work, or in a quiet room at home.
Therapy happens online, so you can join from home in Ajax, where you may already feel safest, instead of facing a drive and a waiting room when you are already depleted. Sessions are in English or Farsi, and the local services listed below can help between sessions.
These are independent organizations with no affiliation to NoorMinds; people in Ajax may find them useful alongside therapy or between sessions.
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