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 and private for people in Guelph.
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, held online and away from anyone you know in Guelph.
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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:
Guelph has long been home to specialized mental health care. Homewood Health Centre, founded in 1883, is a psychiatric and addiction treatment hospital whose programs include trauma care, and people travel to it from across Canada. For some people in the city, that makes the idea of treatment for trauma familiar rather than foreign. For others it raises a practical question: what if you need support that fits around an ordinary week, rather than a hospital program?
That is where outpatient therapy sits. Weekly online sessions with Ghazal Sheikhtaheri are for paced, ongoing work: understanding how past experiences still shape your sleep, your reactions and your relationships, and changing those patterns gradually. It is not crisis care, and it is not a substitute for specialized programs when those are needed. It is steady work done from home, an hour at a time.
Guelph had about 144,000 people at the 2021 census, and it can feel smaller. You might teach someone’s children, work beside their partner, or see them at the Farmers’ Market. When what you are carrying is private, meeting online from your own space, with no waiting room and no one noticing where you go each week, can make it easier to begin.
Some people in Guelph came here after war or persecution, including families resettled through private sponsorship. Their experiences are their own, and the work begins with what feels safe to say, in English or Farsi, rather than with a full account. The same is true for anyone whose trauma began in childhood, in a relationship, or in a single terrible day.
Reminders can come from anywhere: a siren on the Hanlon, an anniversary, a smell, a voice raised in the next room. Early sessions often focus on recognizing what your body does in those moments and bringing it back to the present, well before any story needs to be told.
Ghazal’s approach combines Schema Therapy with emotion-focused and cognitive-behavioural techniques. Instead of retelling events in detail, you look together at what they left behind: the vigilance, the numbness, the shame, the belief that closeness is dangerous. You set the pace. Ghazal Sheikhtaheri, Registered Psychotherapist (Qualifying), CRPO #21300, sees clients online in Guelph and across Ontario. Tina Abadi, RP, also offers trauma-informed, CBT-based therapy online, in English or Farsi.
The following are independent organizations with no affiliation to NoorMinds, and they can be useful alongside sessions or between them.
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