Where Professional Skill Meets Lived Experience
When you're dealing with challenges it's essential that your therapist or counselor has the education, training, and experience needed to help you. It is also almost always helpful to know that the person who is helping you through your struggles has had some relevant experiences of their own.
At Prevailing Minds, we understand that lived experience with challenges is an asset in therapy and counselling. Our therapists are open with their history of challenges while maintaining their professional boundaries and skill set in order to provide you with an unparalleled, effective counseling experience.
“What is to give light must endure burning.”
Victor Frankl
We acknowledge that the land upon which we walk, live, and work is the traditional territory of many Indigenous peoples, including the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishinaabe, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee and the Huron-Wendat peoples. We acknowledge the land, water, plants, and animals, and offer gratitude to those who have protected and continue to protect them.
WHAT YOU CAN EXPECT FROM US
SERVICE USERS:
Through assessment and open conversation we will work together to understand your challenges and to identify concrete, action-based goals that can help you overcome your challenges. Each week we will review goals and revise and advance them as necessary.
We treat issues like depression, anxiety, phobias (including agoraphobia), eating disorders (including restrictive-type eating disorders such as anorexia, purging-type eating disorders such as bulimia, binge eating disorders, emotional over-eating, and food aversions), and other issues.
We use modalities such as cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), dialectical behavioural therapy (DBT), mindfulness, exposure therapy/systematic desensitization, and existential approaches.
You can expect your therapist to have professional experience and expertise in working with individuals with similar challenges, an empathetic understanding of many aspects of your challenges, and a willingness to be open about these experiences where this openness will help you move forward.
SERVICE PROVIDERS:
We will help you improve client-centred care, give you strategies to centralize the experiences of service users in your services, and learn ways of sharing with them aspects of decision-making related to service development and delivery. We will help you to incorporate Participatory Action Research (PAR) methodology to ensure your services are truly client-centred. Learn how to implement participatory projects yourself, or get us to design a custom project for you.
COMMITMENT TO ANTI-OPPRESSIVE PRACTICE
We understand that social position (e.g. race, sexuality, gender, sex, ability level, etc.) affects access to opportunities and resources, including mental health care. We do our best to approach care through an anti-oppressive lens. We offer sliding scale services to those who have been affected by the social determinants of health. We do our best to understand and deconstruct harms that may have been caused by systems such as colonialism, racism, homophobia, ablism, sexism, and the medical system itself. We are trauma-informed, queer- and trans-friendly, polyamory-friendly, kink-friendly, and sex-positive. We welcome collaboration with healers of all types and maintain an open mind regarding spirituality, healing, and different ways of knowing and living.
SERVICES OFFERED
IN-PERSON THERAPY AND COUNSELING
Available in the Greater Toronto Area
Meet in-person in flexible locations to work on your goals. Meeting frequency is up to you. Learn how to set concrete, action-oriented goals and feel supported in achieving them. Free 20-minute phone consultation required beforehand.
Pricing geared to income and resources, sliding scale available.
WEB- AND PHONE-BASED THERAPY AND COUNSELING
Available to Ontario Residents
Meet online or by phone wherever you are to work on your goals. Texting support between meetings is available. Meeting frequency is up to you. Learn how to set concrete, action-oriented goals and feel supported in achieving them. Free 20-minute phone consultation required beforehand.
Use as a single service or to supplement a different service.
Pricing geared to income and resources, sliding scale available.
WEB-BASED WORKSHOPS AND LEARNING
For Service Users
Available to Everyone, Everywhere
Workshops and short courses on various therapeutic techniques available. Learn strategies from various therapeutic modalities that can be incorporated into your every day life. Individual and group learning experiences available.
Pricing geared to income and resources, sliding scale available.
INCORPORATING CLIENT PERSPECTIVES IN SERVICE DEVELOPMENT AND DELIVERY
Workshops, Participatory Research Design, and Consultation
Available to Everyone, Everywhere
Are you a service provider who is aiming to improve client-centred care?
Workshops and short courses on various methods of incorporating service user voices in service development and delivery are available. Inspired by Participatory Action Research (PAR) methodology. In-person and web-based training and consultation available.
Custom design and implementation of Participatory Research projects is also available.
Book your 30-minute discovery call now.
COMMUNITY-BASED, TASK-SPECIFIC THERAPY
Including Systematic Desensitization Therapy
Available in the Greater Toronto Area
Bring your learning into real-life environments and situations.
We can work on: Eating 'challenging' meals together and managing eating disorder symptoms, managing anxiety in crowded areas, making it out of the house to that job interview, attending that MeetUp group and challenging social anxiety, and much more.
Meet in-person in flexible locations to work on your goals. Meeting frequency is up to you. Learn how to set concrete, action-oriented goals and feel supported in achieving them. Free 20-minute phone consultation required beforehand.
Pricing geared to income and resources, sliding scale available.
