About Aqsa
Stepping into the mental-health field was not a coincidence for me; it was a calling shaped by years of volunteering, community work, and sitting with people in their hardest moments. After working across crisis lines, community agencies, school workshops, and clinical settings, I realised something profound: this is the field I have chosen, and accompanying people in their healing is one of life’s greatest privileges.
As a Psychotherapist practising in Ontario, I offer culturally responsive, trauma-informed, and evidence-based therapy for individuals and couples. My background spans multiple mental-health environments: from crisis intervention and community care to structured psychotherapy with youth, adults, seniors and couples. Through this work, I have supported people facing trauma, anxiety, perfectionism, body dysmorphia, ADHD/AuDHD, OCD, grief, relational wounds, identity conflicts, and the deep emotional impact of domestic violence, bullying and high-expectation environments.
I hold a Master of Arts in Counselling Psychology and have completed extensive clinical training in CBT, DBT, SFT, IFS, EFT, somatic approaches, and brainspotting therapies. My experience includes delivering hundreds of clinical hours under CRPO-approved supervision, facilitating school workshops on identity and inclusion, supporting clients through crisis lines, and conducting mental health and addiction assessments, all of which inform my grounded, integrative approach to therapy.
As a therapist, I bring a warm relational presence, cultural humility, and a deep respect for the complexities of human experience. I support clients who have been silenced, misunderstood, overwhelmed, or shaped by environments where emotional expression was discouraged. My goal is to offer a space where you do not need to perform strength; you can simply be human.
Whether you are seeking clarity, healing, skills, or a new way of understanding yourself, I am committed to walking with you at a pace that feels safe, collaborative, and empowering. My practice is guided by the belief that people heal through connection: to themselves, to their emotions, and to those who genuinely see them.
If you are looking for a therapist who brings warmth, multicultural sensitivity, clinical depth, and unwavering belief in your capacity to grow, I would be honoured to support your journey.
Who I Work Best With
I tend to work best with:
The clients I feel most drawn to supporting are people navigating trauma, grief, ADHD, OCD, and relationship struggles.
I enjoy working with clients who have experienced childhood trauma, PTSD, complex trauma, or painful life experiences that have shaped how they see themselves and relate to others.
Many clients who come from or understand a South Asian context often feel deeply seen in our work together. There can be relief in sitting with someone who understands the cultural layers, family expectations, shame, silence, gender roles, religion, immigration, and the pressure to keep going even when you are hurting.
I never assume I know someone’s story, but I do hold deep curiosity and care for the unique experiences they bring into the room. My hope is that clients feel understood, less alone, and supported in finding a safer way to be with themselves and others.
The conversations I find myself having again and again
Something clients often say to me after our first session is, “I feel so relieved after talking to you.”
Sometimes they say, “Thank you for actually listening,” or, “I feel like someone finally heard me.” And every time I hear that, it reminds me why this work matters so deeply to me.
A lot of people come into therapy carrying things they have never fully said out loud. Childhood pain. Parental wounds. Grief. Shame. Cultural pressure. Religious expectations. Relationship struggles. Experiences of sexual assault, domestic violence, OCD, ADHD, neurodivergence, or trauma that has lived in their body for years.
And so many of them are not looking for someone to simply give advice. They are looking for someone who can sit with the truth of what happened. Someone who will not rush them, judge them, minimize them, or make them feel like they are “too much.”
I think that is where a lot of the depth in my work comes from. Clients often tell me that we go deeper than they expected, or deeper than they have gone in therapy before. Not because I force them to go there, but because safety allows people to go there. When someone feels truly heard, something in them softens. The story starts to come out differently. The shame has less power. The patterns begin to make sense.
The people who often find their way to me are people who have spent years trying to survive quietly. People with childhood trauma, parental trauma, grief, ADHD, OCD, racial trauma, cultural wounds, religious restrictions, and relationship pain. People who have learned to people-please, overthink, shut down, numb, perform, or hold everything together because that was the only way they knew how to get through.
These are the conversations that feel most meaningful to me, the ones where we talk about the things people were told not to talk about. Family. Culture. Faith. Gender roles. Loss. Anger. Shame. Belonging. The pain of not being understood by the people who were supposed to protect you.
I also love working with couples, especially the couples who still care deeply but feel lost in the same painful cycle. Many couples come to me because they want to find their way back to each other, but they do not know how. I think my passion for couples therapy comes from both my training and my own experience of being in couples therapy myself. I know how powerful it can be when two people start seeing what is underneath the anger, the silence, the defensiveness, or the distance.
In my work with couples, I am not interested in blaming one person or deciding who is “right.” I am interested in helping both people understand the softer emotions underneath the fight. The fears. The needs. The places where they stopped feeling safe with each other. The repair that never happened. The words they did not know how to say.
For me, therapy is not just about coping better. It is about finally having a space where you do not have to translate your pain so much. A space where your story is held with care. A space where your patterns make sense. A space where you can feel seen, not judged, not fixed, not rushed, but truly heard. That is the kind of space I try to create for every client who sits with me.
What gives me hope
What keeps me inspired as a therapist is witnessing people learn how to hold multiple truths at once.
I love watching clients realize they do not have to dismiss their own pain in order to understand someone else’s. They can honour what they feel, give others grace, take accountability, challenge their patterns, and still stay connected to themselves.
I have seen people-pleasers take up space. I have seen perfectionists allow themselves to make mistakes. I have seen clients with trauma slowly let themselves be vulnerable and let safe people in.
Those moments remind me that growth is possible. As humans, we are not meant to stay stagnant. We are wired to adapt, learn, soften, repair, and become. That is what continues to inspire me in this work.
