Complex trauma therapy online across Ontario
When you've been braced for years. You can't point to one thing that happened, or you can point to so many that it stopped meaning anything. You keep functioning, and underneath that you've been braced without being able to say what for.
- Registered Psychotherapist (Qualifying), CRPO #22667
- Extended health receipts provided
- Trauma-informed, paced to your nervous system
Complex Trauma Therapy at a glance
- Format
- Online video, one to one
- Session length
- 50 minutes
- Fee
- $190 per sessionSliding scale, limited
- Insurance
- Receipt providedCoverage varies by plan
- Availability
- Book onlineFree 20-min call first
- Best for
- Long-held bracing and exhaustion
Does this sound familiar?
This is where somatic work and NARM come in, meeting developmental survival patterns in the body and in relationship, not only in the story.
You look fine and feel far from fine
You understand your trauma but nothing has changed
You're exhausted in a way sleep doesn't fix
You are the capable one everyone leans on
Closeness and distance both feel risky
Rest never quite restores you
The work is slow on purpose. Complex trauma recovery is not a technique checklist; it's learning to feel safe enough to come back into your own life.
Wondering if your nervous system is stuck in overdrive? Take the 2-minute quiz.
Take the quizWhat complex trauma work means in this practice
Complex trauma therapy addresses patterns shaped by repeated or prolonged stress, usually early and relational, rather than one event. Here it combines somatic tracking with NARM-informed relational work, so the survival strategies you still live by, such as bracing, overfunctioning or disappearing, can soften in the body as well as in understanding.
Complex trauma is rarely one event with a clear before and after. It is usually years of bracing, adapting, and staying functional while something underneath never quite settled. You may look capable. You may even feel capable most days. And still there is a baseline of vigilance, flatness, or exhaustion that sleep does not reliably fix.
Therapy here meets those patterns through somatic and relational work, often informed by NARM when developmental survival strategies are in the room. We do not treat complex trauma as a story to finish recounting. We treat it as a nervous system and identity organization that still shapes how you connect, rest, and trust yourself.
The pace is deliberate. Pushing for breakthroughs tends to recreate the very override that kept you going in the first place.
You do not need one terrible story for this to count. Years of bracing are reason enough to be taken seriously.
How complex trauma sessions tend to unfold
Movements, not steps to complete. Sessions rarely run in a straight line.
Build enough safety to stay
Early sessions often focus on pacing, trust, and noticing when your system leaves, performs, or tightens. Safety is not a soft preface; it is the work.
Meet survival patterns in the present
We track how old adaptations show up now, overfunctioning, disappearance, caretaking, perfection, in body and relationship, not only as childhood narrative.
Work in small, digestible pieces
Material is approached in amounts your system can integrate. Going slower is often what allows something real to take root instead of another cycle of overwhelm and shutdown.
Reconnect identity with lived experience
Over time, the work may include reclaiming needs, boundaries, and a sense of self that was organized around surviving rather than belonging to yourself.
Who complex trauma work tends to fit
Read both lists with complex trauma work in mind. A mismatch here usually shows up as stalled work rather than sudden relief.
This is likely a good fit if
- You keep functioning while feeling far from fine underneath
- You understand your history and still feel braced, numb, or on alert
- You cannot point to one trauma, or you can point to too many
- Rest, intimacy, or asking for help still feel somehow unsafe
- Previous therapy helped you cope but did not reach the deeper patterning
- You want work that respects how much you have already survived
This is probably not the right fit if
- You want to process every memory in detail as fast as possible
- You need in-person sessions. This is a virtual practice with no physical office
- You are in crisis or need urgent care, which this practice is not set up to provide
If you are in crisis or thinking about suicide, call or text 9-8-8 in Canada, or call 911 in an emergency. Those services are available 24 hours a day.
What change can look like without hype
Change here is gradual and individual. Nothing on this page is promised as a finish line.
Shifts are often subtle at first: noticing tension sooner, recovering faster after activation, feeling a clearer no in the body, or realizing you do not have to manage every room you enter.
Some people describe more room inside themselves, less constant scanning, less emotional flatness, more capacity to be with another person without leaving. These are directional possibilities, not guarantees or timelines.
Healing complex trauma is less about erasing the past and more about no longer having to live as if the past is still running the present.
More room inside
Some people notice less constant scanning and more capacity to stay present with themselves and with others.
Less performing
Functioning may start to cost less, because it is no longer the only way the body knows to stay safe.
Choice in the pattern
Old adaptations such as overfunctioning or disappearing may still appear, with a little more space to choose differently.
Complex trauma care from home
Many people doing this work prefer the privacy of their own space. Online sessions across Ontario can support that, especially when leaving the house already costs regulation you need for the hour itself.
Fully virtual
Sessions are offered online across Ontario from this virtual practice, on a secure online telehealth platform with nothing to download.
What you need
A private spot where you can speak freely and notice yourself without performing for the screen. Headphones help; a polished setup does not matter.
After each session
A receipt is issued showing the service and CRPO registration, for submission to your insurer.
Fees and receipts
20-minute consultation
A free 20-minute call is enough to see if this work fits. No commitment either way.
Individual session
Per 50-minute session, on a secure online telehealth platform. Payment is due on the day of the session.
Insurance
Issued after every session with the practitioner's CRPO registration. Confirm coverage for a Registered Psychotherapist (Qualifying) with your insurer first.
The practice does not bill insurers directly. A limited number of sliding scale spots open as current clients finish; ask on your free call. Cancellation terms are on the fees page and apply to every service.
Common questions
Is complex trauma the same as C-PTSD?
They overlap, and people use the words differently. C-PTSD and complex trauma usually involve prolonged or repeated relational and developmental injury rather than a single discrete event. The clinical picture and pacing often differ from single-event trauma work.
I am high-functioning. Does that mean I do not need this?
High functioning and trauma patterning commonly coexist. Looking fine can be the adaptation. Therapy here takes that seriously rather than waiting for collapse to validate the need.
Will I have to retell everything that happened?
No. Detail is used when it serves the work, not as a requirement. We can work with present-day body states and relational patterns without a full trauma inventory.
How is this different from CBT for trauma?
CBT can be useful for thoughts and coping. This work emphasizes nervous system patterning, attachment, and identity adaptations that often sit underneath cognitive strategies, especially when you already know what you should think.
Can somatic therapy help if insight has not changed anything?
That gap is one of the main reasons people arrive here. Somatic and relational work aims at the level where bracing and disconnection live, while staying honest that change is individual and not promised.
How many sessions will I need?
There is no set number, and any specific promise would be inaccurate. Most people meet weekly at first so the work has continuity, then review together. Some notice shifts after a handful of sessions; patterns rooted in early or complex trauma usually need longer, because a nervous system reads rushing as danger.
Can I claim sessions through my insurance?
A receipt is issued after every session showing the service and the practitioner's CRPO registration. Whether it is reimbursed depends on your plan: coverage for a Registered Psychotherapist (Qualifying) varies between insurers, so confirm that wording with your provider before you book.
Where people go next
Ready to stop managing and start healing?
A free 20-minute call is enough to see if this work fits. No commitment either way.