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 students, newcomers and long-time residents of Waterloo.
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 wherever you are in Waterloo.
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:
A university city holds people from almost everywhere, and with them, the news from almost everywhere. For international students and researchers in Waterloo, a war, an earthquake, a flood or a family emergency thousands of kilometres away can arrive on a phone in the middle of a lecture, and then the day simply carries on. There is no ritual for that, and often no one nearby who understands what it means. Grief and fear that have nowhere to go tend to surface later, in sleep, concentration or the body.
Waterloo Region is also a place of refugee resettlement. Government-assisted refugees arriving here are first served by Reception House Waterloo Region, and in the 2021 census Syria and Eritrea ranked among the top birthplaces of recent immigrants to the Kitchener-Cambridge-Waterloo area. That says nothing about any one person, but it does mean that classmates, neighbours and co-workers may be carrying more than they show.
Other trauma is quieter and closer to home, rooted in growing up or in someone you trusted. It often shows up later than people expect, in a first year away from family or a first serious relationship, as hypervigilance, nightmares, numbness or reactions that feel far too big for the moment.
Ghazal Sheikhtaheri, Registered Psychotherapist (Qualifying), CRPO #21300, roots her trauma work in Schema Therapy and draws on emotion-focused and cognitive-behavioural techniques as well, always at a pace that feels safe. Sessions attend to what those experiences taught you about safety and worth, and to the younger parts of yourself that still hold those lessons. Tina Abadi, RP, also offers trauma-informed therapy at NoorMinds; hers is CBT-based and more structured.
Online therapy is not a crisis service. Across Waterloo Wellington, round-the-clock crisis support and access to mental health and addictions care run through Here 24/7; weekly online sessions are for the longer work, in English or Farsi, from a private room in Waterloo.
These are independent organizations, not affiliated with NoorMinds; they can be useful alongside or between sessions, and some respond quickly when you need it.
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