Sometimes you don’t survive whole, you just survive in part. But the grandeur of life is that attempt. It’s not about that solution.
—Toni Morrison

clarice kuhling

One of the hardest parts of being human is experiencing and tolerating our own emotions. But having the space to explore our inner experience with another who listens carefully and understands deeply can help soothe feelings of distress, hopelessness and aloneness.

Therapy, then, isn’t just about talking about our struggles or gaining new insights. The healing and learning comes from being in relationship with another and in the creation of new emotional and relational experiences between them.

I am honoured to be with my clients in all of their feelings, and through their healing journey. If and when you feel comfortable reaching out, I will help us explore the emotions, thoughts, and unease you carry, together. I will strive with you to cultivate a space where you feel deeply understood. I am committed to listening with openness, empathy and acceptance, and to respecting your autonomy and confidentiality.

I am based in Tkaronto/Toronto and licensed in Ontario, Canada. Depending on the regulations governing psychotherapy services in the province where you reside, I can offer sessions by video and phone in other parts of Canada.

Tkaronto/Toronto is the ancestral land of the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat peoples and home to many diverse First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples. I recognize that colonization is ongoing today, and that reparation and justice measures that centre Indigenous communities must be part of the process of land acknowledgment.

my approach | our work together | more about me | reach out | about relational therapy

Wherever human beings are, we at least have a chance because we are not only disasters, we are also miracles.
—James Baldwin

my approach

I operate through multiple perspectives and lenses: feminist, anti-colonial, anti-racist/anti-oppressive, 2SLGBTQQIPAA + interculturally informed/cultural humility, neuro-affirming, and attachment, as well as one that also pays attention to class, material conditions and precarity as sites of pain and struggle. As a relational therapist (one who attends to the impact we have on each other) grounded in the psychodynamic and self-psychology tradition, I take a collaborative, client-centred, trauma-informed, intersubjective, and systemic approach to mental health difficulties.

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our work together

Maybe you feel overwhelmed, anxious, or depressed and don’t know where to begin to make sense of it all. Sometimes putting feelings and thoughts into words can bring relief, especially when we feel deeply understood in the presence of another.

As a psychotherapist, I offer a caring, warm, and accepting presence where I listen carefully and provide a space where you can say anything. Working together, we can explore the feelings and thoughts that come up for you in your life and relationships, as well as behaviours and patterns of relating to yourself and others.

Together, we can work on:

Depression
Anxiety
Grief and loss
Shame and guilt
Self-esteem struggles
Relationship issues
Feelings of overwhelm and unease
Emotional neglect
Trauma
Perfectionism and feelings of inadequacy
Open relationships and non-monogamy
Exploring sexuality
Gender transitions
Life transitions
Substance use
Navigating poly-crisis climate anxiety
General self-with-other challenges

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more about me

I am a Registered Psychotherapist with the College of Registered Psychotherapists of Ontario (CRPO). I received my training at the Toronto Institute for Relational Psychotherapy (TIRP). I am also a Board member of the OSRP (Ontario Society for Registered Psychotherapists).

I currently combine seeing clients in private practice with almost two decades of teaching/lecturing in the Department of Sociology at Wilfrid Laurier University. These experiences have taught me much about how structural forces impact intrapsychic dynamics and processes. In the mental health courses I teach, for example, we explore all the various ways that economic, political, socio-cultural, and relational contexts play a role in mental health struggles.

When not seeing clients or teaching, I am active in community, social justice, and labour organizing, singing in a protest choir, reading, writing and spending time with friends.

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reach out

Reaching out can be difficult. Meeting for a consultation however might give you a sense of who I am and how I respond to what you bring. When it feels right for you, I welcome your contact.

Rates:
$50 for 30-min introductory session
$140 for a 50-minute session
Limited number of sliding-scale sessions available

contact me

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what is relational therapy

In sum, it explores what is happening here between us, and the impact that we have on each other in the moment

From the tirp.ca website:

“Relational psychotherapy is a powerful, effective model for working with individuals who suffer from chronic emotional, psychological, and/or relational distress. Relational psychotherapy is based on the following principles:

Emotional well-being depends on having satisfying mutual relationships with others.
Emotional distress is often rooted in patterns of relational experience, past and present, which have the power to demean and deaden the self.
The relational therapist tries to understand the client's unique self-experience in its social/relational context and to respond with empathy and genuine presence.
Together, client and therapist create a new in-depth relationship which is supportive, strengthening, and enlivening for the client.
Within this secure relationship, the client can safely re-experience, and then find freedom from, the powerful effects of destructive relationships, past and present.

Relational therapists help clients understand, on the one hand, their own patterns of thoughts and feelings about themselves, and on the other hand, the power of significant relationships, past and present, to shape this self-experience. Through the interpersonal process of therapeutic interaction, relational therapy strengthens and transforms a client's sense of self, which in turn enhances his/her/their confidence and well-being in the world. Empowerment and growth through interpersonal connection are both the process and the goal of relational psychotherapy.

With this perspective on therapy and relationship, a relational therapist takes seriously the interpersonal impact of power differentials and social issues such as race, class, culture, gender, and sexual difference, and works with these issues as they are present in the client's life and in the therapy relationship.

The principles of relational psychotherapy taught by the Toronto Institute for Relational Psychotherapy are drawn from self psychology, intersubjectivity theory, relational psychoanalysis, interpersonal neurobiology, psychodynamic developmental theory, trauma theory, and feminist theories of psychotherapy.”

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