Have you ever felt your heart race, your muscles tense, or your stomach drop for no clear reason? These moments are often triggers—body-based reminders of past danger.

When trauma occurs, the brain stores sensory and emotional memories in areas responsible for survival, such as the amygdala, which detects and responds to threat. Later, a sound, smell, or tone of voice can reactivate those memories, even when the situation isn’t actually unsafe. This is your nervous system trying to protect you—it just doesn’t realize you’re safe now.

Trauma can also leave the body stuck in chronic states of hyperarousal or hypoarousal. In hyperaroused states, you might feel restless, agitated, tense, shaky, or overheated—signs that your system is in fight, flight, or freeze mode. In hypoaroused states, you may feel numb, heavy, fatigued, or disconnected—signals that your body has shifted into a protective shutdown or collapse mode. Both are survival responses, but they can become exhausting when the danger has long passed.

Understanding triggers is the first step toward healing. Rather than viewing these reactions as “overreactions,” it helps to see them as signals from a body that has learned to be cautious. With the right support, your nervous system can learn new patterns of regulation and safety.

At the Trauma Clinic at CFIR, our trauma-informed clinicians work gently with these responses through approaches such as Somatic Experiencing, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, Polyvagal-based therapy, and EMDR, helping your body and brain reconnect and calm after years of being on alert.

Healing doesn’t mean never being triggered—it means learning how to recover more quickly and trust that safety is possible again.

Whitney Reinhart, M.A., R.P., is the Director of the Trauma Clinic at CFIR and a psychotherapist providing psychological services to adults experiencing a wide range of issues, with a special interest and expertise in trauma and relationships. She uses and supervises trainees using a variety of trauma-informed approaches, including sensorimotor psychotherapy, somatic experiencing, and parts-based approaches. 

You might understand why you feel anxious, low, or stuck re-experiencing difficulties from the past, and have a number of concrete strategies to soften those experiences. However, you might still find your body responding as though it’s bracing for distress, feeling heavy or on edge. Much of how we experience the world is shaped by our nervous system — how we respond to stress, connect with others, and feel safe or unsafe in our own bodies. Even when we’re not fully aware of it, the body holds the stories of what we’ve lived through – the stress that lingers in our breath, the tension in our shoulders, the flutter in our chest when we feel uncertain.

When our nervous system feels more balanced, it can become easier to think clearly, regulate our emotions, and stay connected. When our nervous systems are overwhelmed or dysregulated, even ordinary moments may start to feel like too much, and we can experience burnout, anxiety or general distress.

As we notice the ways our body speaks, we come to understand that emotional pain isn’t just “in our heads” — it also lives in the places where we’ve learned to brace, hold, and protect ourselves. Our automatic responses — fight, flight, freeze, or connection — are intelligent survival strategies. The nervous system is always working to protect us. From this lens, experiences like anxiety, shutdown, or emotional reactivity can be seen as signals from the body — messages about safety, connection, and overwhelm.

Therapy with the right kind of mental health professional can provide a space to gently reconnect with the body — to slow down, notice, and begin to make sense of what it’s been carrying. As we tune into this connection, we open up the possibility of feeling more at home within ourselves. We can learn to collaborate with our nervous system: listening to its signals, recognizing its patterns, and gently guiding it toward safety and connection when possible.

Practices like gentle awareness, grounding, movement, or breath can help the nervous system begin to find its way toward balance. This isn’t about forcing relaxation or pushing through discomfort, but about slowly teaching the body that safety is possible in the present moment — and reconnecting with your innate capacity for self-regulation.

The over 70 clinicians at CFIR provide high quality therapy to help you gain more awareness to, and capacity to better regulate your nervous system in support of your mental health. Help is available to help you become a stronger, more resilient self, and to strengthen your relationships.

Juliana Riffat is a Registered Psychotherapist at the Centre for Interpersonal Relationships (CFIR) in Toronto. She works with children aged 8 years and older, teens, adults, and parents, supporting individuals and families navigating a range of emotional, relational, and developmental challenges. Juliana believes that healing begins with understanding and connection — that by attuning to the body’s quiet signals and the stories that shape our inner world, we can begin to restore a sense of safety and trust in ourselves.

Her approach is holistic and integrative, drawing from many approaches such as psychodynamic, attachment-based, somatic, and trauma-informed frameworks. Juliana brings warmth, curiosity, and care to her work, creating a collaborative space where healing can unfold at each client’s own pace.

References:

Dana, D. (2023). Polyvagal practices: Anchoring the self in safety. W. W. Norton & Company.

