Ottawa Team

Dr. Dino Zuccarini, C.Psych. – CEO; Co-Founder; Partner


Interpersonal relationships play a fundamental role in shaping how we think and feel about ourselves and others. When these relationships are characterized by love, connection, safety, and security, they significantly contribute to our overall sense of well-being. However, when our primary bonds with parents, siblings, friends, or life partners become strained, our experience of our self and others can be diminished, potentially leading to devastating implications for our mental health. Since 2005, I have had the privilege of accompanying many individuals on their journeys toward healing themselves and their relationships. I commend you for taking this important first step toward improving your connections.

Couple and Relationship Therapy: In couple and relationship therapy, the primary focus of my clinical practice is to facilitate love and connection in relationships. Scholars have identified the presence or absence of love as one of the greatest sources of personal suffering, and possibly even the root of various social ills. When love flourishes—along with adequate psychological, emotional, and physical nurturance—life feels rich, complete, and filled with vitality, safety, and security.

Achieving a balance between self-love and love for others (i.e., aligning our capacity for attachment with a healthy sense of self and avoiding unhealthy forms of narcissism) is essential. This balance is easier to achieve when partners have a shared outlook on life; it can be more challenging, however, when differences arise (e.g., in opinions, thoughts, emotional experiences, needs, desires, values, and goals). Negotiating and co-constructing healthy relationships that enable us to love ourselves and each other despite these differences is crucial for creating a world where we can live authentically and connectively.

I work with couples to address a wide range of relationship issues, including enhancing emotional, physical, and sexual intimacy; repairing bonds after infidelity, betrayal, or other interpersonal injuries; and managing conflicts related to finances, parenting, and extended family dynamics (e.g., navigating difficult in-laws). I also support partners facing challenging life circumstances, such as chronic physical or mental health issues, or terminal illness. Additionally, I provide assistance to couples who have experienced complex trauma or other forms of PTSD in childhood or adulthood, helping them navigate the intricate issues that arise from these experiences. Topics such as non-monogamy, relationship diversity, and family planning decisions can also be explored within the context of our work together. All these discussions require some form of emotional engagement. Therefore, learning how to express emotions and heal past emotional wounds related to unresolved issues is a critical part of our journey together.

Adult Family Therapy: Attachment bonds between parents and children, as well as among siblings, can be some of our greatest sources of love, connection, safety, and security. However, when these bonds become strained due to difficult interactions and experiences—both from the earliest years and most recent times—marked by deep hurts, fears, shame, and anger, they can lead to significant anguish, sadness and a profound sense of disconnection. Reconnecting with parents, adult children, and siblings requires addressing past relational and self-esteem wounds while establishing new boundaries and frameworks for healthier adult relationships.

I work with adult children and their partners to address past injuries, challenges related to self-other boundaries, psychological and emotional abuse, difficulties in emotional communication, and unprocessed emotions stemming from loss, grief, and trauma. We also explore issues concerning family relationships, finances, in-law dynamics, as well as attachment, self-esteem, and interpersonal injuries. Learning to effectively communicate about boundaries and express emotions, needs, desires, and opinions in a direct and respectful manner is a vital focus of our therapeutic work. Learning how to tolerate difference, separateness and maintain open communication among all members of the family system is crucial to our work together.

How I Work: Throughout our journey together, I provide a confidential therapeutic relationship characterized by compassion, empathy, genuineness, and authentic engagement. Before our first meeting, I will gather information through various questionnaires to better understand your current distress. This assessment process involves utilizing scientific, evidence-based measures, along with taking an in-depth personal history and accounting for your life and relationship experiences. This process will provide insights into your current self and relational difficulties.

During our initial session, I’ll gather additional information about your relationship struggles and collaboratively establish goals for our work together. Following this session, I will conduct individual sessions with each participant to integrate the findings from the questionnaires, deepening our understanding of your self-experience in relationships. After these individual sessions, we will reconvene for joint sessions to address the most salient issues identified in your journey as a couple or family.

