You don't have to keep surviving on autopilot. If the past still surfaces in the quiet moments, on a long drive or in the dark before sleep, you can work with it gently and without being rushed. Schema-based trauma therapy in English or Farsi, by video for people in Barrie.
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.
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 trauma therapy to residents throughout Ontario. Select your city to learn more:
Trauma rarely announces itself during the busy parts of the day. It tends to arrive in the gaps: alone in the car, in the stillness after everyone else is asleep, in the moment a conversation turns sharp. A body that learned to stay alert does not switch off because the surroundings are calm, and that mismatch can be confusing. Why do you feel braced for danger in a life that looks, from the outside, perfectly settled?
Barrie has services built for the acute moment. The Canadian Mental Health Association's Simcoe County Branch runs a 24/7 crisis line, a crisis centre and mobile crisis teams, and Royal Victoria Regional Health Centre provides hospital-based mental health care. Those services are there for the worst nights. Therapy offers something different: the longer, slower work of understanding how an old experience still shapes your sleep, your trust and your reactions, over weeks and months, at a pace you set.
That is the work Ghazal Sheikhtaheri, a Registered Psychotherapist (Qualifying), CRPO #21300, offers. Her approach combines schema therapy with emotion-focused and cognitive-behavioural techniques; she does not use EMDR. Rather than reliving every detail, sessions look at what trauma left behind: the beliefs about safety and worth, the ways you learned to protect yourself, the triggers that still set off old alarms. Whether what you carry is a single event, a childhood where you learned to stay watchful, or the losses that come with migration, you do not need a diagnosis for it to deserve care.
Some people come to Barrie partly to put distance between themselves and something painful, a relationship, a city, a family situation. A new place can genuinely help, but trauma tends to travel with us, and the first quiet months somewhere new can be when it resurfaces. If that has happened to you, it does not mean the move was a mistake; it may mean you finally have enough stability to deal with what you have been carrying.
Many people arrive having coped alone for a long time, sometimes by keeping busy, sometimes by keeping everyone at a distance, sometimes by working and driving so much that there is no room left to feel. Those strategies made sense. Therapy does not ask you to drop them overnight, only to get curious about what they protect, so that over time you have more choices than bracing or shutting down.
Working online also means ending a session in your own space, with time to settle before the next thing, rather than merging straight onto the highway. Sessions are in English or Farsi, open to people in Barrie and anywhere in Ontario.
These Barrie-area services are independent and have no affiliation with NoorMinds; they handle urgent needs and community care alongside or between sessions.
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