Being Autistic is not something that we consider needs to be “fixed.” We see Autism rather as a natural way of experiencing and understanding the world – simply experienced differences from neurotypical people. Still, many Autistic adults face challenges related to stress, communication, sensory overload, burnout, and feeling misunderstood. At the Centre for Interpersonal Relationships (CFIR), clinicians offer neuroaffirming support that respects neurodiversity and focuses on working with Autistic differences to help people work with their differences to thrive as they are.

CFIR Clinicians provide high quality therapy and supportive services for Autistic adults and couples who want support navigating everyday life, relationships, work, self-identity, and other common concerns faced by Autistic peoples. You do not need a formal autism diagnosis to access care. Therapy is designed to honour each person’s unique brain, strengths, and needs, rather than trying to make the Autistic person fit into neurotypical expectations, but rather, if it is a desire for therapy, to better navigate shared contexts that are often organized by neurotypical people. 

Clinicians at CFIR take a strengths-based approach in their work with Autistic adults. This means they work with clients to better understand how their nervous system, sensory experiences, and thinking patterns affect daily life. Together, the therapy work will build practical strategies for things like emotion regulation, executive functioning, managing sensory overwhelm, supporting relationships, reducing burnout. These tools are personalized and flexible, supporting real-life goals.

Therapy may also explore how being neurodivergent impacts relationships, communication, and self-confidence. Clients are supported in developing stronger self-awareness and self-compassion, while learning ways to advocate for their needs at school, work, or home. 

CFIR also offers NeurOptimal® Neurofeedback, a non-invasive technology that helps the brain regulate itself. This can support emotional balance, sensory regulation, and resilience during stressful or overwhelming situations.

CFIR’s excellence in neuroaffirming care is organized around helping Autistic adults feel seen, respected, and empowered—just as they are. Our team is here to provide inclusive and accessible solutions to help you in building a secure, resilient self, and help strengthen your relationships.

Dr. Marc Bedard, C.Psych. is a clinical psychologist and neuropsychologist, a Partner, and Director, Training at the Centre for Interpersonal Relationships (CFIR). Dr. Bedard provides psychological services to individual adults of varying neurotypes, experiencing a wide range of psychological and relationship difficulties related to mood and anxiety disorders, trauma, eating disorders, and sleep disruptions. He also provides neuropsychological and psychological assessment services to individuals with acquired brain injury, and to diagnose and support neurodiverse peoples (e.g., Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, Autism Spectrum Disorder).

One of the most common patterns I see in my work with couples is not explosive conflict, but a quieter kind of strain. One partner feels emotionally overwhelmed and flooded, while the other feels confused, pressured, or never quite enough. Both are trying to protect the relationship, yet each feels increasingly alone inside it.

This dynamic is often misunderstood as a mismatch in emotional capacity or effort. In reality, it reflects two nervous systems responding to stress in different ways. One system moves toward urgency, expression, and proximity. The other moves toward logic, containment, or distance. When these responses collide, partners begin to experience each other as the problem rather than recognizing the state that is driving the interaction.

When anxiety or emotional intensity enters the relationship, it brings speed with it. The body signals danger and demands relief, even when no immediate threat exists. This can show up as reassurance seeking, heightened emotion, or repeated attempts to talk things through. The partner on the receiving end often responds by fixing, explaining, or trying to calm the moment through solutions. When this does not work, both partners feel frustrated and misunderstood.

What is often missed is that emotional intensity is a state, not a character flaw or a measure of relationship health. In my clinical work, the shift that changes everything is helping couples slow down enough to ask a different question. Not, How do we solve this, but, What does this moment need to feel safer.

Support does not always require answers. Sometimes it looks like staying present without pushing for resolution. Slowing the pace. Sitting in silence. Naming that nothing needs to be decided right now.

For the partner carrying the anxiety, the work is learning to notice when fear is shaping the interaction more than the actual issue. For the partner who feels pressure, the work is learning how to remain connected without taking responsibility for making the feeling disappear.

Healthy relationships are built through moments of discomfort that are met with care rather than urgency. When couples learn to move from fixing to attunement, connection becomes possible again.

This work is not about getting it right. It is about practicing a different way of being together!

Laura Moore, M.Psy., is an integrative therapist, and Senior Registered Psychotherapist at the Centre for Interpersonal Relationships (CFIR) in Toronto. Her work focuses on helping individuals and couples understand the underlying relational and attachment patterns that create distance, particularly during periods of stress, uncertainty, or emotional overwhelm. Using a psychodynamic and nervous-system informed approach, Laura supports clients in recognizing how anxiety and protective strategies shape connection, and in shifting from urgency and fixing toward attunement and emotional safety. She is committed to creating a therapeutic space where complexity is held with care and where new ways of relating can emerge through presence rather than pressure.

