We work closely with families, children, and teens to offer professional counselling and therapy services for a wide range of needs.
Family Therapy Services →
Counselling for Children→
Counselling for Teens & Youth→
“If the family were a boat, it would be a canoe that makes no progress unless everyone paddles.”
~ Letty Cottin Pogrebin, Family and Politicis
Almost everyone grows up in a family system and most people plan to create their own families someday. We mostly learn about families from our original family systems, and it could have been a positive or negative experience. In the main we hope that family systems provide a supportive, safe, encouraging, and loving environment for the nurturing of relationships. But sometimes families are put under great stress where members may feel disjointed, isolated, misunderstood, and even unloved.
Family counselling assists in increasing the understanding of current situation, creates a safe place for family members to express and examine painful feelings, offers steps in coping and managing emotions and builds broken relationships.
In our family sessions, we teach communication skills, help with the merging of blended families, offer insights into individual and family scripts and help each member understand and cope better with the stresses and strains of family life.
- Communication Issues
- Managing Conflict
- Anger
- Behavioural Issues
- Co-Parenting
- Parenting Challenges
- Separation and Divorce
- Blended Family Adjustments
- Financial
- Grief and Loss
- Mental Health Concerns
- Coping with Illness or Trauma
Elpizo provides family reunification therapy. The aim of family reunification is to help build a stronger relationship that will provide an emotional connection and support to all concerned. Reunification therapy might be needed in situations where relationships between parents and children need healing because of the impact of divorce, separation, parental alienation, broken attachments, parental mental illness, or trauma. It involves multifaceted strategies that build on family strengths and address concerns presented.
The sessions involve family engagement, and so family systems framework is largely utilized. However, other relevant interventions are brought in as necessary. We aim to create understanding from each member’s perspective, expose the underlying factors, and recognize cultural dynamics. We provide parenting education, behavioral adjustments while address attachment issues to help build healthier relationships.
We provide parenting education, behavioral adjustments, address attachment issues, and help build healthier relationships.
- Strengthen families through counselling and other social interventions
- Minimize risk or harm to children and youth
- Support parents in their roles to minimize abuse and neglect
- Provide parenting skills
- Provide information sessions to new Canadian immigrant families
Our Counselling Process
Book a Consultation
Complete Intake Form
Get Matched with a Therapist
Begin Therapy
Family sessions are 90 minutes and range between $250 to $270 plus HST as the federal government charges taxes on Psychotherapy. Fees vary depending on who you are seeing.
After the initial 2-3 sessions of gathering information, intake, hearing your presenting issues, goals, assessments etc., your therapists will give you some feedback and collaborate with you on the therapeutic plan and the number of sessions you might need. We believe in treatment plans that are adaptable, flexible and creative so that they can be adjusted as outcomes are accomplished.
Children are not as verbal as adults and they act out their emotions through play, behavior, in dreams, night terrors etc. Our aim is to help children understand what is happening, and how they are not alone and give them tools that can help with unhealthy behaviors. We use various creative and play informed interventions to understand the issues the child is facing.
Such process can take longer than adult clients that come in and know what they want.
Children are offered a safe space and an empathetic ear while providing tools to bring about change in thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. We help children focus on resolving conflict, understanding their own thoughts and feelings, and on thinking of new solutions to their daily problems.
- That may have experienced some form of trauma or abuse (sexual, physical, emotional, verbal)
- Express the intense emotions they may be feeling
- With school issues such as bullying
- Become less anxious
- Self-advocate and resolve problems they may be having with friends
- Address body image issues, eating disorders
- If a family change has happened (i.e. separation, divorce, blended family)
- With low self-esteem, shyness, social anxiety
- That seems to be more distracted and has difficulty focusing
- That may have ADHD or behavioral challenges
…and much more – there is no WRONG reason to come for counselling!
- With an empathetic and nonjudgmental support
- Address behavioural problems
- With suicidal ideations, enhance emotional regulation
- Develop coping strategies for dealing with stress and maladaptive anger
- Manage challenging and overwhelming emotions such as sadness, fear, and shame
- Understand and address perfectionism, procrastination, and self-criticism
- School related difficulties (poor academic performance, bullying, or school refusal)
- Support social issues related to conflicts, isolation, or loneliness
- Manage and develop healthy eating relationship with food as eating disorders have become very common among teens
…and many other challenges that this age group brings.
Sessions 1-3 are used to understand the presenting challenges, gather history, conduct baseline assessments and collaborate on developing a customized treatment plan that best suits your needs to accomplish the outlined goals.
Sessions are typically an hour in length, though shorter sessions (25-40 minutes) are available when appropriate for younger children. Working with children and youth can take longer than adult sessions as young people struggle with verbalizing their emotions and may take more time in processing.
We use play-based therapy, which seems like an ordinary playtime, but it is more than that. We utilize role playing, art, music, sand, and games to observe and gain insights into the child’s problems. The therapist helps the child explore emotions and deal with unresolved trauma. Through this form of therapy, children can learn new coping skills to redirect inappropriate behaviors.
The fee could range between $130 to $190 for individual plus HST as the federal government charges taxes on Psychotherapy. Fees vary depending on who you are seeing.
Sessions are by appointment only; we are unable to accommodate walk-ins.