I employ a developmentally oriented integrative clinical lens to understand you and your relationships, which further informs treatment planning. My psychotherapeutic approach integrates various theories of human psychological development—primarily from psychoanalytic and trauma-informed perspectives—to explore how your past development—as both an individual and as a person in relationships—has shaped how you experience yourself, think, feel, behave, and relate to others in close, intimate bonds. I further integrate affective/emotional approaches and psychoanalytically oriented, trauma-informed neuroscience research into my treatment interventions, tailoring them to promote greater self-resilience, authenticity, wholeness, and healthy interdependency in relationships.

I utilize techniques from various psychotherapy models to address your specific needs and concerns. By employing different systemic and structural models, I seek to understand the dynamics between couples and family members. Emotion(ally)-focused, humanistic, and experiential models guide my approach, helping you explore and make sense of your internal reality—specifically, the emotional distress in your relationships, including the troubling emotional reactions, and feelings you have experienced. Existential models inform my perspective on the inner struggles that we all face simply due to our existence. Additionally, post-modern influences shape my clinical work, emphasizing how social, cultural, and historical contexts affect our subjective sense of reality, meaning-making, and self-expression. I also employ cognitive-behavioral and mindfulness-based strategies to address distressing thoughts, explore external realities, and alleviate symptoms and associated discomfort.

Current Professional and Research Activities: I am currently the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) at the Centre for Interpersonal Relationships. In this capacity, I oversee all aspects of the Centre’s operations, including administration, finance, marketing, facilities, and technology.

Within CFIR, I am leading the development of a developmentally oriented integrative treatment model for DSM-5 disorders, as well as, psychological, self, and relationship issues. Additionally, I am working on developing a psychotherapy progress measure to effectively capture the impact of therapy on your growth as a client.

In terms of past academic activities, my background includes publications in various journal articles and book chapters, alongside presentations and workshops focused on couples, relationship trauma, and sex therapy. I am an original proponent of an integrated Emotionally Focused Therapy model for couples and sex therapy. My research has also delved into the process of relationship repair following challenging experiences, such as infidelity and betrayal.

Below are some of my recent publications:

Zuccarini, D., Johnson, S. & Makinen, J. (manuscript prepared and to be re-submitted to Journal of Marital and Family Therapy). Transforming power of emotion in forgiveness in EFT: An emotional processing model.

Zuccarini, D., Johnson, S., Dagleish, T., & Makinen, J. (2013). Forgiveness and reconciliation in EFT for couples: The client change process and therapist interventions. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 39, 148-162. 

Johnson, S. & Zuccarini, D. (2011). EFT for sexual issues: An integrated model of couple and sex therapy. In Furrow, J., Bradely, B., & Johnson, S. (Eds.). The Emotionally Focused Casebook: New Directions in Treating Couples. Routeldge Inc.

Zuccarini, D., & Karos, L. (2011). Emotionally focused therapy for gay and lesbian couples: Strong identities, strong bonds. In Furrow, J., Bradely, B., & Johnson, S. (Eds.). Emotionally Focused Casebook: New Directions in Treating Couples. Routeldge Inc.

Johnson, S. & Zuccarini, D. (2010). Sex and attachment: Addressing sexual issues in emotionally focused couple. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 36, 431- 445.

Kleinplatz, P.J., Ménard, A.D., Paquet, M.-C., Paradis, N., Campbell, M., Zuccarini, D., & Mehak, L. (2010).  The components of optimal sexuality: A portrait of ‘great sex’.  Canadian Journal of Human Sexuality, Spring-Summer.

Since 2007, I have taught under-graduate courses at the University of Ottawa in Interpersonal Relationships, Family Psychology and Human Sexual Behaviour. I continue to read peer-reviewed research articles and books about current treatments for psychological issues.

I am a registered member of the College of Psychologists and Behaviour Analysts of Ontario.

Professional Affiliations
2008-2011 Canadian Psychological Association
2007-2011 Ottawa Institute for Object Relations Therapy- Board Member
2012- Ottawa Academy of Psychologists
2012- Canadian Register of Health Service Psychologists

Treatments

Assessment

Therapies