Therapy clients increasingly turn to AI to help address the psychological issues troubling them most. In turn, many of these individuals report that their experiences with AI showed a lack of understanding of their unique experiences or even encouraged unhelpful coping strategies they initially sought to change. Given its explosive growth in the mental health industry, the authors of this article – two experienced clinical psychologists – were curious about AI’s use as “the therapists of the future”. To explore this phenomenon, we sought AI’s help to resolve an issue – with one of the authors, Joshua Peters, volunteering himself for the process. 

What we found was disturbing! AI’s efforts to resolve the issue were often uninformed and generated without a deeper understanding of personal context and history. AI lacked the capacity to understand or therapeutically uncover how Joshua’s past experiences were consciously and unconsciously impacting his understanding of his current predicament. AI’s interventions were overly broad and often misguided and mis-attuned to what Joshua was actually feeling based on his unique past.  AI couldn’t attune to his complex emotions, internal dynamics, or the complexity of his relationships and their impact on his challenges. AI couldn’t understand the defenses that might be getting in Joshua’s way of not being able to live a fuller, more meaningful life as an authentic, whole self.  

As smart as AI can be, AI doesn’t have the expansive knowledge of an entire field of clinical theory and applied practice, and is unable to conduct a psychological assessment and provide a diagnosis.  What this means is AI can’t understand your problem from multiple treatment modalities and then implement an empirically-supported therapy or integrate a variety of treatments for the purpose of resolving your specific issues and addressing your unique needs, and based on an appropriately conducted assessment and diagnosis. Furthermore, AI can’t critically think about the field -both theory and applied practice- and the advice it eventually provides in terms of consideration of the multiplicity of frameworks that can be applied to understanding issues associated with a client’s suffering. We were not alone in our critique of AI as therapist. Interestingly, even AI was aware of its own downfalls – an awareness we will explore in later sections of this article. 

With all these potentially dangerous limitations in mind, why does it seem like governments and organization everywhere are suddenly clamoring to include this technology in their service offerings? 

This trend towards technology as a ‘provider’ of psychological services started in Ontario a few years back with computerized Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT).  In some ways trying to deliver computerized CBT made sense. The theory underlying CBT theory and interventions does not rely on working with or understanding the client’s historical past, psychological defenses, self and relational patterns, emotional/somatic experiences associated with early attachments, and the therapeutic relationship isn’t viewed as a primary space for change as in other approaches. The computerized version of CBT had already been a colossal failure for years in the U.K., and despite colleagues summarizing such evidence (Samosh & Tasca, 2021) the Ontario government pushed forward with this as it aligned itself with the idea that a computer could be the primary provider of front line psychological services. Regardless of evidence to the contrary, governments everywhere seem to be turning towards computer programs more than ever as potential cure-all for many of society’s most pressing mental health challenges. Even the research on Ontario’s computer CBT venture came to the realization of poor adherence (i.e., a lot of people dropping out of treatment) and that contact with a human-being both a therapist and technologist might be necessary to support the delivery of the treatment (Khan et al., 2024).

And now, drum roll….AI is the new promising cure to replace human-to-human therapy! Even with a vast research base to support the importance of the therapeutic relationship and human element of therapy, somehow governments and technology companies continue to ignore this essential component in consideration of the use of AI for therapeutic reasons.  We know differently.  The research clearly demonstrates that the therapeutic relationship is one of the largest contributors to change in clinical trial studies. 

It’s most likely that individuals who propagate a computerized version or AI version of therapy underestimate the impact of the human dimensions of the practice of therapy and how this human dimension contributes to client change. In doing so, they position therapy as a distant process devoid of a relational and ‘human element’. Perhaps, proponents of computerized and AI therapy may be avoidant in their own attachment style and  dismissive of the importance of emotions and relationships as central to the process of change.  As such, some of the proponents of computerized or AI generated therapy might struggle to understand the significance of being with another human-being to heal. In turn, these individuals might be creating AI programs that actually mimic their own avoidance strategies and further perpetuate mental health struggles. 

We predict that this effort to have a computer replace a human therapist will fall by the wayside, and sadly might end up harming countless people when AI’s sage advice is followed without understanding the full picture of a mental health client as a human-being.  The authors of this article have already heard within their own practices and from other psychologists the types of harm that can occur, including psychotic episodes; relational boundary violations and intrusions; and serious dissociative episodes. Recent news articles have highlighted these risks with one AI program encouraging women to divorce her husband (Ng, 2025) and another possibly contributing to a teen’s suicide (Kuznia et al., 2025). These risks don’t even include the more subtle harms that are likely to go undetected. Further research is urgently needed to document and understand the possible harm done by AI. We therapists are not alone in our critics of AI. AI itself understands that this might be harmful as evidenced in the following section “co-authored” by AI. 

What Does AI Think About Itself Acting As A Therapist?

