Let's Get Real About Sex: What is Healthy Sexuality in a Relationship?

We’ve been told about the ‘birds and the bees’, but have we ever been told what a healthy sexual relationship should be? What it shouldn’t be? Here are 12 characteristics of sex that identify what a sexually healthy can be. How do you feel in your relationship?

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How Generation Covid Is Losing Out

We wanted to share this eye opening article from The Financial Times about their recent global survey about what they term as ‘Generation Covid’. It’s abundantly clear at this point that those under 30 are at more risk than ever to experience amplified mental health struggles. While navigating the normal, expected pressures of life, they have been served a second helping of stress, pressure, and expectation, all thanks to COVID.

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6 Ways To Set Better Boundaries with your Friends and Family

For many of us, spending time with friends and family can feel taxing – like we are meeting the needs of the people around us but they aren’t meeting ours. Here are some relatively easy ways to begin setting better boundaries.

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Three Things You Can Expect From Your Couples Therapist

If you and your partner have decided that you need couples therapy, there are probably many feelings coursing through you. Seeking therapy for your relationship can be frightening, especially if you do not know what to expect. While you may not be able to anticipate exactly how the first sessions go, there are certain things that you and your partner should be able to expect from any couples therapist.

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Is Online Couples Therapy Right For You and Your Partner?

As the world has changed so has the structure of therapy. Technology’s importance in everyday life is rising, and the current pandemic climate is keeping us in our houses more than ever. With these factors, more and more couples are wondering what it might be like to do couple therapy online rather than in the office. Online couple therapy is not a sub-par replacement for office sessions, but in fact brings its own unique benefits. Here are some reasons why online couples therapy might benefit you.

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Back To School Anxiety for Parents - Like We've Never Experienced Before

It’s back to school season. Typically that hectic time of year of new shoes, backpacks, pencil cases, water bottles and bulk peanut-free snacks. Typically, a transitional time of year when families used to look forward to school resuming at summer’s end. But this year things are anything but typical. This year, parents are frantically searching for breathable face masks, hand wipes and gallons of sanitizer. This year, back-to-school season is packing a powerful emotional punch - of anxiety - and parents are getting hit hard.

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Why Does My Partner Feel Like My Roommate?

As a therapist who specializes in working with couples, it is always interesting to see the world through the common themes that emerge with different couples in a short period of time. Lately, couples have been saying they feel more like roommates than lovers or life partners.

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McMaster University Study Shows that Virtual Therapy is Here to Stay

In the not so distant past, it was the general perception that face-to-face therapy facilitated a better connection between a person and their therapist. However, new revelations have come to light about virtual therapy, debunking previous notions about the efficacy of treatment online. Our colleagues at McMaster University have published a study that fits exactly with what we have been seeing during the COVID-19 shutdown…

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Reflecting on Black Lives Matter: Change Starts With Self-awareness

As the founder of everwell it has always been my priority to create a safe place where people can work towards meaning and healing. It is time for me to learn more about how working towards meaning and healing differs depending on an individual's lived experience of racism, stigma, oppression, exclusion and systemic bias so that I can create a place where ALL people can do this important work.

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Talking about COVID-19: Taking Care of Yourself is Productive

As a psychotherapist I know too well the negative effects of prioritizing productivity over all else. Heck, as a human I know the negative effects of this and how it shows up in my own life. Although life has technically slowed down for some during this time –for many it hasn’t and for most of us it has meant a much more disorganized and hectic day to day. And yet, the pressures we continue to put on ourselves to be productive are alive and well.

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Talking about COVID-19: We’re Living with Grief

Longing for the things the way they used to be? Find yourself wishfully thinking that you might wake up tomorrow and things will be “back to normal”, even though you are completely aware that’s impossible? Yearning for the physical touch of a loved one that you haven’t been able to hold for far too long? Ever catch yourself engrossed in something and completely forgetting about how different life is for just for a few seconds? Is there that heaviness in your chest or that knot in your stomach that never seems to go away? All of this is grief.

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Talking about COVID-19: Helping our Kids Cope

We’re all struggling to keep things as ‘normal’ as possible for our kids. But, how can we protect them through this crisis when there are things completely outside of our control? Dealing with uncertainty during this pandemic is challenging for most adults, never mind kids. But, there is a way to help our kids build resiliency during this time.

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Talking about COVID-19: 7 Tips to Help You Feel Less Isolated

The good news is there’s a HUGE difference between social distancing and physical distancing. As someone who has worked from home for the last year, I’ve somewhat had to adapt myself to social distancing. The current situation has amplified this two-fold and I’ve realized that there are many things I could have been doing for the last year that would have helped me feel not so isolated. Here are some my tips…

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Mental Health Week: Let's Get Real about How We're Really Feeling

2020 marks The Canadian Mental Health Association’s 69th annual Mental Health Week. Mental Health Week helps to shift societal beliefs and perceptions about mental health. It helps promote behaviours and attitudes that foster well-being, support good mental health and create a culture of understanding and acceptance. The theme of this year’s Mental Health Week, May 4-10, 2020 is ‘social connection’ and its importance for mental health.

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How to Use Mindfulness to Reduce COVID-19 Anxiety

It has been about three weeks now since the world has been put ‘on hold’. We’ve all been told to wash our hands, practice physical distancing while being socially connected, and self-isolate. We’re all doing our part for the sake of our physical health and to help ‘manage’ the COVID-19 virus but it’s hard and it feels scary to not know what’s coming next. Having to live through a global pandemic is something none of us has ever experienced or could have imagined.

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What Children Can Teach Us About Managing COVID-19

Stress is present almost everywhere we look – at our dinner tables, in our workplaces, in our neighborhoods, in our extended families. There are so many unknowns and uncertainties and everyone is struggling to manage in their own way. Children and adults alike are struggling to manage the emotional and practical impact of the worldwide COVID-19 crisis. But there seem to be some key differences in the way that children and adults are coping. I’ve been paying close attention to the way my kids are dealing with our current situation and I’d like to share some of my observations with you.

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Help Yourself to Help Others: My Experience Navigating a Global Pandemic as a Mental Health Practitioner

Now, having developed a weird sleep schedule, new and rather creative eating habits and a completely upside-down daily routine, I find myself reflecting more and more on the unique challenges helpers face during times where we all, in some way or another, are struggling with the ominous ambiguity of the current state of the world.

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