A Simple Guide to EMDR Therapy

What We Offer:

Psychotherapists in Toronto, with Jess Erb's dog, Maggie

Psychotherapy Services:

We provide Psychotherapy in Toronto and Ontario to all ages as well as couples and families. Every psychotherapist at Centred Self is trained in a Relational Psychodynamic Approach because we believe that healing comes through relationship.

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Supervision:

Are you a Psychotherapist in Toronto or Ontario? Discover new ways of engaging with your clients & explore the use of Self through the Psychodynamic paradigm with our CRPO certified supervisor, and independent Psychotherapist, Jess Erb (CEO/Founder of Centred Self).

If you require supervision to meet CRPO requirements, reach out for a 20 minute free consult where you can ask questions, talk about your practice and see if supervision with Centred Self is the right fit.

Supervision for students and RPs

Wellness Services:

Centred Self believes that mental health is interconnected to our bodies and is a therapy all in itself.

Mental health and wellness can help you achieve major life goals, make big changes, and life a more balanced, healthy lifestyle in general.

Wellness at Centred Self Toronto

EMDR Services

Gina Lihou (RP) is a certified EMDR practitioner that provides EMDR services to a wide variety of clients. This practice can help with trauma in a way that limits re-traumatizing and has been widely praised for its effectiveness in technique.

Find out more about Gina here

Meet Our Team:

Our team of therapists in Toronto is dedicated to providing exceptional psychotherapy, coaching and wellness services, solution-focussed therapy, affordable online therapy, and more. Centred Self’s team of online therapists can help people anywhere in Ontario with virtual sessions.

Meet Our Therapists

What Is Psychotherapy?

Psychotherapy, when Googled, generally comes up with the simple phrase "Talk therapy to help with mental illness like depression, anxiety, relational distress (etc)." This is a good answer, right? Well ... Let me unpack this a bit more for you. Psychotherapy is about talking. But it is so much more active than this phrase gives it credit for. For us at Centred Self, we are relational psychotherapists and this means we look for themes as well as inconsistencies in your self-narrative, and through this we can start to see what may be happening in the subconscious (just below awareness) and even the unconscious (things that haunt you that you would never be aware of without diving in). These interconnections start to come alive as we go deeper into the 'why' of your patterns of behaviours or feelings about things. We start to see how defenses, which might have once been super helpful for you, are now maladaptive and causing you strife. And very soon, things that you once brought to therapy no longer even come up as you go deeper into what's going on for you in your life.

How Can Therapy Help Me?

I think of therapy as a three-phase 'landscape.’ And hopefully this is helpful for you:

The first phase is where you show me your landscape. You know it much better than I can, and I need to know what has happened to you and what is going on now for me to get to know you and all you are bringing. Basically, you are getting me up to speed on your life.

The second phase is where the fun happens. It is exciting but also can be scary; in this phase, neither of us knows where we are going. We've got to a place where you have never travelled before and we have to spend some time navigating it together. This is one of the 'aha' moments of therapy. The breakthroughs. It is enlivening to start to see the depths and the whys to our thoughts and behaviours.

The third phase is where we can start to take all we learn and apply it for change. It is incredible how just knowing our whys to our behaviours that they really start to change. This is why I do not love solution-focussed therapies. They often just want to solve something without exploring the roots of why it is there in the first place. In phase three, change is happening without workbooks or strategies because once you understand yourself, it is very hard for you to unconsciously fall back into patterns. How can you, when it's no longer unconscious in the first place?

These models are not linear. It is not uncommon for Phase 2 to happen within the first few sessions, even before I know your full story, or for Phase 3 to be happening as we go through this work. Or, we may have been seeing each other for years, when you are like, 'Oh my goodness, how could I not have told you this yet?!" - bringing us back to Phase 1. This is the best rubric I have for how therapy works. Hopefully it works for you too.

Re-centering Body & Mind

Centred Self: [ˈsɛntəd] / [self]

adjective / noun

At Centred Self, clients don't get an overly removed or clinical 'professional' but a real person who meets clients right where they are at - even in the darkest material.

What We Offer:

Psychotherapy Services:

Supervision:

Wellness Services:

EMDR Services

Meet Our Team:

Latest Writings

Your Therapy Questions Answered

What Is Psychotherapy?

How Can Therapy Help Me?

Re-centering Body & Mind

Centred Self: [ˈsɛntəd] / [self]

adjective / noun

At Centred Self, clients don't get an overly removed or clinical 'professional' but a real person who meets clients right where they are at - even in the darkest material.

Connect with us on Social Media:

What We Offer:

Psychotherapy Services:

Supervision:

Wellness Services:

EMDR Services

Meet Our Team:

Latest Writings

Your Therapy Questions Answered

What Is Psychotherapy?

How Can Therapy Help Me?

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