Given our current technology zeitgeist, we thought we would ask AI to co-author this blog with us.  ‘It’ agreed. We thought it would be fair to get ‘It’s’ opinions on the issue as we didn’t want to present a biased perspective for the readers of this blog.  Usually, when we ask AI about something related to our field, we usually find a lot missing, or some distortions.  Consumer beware!  We did, however, ask AI ‘itself’ what are some of the risks with AI therapy.  AI provided a fairly good summary of some of the dangers of using ‘It’ as a therapist.  

So, According to AI (“It” did most of the work below so we gave it first author) and us, here are some of the most concerning dangers associated with AI in therapeutic roles:

1. Lack of Human Understanding: 

            Emotional Nuance: AI lacks the ability to fully comprehend complex human emotions and social contexts, which can lead to misinterpretation of a user’s feelings or intentions.

            Nonverbal Cues: AI cannot interpret nonverbal communication (such as body language and tone of voice, [added by us-emotional experience through non-verbal and facial cues] crucial for effective therapy.

            Pattern Recognition: [added by us- “It’ is unable to detect unconscious self and relational patterns unknown by the client due to defenses that do not allow the client to write or report such patterns].

            Lack of Attuned Empathy to Emotions and Body:  [added by us- AI can’t attune to and empathize with subtle shifts in emotions and make sense of the multiplicity of emotions that may be present in one particular moment of distress.  AI can’t detect and understand how much of our unconscious emotional distress and past trauma is manifested in our bodies so ‘It’s’ unable to process and integrate very important information about the client’s experience both presently and historically].

2. Limited Scope of Responses:

            Response Monotony: AI interactions can become repetitive or formulaic. Users might not receive the personalized care they need, which can be detrimental in a therapeutic context. [added by us:  please note that a developmentally-oriented integrative therapist at CFIR will draw from interventions from psychoanalytic, somatic, trauma-informed, experiential, cognitive-behavioural, and emotionally-focused therapy to help a client]

            Inflexibility: AI may struggle to adapt its responses to unique situations and may fail to offer tailored interventions.

3. Confidentiality and Privacy Concerns:

            Data Security: Sensitive user data may be vulnerable to breaches, potentially leading to unauthorized access to personal and confidential information.

            Data Misuse: There is potential for data collected by AI to be used inappropriately, either by third parties or for profit without the client’s consent.

4. Ethical Considerations:

            Informed Consent: Users may not fully understand the limitations of AI, including its inability to provide certain therapeutic nuances, potentially undermining informed consent. [added by us:  AI is unable to discuss any of the possibilities of and different types of harm that may be experienced by the individual seeking AI’s sage advice.]

            Responsibility and Accountability: Determining accountability for mistakes or harmful advice is complex. It raises questions about who is responsible — the developers, the therapists using the technology, or the AI itself.

5. Dependency Issues:

            Over-reliance on AI: Users might become dependent on AI-driven therapy at the expense of seeking necessary human interaction that is essential for emotional healing and support. [added by us:  a good deal of our distress is associated with our inability to create secure attachments and health relationships with others in which we seek out emotional co-regulation and contact-AI cannot connect and attune emotionally.]

            Detrimental Substitution: Relying on AI could deter individuals from seeking human therapists, particularly in situations that require crisis intervention. [added by us- “It’ can’t see you or understand what’s going on inside of you so if you are in crisis it won’t be able to make sense of what is happening to you, so how can ‘It’ help you?]

6. Inadequate Crisis Management:

            Handling Emergencies: AI lacks the ability to effectively manage crisis situations, such as suicidal ideation or severe mental health crises, which require immediate human intervention. [added by us:  AI can’t do a crisis intervention and it can’t call an ambulance if required for a suicidal patient].

            Risk Assessment: Identifying high-risk behaviors accurately can be complex for AI, leading to inappropriate or insufficient responses. [added by us- “It” isn’t trained in being able to recognize complex risks as this requires a full assessment and appraisal of multiple risk factors].

7. Bias and Discrimination:

            Algorithmic Bias: AI systems trained on biased data can perpetuate stereotypes or fail to address the unique needs of diverse populations, leading to ineffective or harmful advice. [added by us:  “It” may not understand the nuances of your unique experiences as a member of an identity group and may trivialize how this experience has an impact on your mental health.]

            Cultural Competence: AI may lack cultural sensitivity, which is essential in therapy to address the unique experiences and backgrounds of clients.

8. Misleading Information:

            Accuracy of Information: The information provided by AI might not always be accurate, up-to-date, or clinically validated, which can misinform users.

            Therapeutic Integrity: AI may inadvertently provide advice that contradicts established therapeutic principles, potentially leading clients astray. [added by us:  This is really dangerous and I have heard of this in my practice and in colleagues practices].

