Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Play is a child’s natural language, allowing them to express their inner world long before they can put complex feelings into words. Grounded in specialized psychological theories, play therapy provides a safe environment for a child to explore challenges at their own pace.

To understand how true play therapy works, it helps to know what it is not:

• It is not just "playing with toys." Simply utilizing toys in a room or using random interventions under the umbrella of "play" does not make it therapy. True play therapy is the intentional, structured use of toys and clinical theory to help a child heal, built entirely on the foundation of a strong therapeutic relationship.

• It is not a way to get children to talk. Parents often wonder if play is just a trick to get kids to open up verbally. While talking often happens naturally as a child progresses through play therapy, verbal communication is not the most important objective. The play is the communication.

Within the safety of this relationship, play becomes the primary tool that helps children process heavy emotions, develop an emotional vocabulary, and unlock their natural resources for long-term healing.

For more information about play therapy, please visit the USA Association for Play Therapy

Music Therapy

Music therapy uses music to help you or your child grow, communicate, and feel better. You do not need to be "good at music" or know how to play an instrument to benefit from it. Instead of just sitting and talking, we use simple musical experiences, like listening to a favourite song, writing down thoughts as lyrics, or playing with rhythms, to help manage stress, express heavy feelings, and build new skills. It is a proven, research-backed practice tailored entirely to what feels comfortable for you.

Music Psychotherapy

Music psychotherapy takes those same creative music tools and brings them directly into a mental health therapy framework. Simply put, it is the intentional use of music therapy activities inside a psychotherapy treatment. When talking about tough experiences or big emotions feels overwhelming, exhausting, or impossible, we blend music and talk therapy together. This helps you safely explore your inner world, process deep challenges, and heal in a way that words alone cannot always reach.

For more information about music therapy, please visit the website of Canadian Association of Music Therapists.

Theraplay® is a playful, relationship-focused type of therapy designed to strengthen the emotional bond between a parent and their child. Instead of sitting down to talk about big feelings, Theraplay® focuses on doing active, fun, and caring games together in the room. It is built to mimic the natural, healthy interactions that build a child's sense of safety, trust, and self-esteem.

Guided by the therapist, parents and children participate in activities based on four simple areas:

• Structure: Creating safe, clear boundaries so your child feels secure.

• Engagement: Offering playful, focused attention that brings shared joy and connection.

• Nurture: Providing gentle care and comfort to soothe and calm your child's nervous system.

• Challenge: Helping your child try new things in a supportive way to build confidence and resilience.

Because Theraplay focuses on hands-on, in-the-moment interactions rather than verbal processing, it takes the pressure off "talking." This makes it an incredibly powerful and gentle approach for young children, neurodivergent families, and any caregiver looking to replace daily power struggles with shared moments of delight.

For more information, please visit the website of Theraplay Canada.

At our clinic, neurodivergent-affirming therapy means that your entire therapeutic experience is intentionally tailored to honour and support exactly how your unique brain works. Instead of asking you to fit into a traditional, neurotypical mold, we customize everything to fit you, including your preferred way of communicating and your specific sensory needs.

Our sessions are grounded in polyvagal theory (understanding how your nervous system responds to safety and stress) and a "bottom-up" approach, which means we focus on calming and regulating the body and nervous system first, rather than just forcing you to talk through or analyze your thoughts. By combining both verbal and non-verbal interventions such as arts, music, sandtray, etc., we meet your actual neurological needs in a way that feels genuinely safe, accessible, and deeply respectful of who you are.

Our trauma therapy is an integrative, evidence-based blend designed to heal both the mind and the body. Because trauma impacts every part of a person, we combine structured and expressive, creative modalities like Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (TF-CBT), play therapy and music therapy.

Our practice is deeply grounded in polyvagal theory (the science of how our nervous system handles stress and safety) and heavily inspired by pioneering voices in the field, including Dr. Bessel van der Kolk’s The Body Keeps the Score and Dr. Judith Herman’s Trauma and Recovery.

We operate from the core belief that the body stores the pain and stress of what you have experienced. As trauma cuts off our connection to ourselves, a vital part of our work is helping you safely bridge the gap between your mind and your body. Before diving into and processing the details of your story, the absolute foundation of our treatment is helping you feel grounded, slowly reclaiming the sense of safety and security that trauma takes away.