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Explore·Discover·
Understand·Change

At times, life can appear confusing and unclear. Gain insight, focus and understanding through psychotherapy.

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Explore

What feels confusing, unclear, or repeated.

Discover

The emotional patterns beneath present concerns.

Understand

How early experience and current relationships connect.

Change

Move insight into different choices and behaviour.

Blue artwork from J R Garber Psychology — Held space, difficult feeling, careful attention.

Welcome

I applaud the courage it takes to look for a therapist.

At J R Garber Psychology Professional Corporation, I am dedicated to helping you navigate life's challenges. I provide compassionate support and evidence-based strategies to promote mental well-being and personal growth.

Your journey towards healing starts with a better understanding of why you are looking for help.

Growth and healing through psychotherapy

What can psychotherapy do for you

It can help you more fully understand and, thereafter, find ways to reduce the types of psychological difficulties that prevent you from fully experiencing life, opportunity, and relationships. Depression, anxiety, relational and familial difficulties, work-related struggles and disappointments, as well as major mental illness, can rob you of much of what life has to offer.

The type of treatment that I provide

I offer psychodynamically oriented psychotherapy. It is a type of talk therapy that focuses on how unconscious thoughts, early-life experiences, and internal conflicts influence current emotions, behaviours, and relationships. The basic assumption is that many psychological difficulties come from unresolved emotional conflicts, often rooted in childhood or past relationships, which continue to operate outside conscious awareness.

Psychodynamic therapy helps a person bring these patterns into awareness so they can be better identified, understood, and ultimately changed.

What happens during sessions

I try to help you explore thoughts and feelings that may not be fully conscious but can, nonetheless, influence your behaviour.

Finding yourself in repeated dissatisfying relationship patterns
Recurrent difficulties with employers and/or employees
Frustrating and intense interactions with partners, spouses, children and parents
Strong emotional reactions that feel confusing and unsettling
The emotional pain of losing a loved one

I try to provide clients with a supportive, compassionate, and safe space to experience, express, and begin to understand their feelings. Together, we can work towards changing the behavioural patterns that contribute to these dissatisfying life experiences.

A calmer way forward

It doesn't have to be this way.

Therapy creates room to pause, breathe, and begin making sense of what has felt overwhelming.

How the work unfolds

Patterns become clearer when they can be seen from more than one angle.

Framed artwork from J R Garber Psychology

Influence of Early Relationships

Experiences with parents or caregivers, disturbing family life experiences, life trauma or early loss often shape expectations about relationships later in life. Unbeknownst to you, you may be experiencing:

Fear of abandonment
Difficulty trusting others
Strong need for approval
A fear of intimacy

As well as other psychological tendencies that can influence the partner you choose, the relations you develop and the struggles you continue to have.

Patterns in Relationships and Career Satisfaction

Psychodynamically oriented therapy typically looks at recurring interpersonal patterns, such as:

Finding yourself in recurrent, dissatisfying relationships
Repeating interpersonal conflicts
Avoiding closeness
Not being able to maximize your career potential or opportunities
Experiencing ongoing challenges with colleagues, whether they report to you or you report to them

Insight and Emotional Understanding

One of the goals of our work is to develop a greater understanding of who you are and how you became this way. Some refer to this as acquiring insight, but insight is not enough. Insight needs to lead to fundamental changes in behaviour. A deeper understanding of oneself can lead to emotional and behavioural change.

This includes:

Recognizing defenses
Understanding motivations
Integrating past experiences

From insight to change

The goal is to make changes in the way we behave.

Modern psychodynamic therapy is essentially a focused exploration of emotional and relational patterns, helping people understand why they react the way they do and, if they see the need, change those patterns. My approach focuses on helping you gain insight through psychodynamic psychotherapy, and then using tools from Cognitive Behavioural Therapy to change unwanted habits or reactions.

You are a step closer to where you need to be

Looking for help is not a sign of weakness — it is a sign of inner strength or resilience.

Resilience is the capacity to adapt, recover, and continue moving forward after difficulty, stress, or loss. It doesn't mean someone isn't affected by hardship. Instead, it means they can bend without breaking and gradually reorganize themselves after challenges.

Read: On Resilience