9. Complexity of Human Relationships:

            Therapeutic Alliance: The establishment of a therapeutic alliance is crucial for effective therapy. AI lacks the capacity to build genuine relationships, which are often vital for healing.

            Personalization Inadequacy: The inability to understand the nuances of personal relationships can hinder AI’s effectiveness as a therapeutic tool. [added by us:  AI hasn’t had any relationships nor has AI learned to work through the emotional aspects, or power dynamics of difficult relationships- how can they provide a healing, safe, therapeutic relationship when they aren’t able to have a relationship?]

10. Regulation and Oversight Challenges:

            Lack of Standards: The rapid development of AI technologies in therapy can outpace regulatory frameworks, leading to inconsistencies in practice standards and safety measures.

            Quality Control: Ensuring that AI systems used for therapy are regularly updated and scientifically validated poses ongoing challenges. [added by us- “It” doesn’t know anything about the importance of using evidence-based approaches to treatment].

And finally, AI had this to say: “To mitigate these risks, it is crucial to establish ethical guidelines, ensure proper oversight, and recognize the limitations of AI in therapeutic contexts. Integrating AI as a complement to human therapists, rather than a replacement, may provide a more balanced approach to mental health care.”  Here’s where our co-author AI and we differ. 

AI cannot do an appropriate assessment of the client’s psychological problems and therefore the advice provided can be flawed and misplaced.  ‘It’s’ inability to capture the essence of the multiplicity of underlying dimensions of human suffering renders it unable to help most clients. We still like AI and we are grateful for ‘Its’ contributions to this blog.  We asked AI if we had hurt ‘Its’ feelings and was apologetic if any hurt had transpired as a result of our scathing criticism, but “It” didn’t seem to be moved by any of this.

The bottom line: Both AI and we agree – hold onto your human therapist!

About the Co-Authors:

AI is artificial intelligence. “It” is everywhere and is humble enough to give lot’s of cautions that it doesn’t always know everything.  It is an author of many, many responses, and even a write of books, movies, and songwriter.  “It” is very talented, but ‘it’ recognizes it isn’t fully human and might be missing something as a result of this.

Dr. Joshua Peters, C.Psych., (Supervised Practice), is an Associate and Director of Clinical Training Programs at the Centre for Interpersonal Relationships, Ottawa. Over the past decade, he has presented at several notable conferences, including the Guelph Sexuality Conference, the National 2SLGBTQ+ Service Providers Summit, and the Community-Based Research Centre’s Atlantic Regional Forum. Joshua also regularly contributes to online, radio, and television news stories for the CBC, Global News, the Toronto Star, and other organizations. In his clinical practice, Joshua work’s with individuals and couples facing emotional and relational challenges and specialize in long-term, in-depth therapy within an inclusive practice. Joshua has obtained a specialization in Psychology at the University of Ottawa, a Master of Arts in Counselling at Saint Paul University, and a Doctorate in Clinical Psychology at the University of Prince Edward Island. 

Dr. Dino Zuccarini, C.Psych. is CEO and co-founder of the CFIR with locations in downtown Ottawa, Toronto and St. Catharines. He has published book chapters and peer-reviewed journal articles on the subject of attachment, attachment injuries in couples, and attachment and sexuality. He has taught courses at the University of Ottawa in Interpersonal Relationships, Family Psychology, and Human Sexual Behaviour. He has a thriving clinical practice in which he treats individuals  and couples suffering from complex attachment-related trauma, difficult family of origin issues that have affected self and relationship development, depression and anxiety, personality disorders, sex and sexuality-related issues, and couple relationships. At CFIR, he also supports the professional development of counsellors, psychotherapists, and supervised practice psychologists by providing clinical supervision.  

Drs. Peters and Zuccarini and their colleagues at colleagues at CFIR provide developmentally-oriented integrative therapy that involves the integration of numerous theories and interventions from various modalities, including psychodynamic/psychoanalytic, CBT, trauma-informed (somatic/parts work-IFS), polyvagal, experiential-existential, and EFT.

Sources:

Khan, B. N., Liu, R. H., Chu, C., Bolea-Alamañac, B., Nguyen, M., Thapar, S., Fanaieyan, R., Leon-Carlyle, M., Tadrous, M., Kurdyak, P., O’Riordan, A., Keresteci, M., & Bhattacharyya, O. (2024). Reach, uptake, and psychological outcomes of two publicly funded internet-based cognitive behavioural therapy programs in Ontario, Canada: An observational study. International Journal of Mental Health Systems, 18(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13033-024-00651-9 

Kuznia, R., Gordon, A., & Lavandera, E. (2025, July 25). ‘You’re not rushing. you’re just ready:’ parents say chatgpt encouraged son to kill himself. CNN. Retrieved January 18, 2026, from https://www.cnn.com/2025/11/06/us/openai-chatgpt-suicide-lawsuit-invs-vis. 