What's my story
What has guided me as a therapist is not only my education or clinical training, but also my own lived experience with grief, trauma, displacement, and healing.
I lost my mother when I was only eight years old. Her death was traumatic, and at a very young age, I came to know what it means to live with grief every single day. Over the years, grief continued to visit my life in different forms. I experienced the loss of pets I deeply loved, the death of my best friend, and eventually the loss of my grandmother. Loss became something I understood not from a textbook, but from the inside out.
I also grew up as a South Asian woman in a strict South Asian family, in a country where women often have to fight quietly for their voice, safety, freedom, and basic sense of self. Navigating mental health in that environment was not easy. Advocating for myself felt difficult when so much of the culture around me taught women to stay small, stay silent, and endure.
Another part of my story that shaped me deeply was immigration. Moving to America meant entering a completely different world, a different culture, different people, different expectations, and a language and way of life that did not always feel familiar. There were moments where belonging felt far away. It was painful to be surrounded by people who could not fully understand my language, my culture, my grief, or the invisible weight I carried.
Later, getting married within a South Asian family system brought its own layers. There were expectations about what a woman, a wife, and a daughter-in-law is “supposed” to be. Those expectations, along with everything I had carried for so long, eventually led me to therapy myself. And therapy changed something in me.
For the first time, I felt like I was allowed to speak. I was allowed to take up space. I was allowed to name what I had been through. Someone sat with me and acknowledged that what I experienced was real, that it was grief, that it was trauma, that it mattered.
That space became something sacred to me. It became the kind of space I now strive to offer my clients.
Not a space of assumptions, but of curiosity. Not a space where people are judged for how they survived, but one where they can finally understand themselves with compassion. A space where grief, trauma, cultural expectations, family wounds, immigration, identity, relationships, and belonging can be spoken about honestly.
I believe many clients feel connected to me not because I claim to know their exact story, but because I understand what it feels like to carry pain quietly. I understand what it feels like to search for belonging. I understand the comfort of shared language, shared culture, shared humour, and the relief of sitting with someone who does not need every part of you translated.
My lived experience does not replace my clinical training, it deepens it. It reminds me to meet people as whole human beings, not as symptoms or diagnoses. It reminds me that healing is not just about coping better, but about finally feeling seen, heard, and safe enough to exist as your full self.
Modalities
Specialties
Who are you when you're
not working
Outside of work, what keeps me grounded is my partner, my cats, and reminding myself that I do not, in fact, have to be perfect all the time.
I try to stay present by allowing myself to be human, to adjust, make mistakes, laugh at myself, and not turn every small inconvenience into a personal development assignment. Although, to be fair, I do love talking about growth, discomfort, and challenging old narratives, so my therapist hat does accidentally come home with me more often than I would like to admit.
I am also a big anime and Korean drama fan. I love comedy, thrillers, psychological mysteries, and anything that makes me either laugh, overthink, or emotionally recover for three business days.
I love connecting with friends and family, travelling, seeing different cultures, meeting people, and witnessing how others live outside of my own little world. Travel reminds me that there is never just one way to be human, one way to live, or one “right” path to follow.
My friends and family would probably say I can turn almost anything into a conversation about healing, growth, or unlearning. I am working on it, but honestly, no promises.
Education
Languages
What’s Something Being a Therapist Has Taught You About People?
Being a therapist has taught me that so many people are hurting across gender, background, culture, and life experience.
People are often trying their best with the tools they were given. Sometimes those tools are protective, sometimes they are harmful, and sometimes they keep people stuck in the same patterns over and over again. But underneath many of those patterns is something deeply human: the need to feel loved, safe, and like we belong somewhere.
Before becoming a therapist, I think I often got stuck in the question of, “Why are people like this?” Why are men like this? Why are families like this? Why are systems so unfair?
And I still believe we need to name those systems clearly. Misogyny, racism, poverty, capitalism, cultural oppression, and power imbalances deeply shape people’s lives. We cannot talk about healing without talking about the systems people are trying to survive inside of.
But this work has also softened me. It has reminded me again and again that we are all meaning-makers. We are all trying, in some way, to make sense of our pain, protect ourselves, find love, and feel like we belong in this world.
When love and belonging are missing, people suffer. And sometimes that suffering comes out as anger, control, avoidance, perfectionism, people-pleasing, numbness, or disconnection.
Therapy has taught me to hold both truths: people are responsible for their impact, and people are also shaped by pain, systems, and survival.
That both/and is what keeps making me more compassionate, not naive, not excusing harm, but more deeply aware of how human we all are.
What Misconceptions About Therapy Do You Often Challenge?
One misconception I think people often have about therapy is that it works like a magic wand.
Sometimes people imagine that the therapist will give advice, say the perfect thing, and suddenly everything will change. And while tools, techniques, and insight absolutely matter, therapy is often less about someone giving you all the answers and more about creating a space where you can finally hear yourself clearly.
A lot of people come into therapy and, as they begin talking, they start connecting dots. They hear their own patterns out loud. They realize what they have been avoiding, what they need, what hurts, or what they already know deep down.
But therapy also requires participation. Simply showing up is a beautiful first step, but the growth often comes from what we are willing to practice, reflect on, and try differently outside the session too.
I think of it like school. If we showed up to class but did not listen, did not engage, did not ask questions, and never did the homework, we could still say, “Well, I am going to school.” But would we really be learning?
Therapy is similar. The session matters, but the work between sessions matters too. Healing is not about being fixed by someone else. It is about being supported while you slowly learn how to understand yourself, challenge old patterns, and build a life that feels more honest and aligned.