- Book an online appointment from the comfort of your home.
At OPT Counseling, we are experienced professionals who can help with a wide range of challenges:
Our mission is to provide accessible professional online counseling to overcome life’s challenges.
Trauma informed approach is an important concept of counseling, and at OPT Counseling we are fully aware how the trauma impacts a person’s efforts to cope.
Trauma Informed Counseling recognizes that a client with a history of trauma may not view self as a trauma survivor, or even have the full awareness of the consequences of the traumatic experience. With that in mind we make your emotional and psychological safety a priority. At OPT Counseling we bring awareness to how trauma plays a role in your life and decision making. Trauma-informed care can apply to anyone, not just clients with obvious sources of trauma (like sexual or physical abuse).
Anxiety is one of the most prevalent challenges that impact individuals today. Targeting negative thinking, understanding believe system and patterns that constrain us in our personal growth, is the best way forward. The way we were brought up shaped our values in ways that either serve us or hinder us, ultimately impacting our thinking patterns – in some cases deterring us from truly spreading our wings.
Evidence-Based Treatment for anxiety is called CBT (Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy), an effective approach and widely used to treat anxiety. Research has shown it to be effective in the treatment of panic disorder, phobias, social anxiety disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, and other conditions.
OPT Counseling professionals can offer person-centered therapy to treat self-worth issues, working from the inside out. Self-esteem is the degree to which one feels worthy of respect, confident and valuable. It exists on a continuum, from high to low, and the place on this spectrum can influence the client’s well-being.
People with high self-esteem often feel good about themselves, while those with low self-esteem experience severe self-doubt and self-criticism. Repetitive negative thoughts can become so frequent that the person sees them as reality and fact, a process that can be very damaging. Low self-esteem can be a symptom of numerous mental health conditions, starting with depression and anxiety.
Sometimes clients struggle with self-esteem issues from early childhood onwards, and our professional, supportive and caring approach can help guide clients and work with them towards a more realistic sense of self. We can encourage and help you to take risks, focus on the positive, and overcome the grip that low self-esteem has.
A better relationship with yourself is an important goal that you can work on achieving with the help of our counselors. It is, in many ways, the most important relationship of your life. If you are not kind with yourself, do not know how to be honest with yourself, good relationships with others will also suffer. Learning to take responsibility for your own actions, thoughts and feelings is a challenging goal to achieve. However, defining your own personal boundaries, what is appropriate or unacceptable to you, as well as learning to be assertive about it is incredibly beneficial. Doing so will help you make choices that will keep you both happy and within the boundaries of what you feel safe and comfortable about.
Everyone feels sad sometimes, but for some people, a longer-term drop in mood known as depression can interfere with daily life. Depression is not just sadness; it’s a disorder that affects how you feel, what you think, and how you behave.
Fortunately, depression is one of the most well-studied mental illnesses and there are many types of therapy that are effective treatments.
With help from an effective counselor, you can minimize or overcome the symptoms of depression and get your life back on track.
Everyone gets stressed out. Our lives are busy, and stress can come from a variety of places—school, work, family, extra-curricular activities and our social lives. Short-term stress can often help us focus and get things done under pressure, but chronic stress can take its toll on our mental and physical health.
Stress is our bodies’ way of coping with something threatening—a real or perceived danger can set off a stress response. In real emergencies, this stress response can help us stay alert and ready to react, which is helpful, but being in this high-alert state on a regular basis can lead to burnout, fatigue, and a lower quality of life.
Even if you have been living with chronic or severe stress, Stress Management Training can help you learn to stay emotionally steady and in control even when you are faced with challenging or dangerous situations.
Children and Youth who have experienced emotional distress and challenging life experiences have similar mental health conditions to adults. Anxiety, Depression and Stress can impact how adolescents and youth function daily, and we can help break down the issues so that youth can understand and process what is going on.
Our goal with Youth counseling is to help adolescents learn strategies to cope adequately – skills they might find useful into adulthood. We can work with youth through many life transitions and challenges, from adjustment issues (parental divorce, bullying, new environment), anxiety, grief and loss to increased stress and trauma.
We recognize that relationships are complicated and learning how to navigate them is something that we can support you with. You and your partner, with help of the counselor, can explore the big picture of your interactions and your overall relationship. Creating a safe space to explore the patterns of behaviors, both individual and as a couple, can be extremely beneficial for growing as individuals and together as a couple. Being conscious of your decisions and actions is crucial and at the core of relationship counseling.
Couples counseling is a type of psychotherapy that helps couples of all types examine, recognize and resolve conflicts. Conflict resolution is the most effective way to improve interactions and relationships, and we can help you reach solicitous decisions on how to move ahead with your relationship.
Counseling for people who are single is also very useful, and there are many reasons to consider spending time in sessions. Defining what kind of relationship you are comfortable with and what kind of partner you are looking for can often feel overwhelming – our conselors can help you understand your own values, red lines you are not ready to cross and what a good companion for you might actually mean. We can also help you enhance your self-confidence, and overcome the fear of judgment and rejection.
Often clients tend to hold themselves back with stories they tell themselves. They are convincing themselves how relationships should be, and what their meaning is. At OPT Counseling we can help challenge those beliefs that are subconsciously holding you back on the relationship satisfaction front.
Our counselors can help you learn to understand what triggers anger for you, help you find ways to cool down so you do not lose control, and help you talk with people so that problems can get solved rather than get worse.
When you meet with one of our anger management counselors they will work with you to develop a plan to meet your needs and goals. We do not do cookie-cutter counseling so your treatment plan will be customized for you.
OPT Counseling can support you in personal empowerment and motivation if you are stuck and in need of support to achieve personal or professional goals. We can help you define goals and reach your full potential. We can assist you in identifying and pursuing your passions, or we can help you break free of stagnation.
By building the positive mindset that will empower you to achieve your goals, we can help you identify where you are now and where you wish to be. Our first step will be to gather information in our initial session to understand your goals, obstacles standing in the way, behaviors and mindsets that have been harmful or helpful along the way.
Our goal is constant progress, and our sessions are geared to cultivate your strengths to get you forward in a practical and effective manner.