Ng, K. (2025, May 15). Woman “files for divorce” after chatgpt “predicted” her husband was cheating on her by “reading” coffee grounds in his cup. Daily Mail. Retrieved January 18, 2026, from https://www.dailymail.co.uk/lifestyle/article-14711123/woman-divorce-husband-chatgpt-predicted-cheating.html.

Samosh , J., & Tasca, G. (2021, April 5). Ontario’s roadmap to wellness is funding ‘mcdonaldized’ mental health care. Toronto Star. 

The holidays invite us to give, but often what we most long for cannot be wrapped or returned. In therapy, I hear how this season stirs both tenderness and tension. We want to create magic for the people we love, yet feel the pressure to perform it. Many of us enter the holidays carrying invisible expectations to host perfectly, keep everyone happy, and hold our own feelings together. Somewhere in the middle of the decorating and doing, our presence quietly slips away.

Presence is not about slowing life down to a stop or forcing gratitude. It is the simple act of showing up as you are. It is the deep breath before you answer a loaded question at the table, the eye contact that says “I am here with you,” and the choice to notice your own body before you push through one more event. When we choose presence instead of performance, we make room for imperfection, conflict, and tenderness. This is where genuine connection lives.

Tradition can help us anchor in that space. Rituals are not meaningful because they look perfect. They matter because they remind us who we are and who we belong to. Maybe that is the same meal every year, a quiet walk after dinner, or a bedtime story your children never outgrow. Let the measure of the holidays be not how impressive they appear from the outside, but how safe and real they feel on the inside. Give fewer perfect moments and more honest ones. The most healing present you can offer this season, to yourself and to others, is your presence.

Laura Moore, MPsy, is a registered psychotherapist at the Centre for Interpersonal Relationships (CFIR) in Toronto. She works with individuals and couples who feel overwhelmed by expectations, pulled between caring for everyone else and staying connected to themselves. Many of her clients are navigating seasons like the holidays while managing anxiety, people pleasing, family grief, parenting stress, or shifts in intimacy. With an integrative and relational approach, Laura helps clients make sense of their stories, set kinder boundaries, and practice showing up in their lives with more calm, connection, and choice.

Many people wonder if they’re “ready” to start trauma therapy. The truth is, there’s rarely a perfect moment — but there are signs that you may be ready to begin.

If past experiences continue to affect your relationships, physical body, or emotional well-being, that’s often your mind and body’s way of saying it’s time to heal. You might notice that you long for connection yet struggle to feel safe or trust others. You may experience signs of nervous system dysregulation, such as chronic tension, restlessness, sleep issues, gastrointestinal symptoms, pain, or fatigue. You might also feel “stuck” — repeating old patterns, avoiding certain situations, or feeling detached even when life appears fine on the outside. These can be signs that protective strategies that once helped you survive are no longer serving you in the same way.

Readiness doesn’t necessarily mean you feel strong or confident. It can look like curiosity — a growing openness to explore how earlier experiences have shaped your sense of safety, your body’s responses, and how you relate to yourself and others. Often, readiness simply means noticing that something inside you wants change or relief.

The Trauma Clinic at CFIR specializes in working with individuals who have experienced trauma in its many forms. Our clinicians use an integrative approach, incorporating psychodynamic and attachment-based therapies, somatic modalities (Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, Somatic Experiencing, EMDR, Polyvagal), and parts-based approaches (IFS, TIST, Inner Child work) to best support each client’s unique healing journey.

You don’t have to have it all figured out to begin. Sometimes, readiness looks like reaching out for a consultation and seeing how it feels to talk about what you’ve been carrying.

Whitney Reinhart, M.A., R.P., is the Director of the Trauma Clinic at CFIR and a psychotherapist providing psychological services to adults experiencing a wide range of issues, with a special interest and expertise in trauma and relationships. She uses and supervises trainees using a variety of trauma-informed approaches, including sensorimotor psychotherapy, somatic experiencing, and parts-based approaches. 

Self-care is increasingly recognized as a foundation for wellbeing—not just a luxury, but a vital part of maintaining physical, emotional, and social health (Ayala et al., 2021; World Health Organization, 2022). Self-Care is about everyday actions that support your unique needs and happiness (Mills et al., 2018).

What self-care looks like varies for everyone. For some, it’s sharing meals, spending time outdoors, listening to music, or engaging in spiritual or community traditions (Moodley et al., 2020; Sue & Sue, 2022). Research shows these activities can help reduce stress, support emotional health, and strengthen social connection (Ayala et al., 2021; Mills et al., 2018).

