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 anywhere in Toronto.
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.
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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:
Some people in Toronto are carrying trauma from before they arrived: war, persecution, detention, or a dangerous journey. Others are carrying something that happened here, in a family, a relationship, a workplace or on the street. The city has specialized services for some of this. The Canadian Centre for Victims of Torture, for example, offers counselling, psychotherapy and settlement help to survivors of torture, war and organized violence, and to their families. Therapy with NoorMinds can sit alongside a specialized service or stand on its own, and nobody is asked to explain their history before they are ready. For people still waiting on a refugee hearing or on family reunification, the danger can feel unfinished, and therapy may begin with steadier ground in daily life: sleep, routine, and a sense of safety at home.
A large city also has people whose jobs put them in front of other people's worst moments: nurses and doctors, paramedics, transit workers, shelter staff. That exposure builds up quietly, until sleep goes, or patience does, or a shift that used to be manageable starts to fill you with dread. It rarely feels like trauma from the inside. It feels like being tired, short-tempered and far away from the people at home.
Trauma also shows up differently across cultures and families. For some people it arrives as headaches, stomach trouble or sleeplessness rather than memories. For others the hardest part is not the event but the silence around it afterwards, or the sense that talking about it would shame the family. In a city as mixed as Toronto, no one's way of carrying pain is assumed, and no one is pushed to describe it in words that do not fit.
Schema-based trauma therapy looks at the beliefs about safety, trust and worth that these experiences shape, patterns that once protected you and now make decisions on your behalf. It does not require reliving every detail. The pace is set by what feels safe for you, and the work moves toward understanding those patterns rather than obeying them. Planning for difficult nights belongs in the work too, which is why Toronto's non-police crisis services are listed below.
Ghazal Sheikhtaheri, Registered Psychotherapist (Qualifying), CRPO #21300, offers schema-based trauma therapy combined with emotion-focused and cognitive-behavioural techniques, in English or Farsi. Tina Abadi, RP, offers trauma-informed therapy that is CBT-based, structured and skills-first. Sessions are online, so you can meet from a room where you already feel safe, anywhere in Toronto or Ontario.
These Toronto organizations are independent and not affiliated with NoorMinds; they can be useful alongside or between sessions, including on a hard night.