our focus

Dedicated to Excellence in Personalized Care

We are committed to providing the highest quality of care to clients across Toronto, the GTA, Ottawa, Hamilton, London, and anywhere else in Ontario. We treat each client as an individual with specific needs and qualities. Your history, your identity, your body, your relationships: all of it shapes how we understand what you're bringing into the room. That's what informs the treatment plan we build with you, not a fixed formula applied the same way to everyone.

Book Your Free Consultation

Our Areas of Focus

Affirming Therapy for Gay Men

While many therapists are LGBTQ2IA+ friendly, there's a real difference between being accepted and being truly understood. At Mantra Psychotherapy, we offer a space designed specifically for the lives, hearts, and minds of gay men. Your identity isn't just a bullet point on an intake form — it's the lens through which you experience the world. Many of our therapists bring lived experience alongside specific training in identity-affirming treatment, so you're not starting from scratch.

Anxiety

Anxiety shows up differently for everyone — general worry, social anxiety, panic, or something harder to name. We help you spot the thought patterns feeding it, build real coping skills, and understand what's actually happening in your body and mind when anxiety takes over. That might mean learning to catch anxious thinking before it spirals, or working through the physical tension that comes with it. The goal is getting you back a sense of balance, not just managing symptoms indefinitely.

Depression

Depression is one of the most common reasons people seek therapy — and one of the most misunderstood. It doesn't always look like what people expect. You might be functioning on the outside while feeling empty or disconnected on the inside, or carrying a low-level heaviness for so long it feels like just who you are. We work with depression across the full spectrum — from a first episode, to something that's never fully lifted.

Emotion Regulation

Learning to regulate your emotions changes how you move through hard moments. We work with you to understand what's driving intense feelings, spot the patterns behind them, and build real skills for managing them. That might look like pausing before reacting, naming what you're feeling, or building skills to reach for — not perfect control, just more room to choose. The goal is simple: respond to what life brings you, instead of being run by it.

LGBTQ2IA-Specific Issues

However you identify — gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer, or 2-spirit — that context shapes what matters to you in therapy. Our team is prepared to provide LGBTQ2IA+ folks with the treatment they deserve. We can help with identity discovery, self-compassion, navigating LGBTQ2IA+ relationships, or whatever else feels important to address in your life.

Neurodivergence

Every brain works differently, and that's the starting point for how we work with you. We're trained in supporting neurodivergent clients — including autism and ADHD — and we build therapy around how your mind actually processes the world, not a one-size-fits-all model of what therapy should look like. That might mean adjusting pace, communication style, or sensory considerations — not asking you to mask or adapt to make the process easier for us.

People-Pleasing & Boundaries

People-pleasing is one of the most quietly exhausting patterns a person can carry. It looks like consideration from the outside — but from the inside, it's a constant negotiation between what you need and what you're allowed to want. Over time, prioritizing everyone else's comfort often erodes your sense of self and leaves you feeling invisible in your own life. We help you understand where it came from and build a more grounded way of showing up in the world.

Perfectionism & Burnout

Perfectionism can look like success from the outside. From the inside, it often feels like relentless pressure that never actually lets up. For a lot of people, achievement got tied to identity early on — a way of coping somewhere acceptance felt conditional on performance. We offer virtual therapy for perfectionism and burnout across Toronto and Ontario. Our goal is to help you separate healthy striving from self-punishment, and build self-worth that doesn't depend entirely on what you produce.

Self-Esteem

Self-esteem problems are experienced by many of us. We take a compassionate and connection-focused approach that aims to help our clients feel accepted, understood and heard. We may also support you with a behaviour plan to create new habits in your life and by shifting negative patterns of thinking. Regardless of the therapist's approach, they will guide you through techniques and tools to support you on your journey of building your self-esteem in therapy.

Trauma

Many people carry some form of trauma, and its effects can show up as depression, anxiety, physical symptoms, or difficulty in relationships. We help you understand what you're experiencing and build a treatment plan around your specific needs. That might mean processing traumatic experiences directly in session, building a self-care plan, or learning more about how trauma affects the body and mind. Together, we'll decide which approach fits you best.

List of Therapeutic Approaches

LGBTQ2IA+ Couples Therapy

Queer relationships don't fit a one-size-fits-all box, and neither should your therapy. We offer a space that's fluent in the real dynamics of 2SLGBTQIA+ partnerships — communication breakdowns, minority stress, consensual non-monogamy, whatever you're navigating. The goal is to help you and your partner(s) break painful cycles and build real emotional safety, on your own terms.

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is an action-oriented form of psychotherapy that helps you stop fighting your inner experiences and start living a life guided by what truly matters to you. Our ACT therapists in Toronto & across Ontario don’t believe the goal of therapy is to delete "bad" thoughts or feelings. Instead, ACT focuses on changing your relationship with them so they no longer run your life.