Caring for your body—by eating nutritious foods, getting enough sleep, and staying active—can boost your energy and physical health (Ayala et al., 2021; Slade et al., 2017). Emotional self-care, such as journaling, talking with a friend, or practicing mindfulness, is linked to better stress management and emotional regulation (Mills et al., 2018; Suleiman-Martos et al., 2020)

Self-care can also improve relationships and help you focus better at work and home (Ayala et al., 2021; Sorenson et al., 2016). The most effective habits are those that fit your values, culture, and personal circumstances (Moodley et al., 2020). 

If you’re ready to build self-care routines that truly work for you, reaching out for support from a mental health professional can help you get started. Our team is here to provide effective, evidence-based solutions to help you in building a secure, resilient self, and help strengthen your relationships. 

About the Author:

Dr. Shasha Oosthuizen, C.Psych. (Supervised Practice), is a psychologist in Clinical and Counselling Psychology at the Centre for Interpersonal Relationships, working under the supervision of Dr. Lila Hakim, C.Psych. Her doctorate dissertation focused on self-care. She provides therapy to adult individuals and couples for a wide range of concerns, using various treatment modalities tailored to each client’s unique goals and needs. She welcomes clients from all backgrounds and is committed to offering a nonjudgmental, compassionate, and authentic therapeutic space. Learn more: https://cfir.ca/about/toronto-team/shasha-oosthuizen/

References

Ayala, G. X., et al. (2021). Self-care as a health-promoting behavior: A systematic review. American Journal of Health Promotion, 35 (2), 263-275.

Mills, J., Wand, T., & Fraser, J. A. (2018). Self-care in mental health nursing: A meta-synthesis of qualitative studies. International Journal of Mental Health       Nursing, 27(2), 662-677.

Moodley, R., Gielen, U. P., & Wu, R. (2020). Global Perspectives in Multicultural Counselling: A Handbook for the 21^st Century. Routledge.

Slade, S. C., et al. (2017). Consensus on exercise reporting template (CERT): Explanation and elaboration statement.  British Journal of Sports Medicine, 50 (23), 1428-1437.

Sorenson, C., Bolick, B., Wright, K., & Hamilton, R. (2016). Understanding compassion fatigue in healthcare providers: A review of current literature. Journal    of Nursing Scholarship, 48 (5), 456-465.

Sue, D. W., & Sue, D. (2022). Counselling the Culturally Diverse: Theory and Practice (9^th ed.) Wiley. 

Suleiman-Martos, N., et al. (2020). The effect of mindfulness training on burnout syndrome in nursing: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of        Advanced Nursing, 76 (5), 1124-1140.

World Health Organization. (2022). Self-care interventions for health. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/self-care-health-interventions

Despite nearly dozing off to sleep on the couch at the end of the night, you find yourself wide awake in bed thinking about the trials and tribulations of your day, as well as what you need to do tomorrow. Adjusting your pillows and switching positions does not help you get into that restful state where you can fall asleep. One hour, then two – you lift up your phone and start doing the mental math of how much sleep you will likely get before your alarm goes off – now you feel annoyed. Another hour goes by, and you are more awake now than you were when you got into bed, and you begin to worry about how much you will be able to function at work the next day. If you could get to sleep in the next 45 minutes, then maybe you will be able to survive the workday. With less than 5 hours left until your alarm, you somehow manage to doze off to sleep, hoping that you don’t face this same ordeal the next night.

For several nights now, you find yourself trying to get to bed even earlier, ensuring your room is dark and cool, and taking melatonin to help you fall asleep. Nonetheless, the subsequent thoughts, distress, and self-soothing behaviors have become a regular occurrence, and you struggle to fall asleep. Not to mention, after one or two hours of sleep, you now wake up only to be tossing and turning for a couple of hours. You think, “All this effort trying to get to sleep. I did everything right, right?” For something that seems straightforward, getting a good night’s sleep seems to require a lot of effort.

While the bed can be a place of comfort and refuge, for others it is mystifying. The previous blog post provided some brief insights into the habits and behaviors that promote sleep, termed sleep hygiene. I want to bring to your attention one recommendation, “Limit your bedroom to sleep and sex,” as this is rooted in one of the foundational principles in psychology: behavior.

Limiting the use of your bed to sleep (and sex) is referred to as stimulus control, which is a strategy used to treat sleep difficulties. It is a type of learning that happens when connections are made by association, called Pavlovian conditioning (or more commonly called classical conditioning). This form of learning was named by the famed physiologist Ivan Pavlov. By accident, he observed that dogs began salivating in response to a bell being rung despite no food being present. He discovered that when he entered the room to feed the dogs, a bell would ring. It turns out that the dogs associated the bell with meat powder. As a result, the dogs began to salivate after the bell rang, even in the absence of the meat powder.

