Your mind rarely feels off duty.
You replay conversations, prepare for what could go wrong, or find it difficult to rest without feeling behind.
Individual therapy
When holding it together is taking too much out of you.
You may be managing work, a relationship, children, an aging parent, a separation, or a life that has become harder to recognize. Individual therapy offers a private place to understand the pressure and decide how you want to respond to it.
Book a free consultationYou may be noticing
You may know the pressure well, even when you cannot explain why it has become so hard to carry.
You are functioning, but less like yourself.
Your patience, focus, sleep, or sense of ease may have changed, even while you keep meeting everyone’s expectations.
A relationship has become difficult to live inside.
You may over-explain, withdraw, accommodate, or become guarded in ways you understand but cannot easily change.
A change has altered your sense of direction.
Separation, caregiving, work pressure, parenting, illness, grief, or another transition may have unsettled a role that once felt clear.
What happens in sessions
Begin with the part of life that has stopped making sense.
Sessions may begin with a recent conflict, a decision you cannot stop revisiting, a period of burnout, or anxiety that has become difficult to contain. You can begin with one piece of it.
Together, you can look at what sets the pressure in motion, how you respond when it rises, and which expectations or relationships may be keeping it in place. The work stays connected to your present life while making room for the history underneath it.
A psychodynamic approach
Understanding a pattern can create more room to respond differently.
Insight matters, but recognizing a pattern is not always enough to change what happens under pressure. Psychodynamic therapy pays attention to the feelings, assumptions, and earlier relationships that can make one response feel automatic.
Sessions are 50 minutes, online across Ontario or in person at 344 Bloor Street West, Suite 305, in Toronto. Therapy is available in English and Russian.
You can also read what psychodynamic therapy is like when you already understand the problem.
Olea also offers therapy for men and support for people navigating midlife and major life transitions.
A place to begin