Couples Therapy

Couples therapy gives you a neutral space to work through the challenges every long-term partnership runs into. It's not about deciding who's right — it's about understanding the patterns driving disconnection and conflict in the first place. Our goal is helping you and your partner move past destructive cycles and build healthier, more compassionate ways of relating.

Mindfulness-Based Therapy

Mindfulness-based therapy trains your attention toward the present moment — noticing your thoughts, feelings, and body without judging them. Instead of getting swept into worry about the future or replaying the past, you learn to step back, create space, and respond rather than react. We build mindfulness into virtual therapy for clients across Toronto, the GTA, and Ontario.

Gestalt Therapy

Gestalt therapy focuses on the present moment — not just what you're thinking and feeling, but how it's showing up in your body, your relationships, and your life right now. "Gestalt" is German for "whole," and that's the core idea: you can't be understood by picking apart your thoughts, feelings, and behaviours one at a time. We offer Gestalt-informed virtual therapy across Toronto, the GTA, and Ontario.

Narrative Therapy

Narrative Therapy works with the internal "story" you carry about your own life. It helps you separate your problems from your identity — you are not your anxiety, your trauma, or your struggle. By retelling your story from that distance, you get to reconnect with your own strengths and values, and start shaping a future you actually have a say in.

Attachment-Based Therapy

Your earliest relationships shape how you connect with people as an adult — often in ways you don't notice until a pattern keeps repeating. Attachment-based therapy helps you understand where that pattern came from, heal what's underneath it, and build the capacity for more secure, fulfilling relationships. We offer this virtually across Toronto, the GTA, and Ontario, as part of a trauma-informed approach to care.

Solution-Focused Therapy

Solution-Focused Therapy centres on where you want to go, not how you got here. Instead of unpacking the origins of a problem in detail, it asks a more direct question: what would your life look like without it, and what do you already have that could get you there? We offer solution-focused virtual therapy across Toronto, the GTA, and Ontario.

Dialectical-Behaviour Therapy

Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT)— is a practical, evidence-based approach. It teaches you to stay present, manage intense emotions, and build healthier relationships. It also helps you hold competing truths at the same time, and sit with uncertainty instead of needing it resolved.

Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy is one of the most researched and used approaches in psychotherapy — and for good reason. It works by helping you understand the relationship between your thoughts, feelings, and behaviours, and by building tools to shift the patterns that are keeping you stuck. At Mantra Psychotherapy, we offer CBT-informed virtual therapy to folks across Toronto, the GTA, and Ontario.

Fees

15-minute Initial Phone Consultation

Free

50-minute Individual Therapy Session

$130 - $175

75-minute Couples Therapy Session

$210 - $250

Frequently Asked Questions

Find the answers to frequently asked questions below.

Where is Mantra Psychotherapy located?

Mantra Psychotherapy is a virtual clinic, based in Toronto, Ontario. Our sessions are typically done over video call, but phone sessions can be done at the client's request.

How much does a typical therapy session cost?

For individual (1 on 1) therapy sessions, our fees range from $130 to $175 per 50-minute session. For couples/partners therapy sessions, our fees range from $210 to $250 per 75-minute session.

Do you support concerns outside of those listed above?

Absolutely, each therapist has their own areas of focus, which often extends beyond what we list on this page. If you are looking for support with a concern that isn't noted above, please reach out to us or fill out our Therapist Matching Form.

Do your therapists use modalities/approaches outside of those listed above?

Yes. Our therapists use various modalities, many of which aren't listed above but can be found by selecting the therapist on our team page. Common modalities that our therapists are trained in that aren't listed above are Internal Family Systems (IFS), Somatic Therapy, Person-Centred Therapy, Strengths-Based Therapy, Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT), Prolonged Exposure Therapy, Emotion-Focused Therapy (EFT), and Gottman Therapy (for couples).

What platform do you use for sessions?

We use Jane App for all of our virtual therapy sessions. Jane App is a secure telehealth platform that is healthcare (PHIPA) compliant.

What should I expect in my first therapy session?

In your first session, your therapist will spend time getting to know you and your history. They will ask questions about your presenting issue(s) and explore your goals and how they can support you in reaching these goals.

Are your services covered by insurance?

Most often, yes. Since our all of our therapists are registered with the College of Registered Psychotherapists of Ontario (CRPO) or the Ontario College of Social Workers and Social Service Workers (OCSWSSW), their services are usually covered by extended health insurance plans. However, we always advise you to check your specific plan to ensure that the therapist you choose to work with is covered.

Do you offer direct billing to insurance?

Some of our therapists can offer direct billing to certain insurance providers. However, most therapists collect payment via e-transfer or credit card, and a receipt is given for you to submit to your insurance provider.

Do your therapists offer a reduced rate (e.g., sliding scale)?

Sliding scale rates can be discussed the therapist during your free 15-minute consultation. Each therapist's sliding scale fee range is different, and sliding scale fees are based on the client's financial need. Please note that therapists typically have a fixed number of sliding scale slots.