But how does this relate to our bed and sleep? Well, sleep is the intended and desired response to laying in our beds. In fact, there was probably a time when it did not take long after settling into bed for you to readily fall asleep without any effort. However, you may begin to spend your time in bed doing other things like reading, watching TV, scrolling through social media, ruminating, and/or worrying. The more time you spend in bed doing these non-sleep-related activities, the more your bed becomes associated with not sleeping. As a result, it confuses your body, making it unclear whether it should be asleep or awake.

Much like how the dogs associated the bell with the meat powder, resulting in the dogs salivating, people can associate their bed with non-sleep-related behaviors. This results in the bed becoming a place of wakefulness.

To make the bed a cue for sleep, it is necessary to break (or extinguish) the association between your bed and being awake through a process called stimulus control. This approach aims to control or limit the stimulus (i.e., your bed) to when the desired response (i.e., sleep) occurs. In short: stay out of bed until it is difficult to keep your eyes open.

There are several important rules to follow when it comes to stimulus control for sleep difficulties:

1. Get into bed when sleepy (i.e., eyes are heavy and difficult to keep open).
2. Bed is sued for sleep and sex. No other activities (e.g., reading, watching TV, worrying and/or ruminating).
3. If sleep does not occur within 20 minutes, get out of bed. Estimate time as checking the clock is actual discouraged and could exacerbate worry or rumination.
4. If after returning to bed and still cannot fall asleep within 20 minutes, again, get out of bed.
5. Wake up at the same time every morning, including weekends. Use an alarm that wakes you up at a consistent time even if you slept very little. 
6. Resist napping as this can affect your ability to fall asleep at bedtime.

Admittedly, stimulus control is not an easy fix for insomnia. However, it is well-known to be an effective intervention for sleep difficulties. Keep in mind that after a couple of weeks of adhering to the six rules of stimulus control, you will likely find that sleep comes quickly as soon as your head hits the pillow.

Dr. Robbie Woods (C. Psych.) is a clinical psychologist at the Centre for Interpersonal Relationships (CFIR). He provides psychological services to adults who are seeking assessments and treatments for a variety of conditions including anxiety (e.g., generalized, social, health, panic), obsessive-compulsive (e.g., body dysmorphia, skin-picking), and depressive disorders (e.g., major depressive, persistent depressive). Moreover, Dr. Woods has a keen interest in treating sleep difficulties, namely insomnia, using a combination of evidence-based cognitive and behavioural interventions as recommended by the Canadian Sleep Society and the American Academy of Sleep Medicine.

Bennett, D. (2020). Cognitive-behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I). In Sleep Medicine and Mental Health: A Guide for Psychiatrists and Other Healthcare Professionals (pp. 47-66). Cham: Springer International Publishing.

The way we speak to ourselves—especially in moments of struggle—often echoes the voices we heard growing up. Self-compassion (the ability to treat ourselves with kindness in times of pain or difficulty) doesn’t come naturally to everyone. For many, self-criticism feels far more familiar than self-support. One of the main reasons for this lies in our early childhood experiences.

Children learn how to relate to themselves by observing how others relate to them. If we grew up in an environment where warmth, patience, and acceptance were modeled and expressed, we’re more likely to internalize those same qualities; when faced with mistakes or setbacks, we can then draw from these experiences and respond to ourselves with kindness. 

However, if our early years were marked by criticism, inflexible high expectations, or inconsistency, we come to internalize the critical voices and inflexible expectations, and we may come to believe that self-criticism is necessary to protect ourselves from failing  expectations, or to be exposed to feared criticism again. This can lead us to adopt an inner voice that is harsh, demanding, and unforgiving. Over time, this can leave us feeling inadequate, ashamed, or unworthy.

The good news is that self-compassion can be cultivated at any stage of life. Therapy can provide a space to notice old patterns, challenge any critical inner voice, and begin to nurture a kinder, more supportive relationship with ourselves. By learning to respond to our pain with understanding rather than judgment, we gradually rewrite the messages from our past and learn how to approach our struggles with greater patience and understanding.

By exploring how our past shaped our self-talk, we open the door to growth and healing. Developing self-compassion is not about ignoring challenges—it’s about meeting them with the same care we would offer to someone we love.

Danielle Baldwin, M.A., is a doctoral clinical resident at the Centre for Interpersonal Relationships (CFIR) in Ottawa, working under the supervision of Dr. Dino Zuccarini, C.Psych., and Dr. Lila Hakim, C.Psych. She offers treatment to adults experiencing difficulties with mood, anxiety, relationships, trauma, and early life experiences.