Relational Therapists in Waterloo, ON
Julia Finetti
Registered Clinical Counsellor & Couples Therapist
Julia Finetti (MA, CCC, RCC) is a compassionate therapist specializing in relationships, life transitions, and emotional healing. She creates a warm, grounded space where clients finally feel at ease. With a practical, insight-driven approach, Julia helps people set boundaries, break old patterns, and reconnect with themselves - delivering real, lasting change.
Christine Nichols
Registered Psychotherapist (Qualifying)
You deserve the peace that comes with living authentically. On your journey to finding your purpose, you may be experiencing stress, anxiety, low-mood, or challenges with your self-worth. These experiences can make life feel overwhelming, and it’s easy to feel disconnected from the person you truly are. A better, more connected life is possible. As your therapist, I provide a genuine, compassion…
Janice Lyons
Registered Social Service Worker
Are you feeling overwhelmed, misunderstood, or exhausted? Are you tired of searching through profiles to find the right therapist? I'm Janice. Let's work together; I am now accepting new clients. Typically, sessions focus on how anxiety, neurodivergence, beliefs, relationship issues, and self-esteem affect us. You will learn to understand yourself and develop effective management skills.
Myroslava Stadnyk
Registered Psychotherapist (RP)
Registered Psychotherapist & Practice Owner at Stadnyk Therapy. Accepting new clients - in-person in Koreatown (near Christie Pits) in Toronto and virtually across Ontario. Book a FREE 15-minute consultation to get started!
Sydney Tricand
Registered Psychotherapist
Are you navigating the tender seasons of family building, pregnancy, postpartum, or early parenthood? You might feel overwhelmed, unlike yourself, or wonder if you’re experiencing postpartum anxiety or depression. A tough birth, NICU stay, feeding issues, or grief may have shaken your sense of self, body, or relationships. Are you hoping to feel more seen and understood in this vulnerable time?
Alli Ewacha
Registered Psychotherapist (Qualifying)
Aida Retta
Registered Psychotherapist
You’ve always been the one others count on—the thoughtful one, the steady one. But under the surface, you might feel anxious, resentful, or quietly overwhelmed. You say yes when you want to say no. You shrink your needs to keep the peace. You care deeply, but sometimes feel like you’re disappearing in the process. These patterns often begin in relationships where love felt conditional, conflict w…
Erika Szabo
Registered Social Service Worker, Psychotherapist
My name is Erika. I'm a white, cis-gender queer woman with lived experience of complex trauma. I work from a person-centered, relational, and anti-oppressive lens and embody this in the work I do! Whether you're interested in meditation, art making, somatics, or simply an empathic ear, I will hold space for you in whatever way you need. BOOKING OPEN in-person and online across Ontario.
Carolyn Holmes
Registered Psychotherapist (Qualifying)
Offering affordable virtual sessions for infertility, ADHD, PMDD, grief/loss, stress, anxiety, and depression. Trained in DBT, CBT, humanistic/client led, solution focused, narrative therapy approaches. A warm, open counsellor to help with immediate availability.
Michelle Keough
Master of Clinical Social Work, Registered Social Worker
Feeling disconnected from your partner has got you feeling discouraged and frustrated in your relationship. You're tired of having the same arguments continue to happen in your relationship with no understanding. Being stuck in conflict has lead to you feeling disconnected from your partner and is holding you back from creating a secure loving bond. You no longer need to feel alone in your rela...
Anna Marson
Registered Psychotherapist
Anna Marson is a registered psychotherapist specializing in ADHD, trauma, neurodiversity, attachment, stress, and emotion regulation. She integrates evidence-based therapies, mindfulness, and ADHD coaching to help clients build resilience, regulate emotions, and develop practical skills for lasting, positive change. Her approach is compassionate, brain/body-informed, and strength-based.
Signy Fridriksson
Registered Psychotherapist
It takes a lot of courage to start a healing journey! I listen with empathy and respect as you explore the challenges that life has brought you. I am known to be warm, calm and non-judgmental. I provide a safe, reassuring environment, allowing you to grow in self-awareness, self-compassion and a sense of hope.
Lester Vega
Registered Psychotherapist (Qualifying)
I offer psychotherapy rooted in both psychodynamic and Jungian approaches for adults living with the lasting impact of early adversity, complex trauma, and attachment wounds. Together we explore anxiety, burnout, relationship patterns, grief, shame, spirituality, and dreams at a pace that fits your nervous system. I provide secure online therapy across Ontario and a free 30‑minute consultation.
Carlos (Charlie) Garcia
CCC, MHC, MSc, PhD Candidate in Clinical Sexology
I help adults and couples navigate anxiety, identity, sexuality, intimacy and sexual concerns, and relationship challenges. My approach is modern, direct, and integrative — no fluff. I work with individuals of all genders and orientations, with a specialization in LGBTQ+ and trans clients. Bilingual services available in English and Spanish. Virtual sessions across Florida (USA) & Canada.
Li Li
Registered Psychotherapist
Li offers relational psychoanalytic and trauma-informed somatic/EMDR/IFS/EFT therapy, to support individual, couples and families in communities such as immigrants, LGBTQ+, neurodivergent (ADHD), and professionals, whose experiences resonate with her own life journey the most. She holds a compassionate, culturally attuned space where clients can express freely and rediscover their authentic self.
Laura Atkinson
Registered Psychotherapist
I offer a warm, down-to-earth space to explore what’s really going on beneath the surface. I support adults navigating anxiety, overwhelm, self-doubt, and life transitions (like pregnancy and parenthood). Together, we’ll make sense of your emotions and help you feel more connected to yourself and those around you — one step at a time.
Jennifer Oakley
Registered Psychotherapist
I am a therapist honoured to support individuals looking for harmony and clarity in their life. I specialize in Grief, Anxiety, Depression, Early Childhood Trauma, Abandonment, PTSD, with a special interest in Adoption Loss and Reunion, Family Separation, and Family Conflict.
Zarifa Andani
MPCC-P, RTC-C
This work isn’t about fixing your parts—it’s about helping you feel more like your whole self again. We can work together to slow down, get curious, and listen deeply. Our internal body wisdom is an integral source of information that speaks more significantly than words. Real change is possible when ALL of you feels safe enough to be seen and supported, just as you are.
River Page
Registered Psychotherapist
I offer a warm, non-judgmental space for individuals and relationships to explore life’s challenges and deepen self-understanding. My work supports those navigating religious or relational trauma, 2SLGBTQIA+ identities, non-monogamy, neurodivergence, gender and sexuality, suicide and self-harm, and environmental anxiety. All with compassion, curiosity, and care.
Megan Gauthier
Registered Social Worker, Psychotherapist
*Accepting new client in-person in Guelph and virtually across Ontario* Therapy for people who struggle with self-doubt, overthinking, and repeating painful relationship patterns.
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Frequently Asked Questions About Relational
What is relational therapy?
Relational therapy is a broad orientation in psychotherapy that places the therapeutic relationship at the centre of therapeutic change. Drawing on relational psychoanalysis, attachment theory, and interpersonal neurobiology, it understands psychological wellbeing and suffering as fundamentally relational — arising within relationships and healed within relationships. The quality of the connection between therapist and client — characterized by attunement, genuine presence, and authentic engagement — is itself therapeutic, not merely a vehicle for delivering techniques.
What distinguishes relational therapy from other approaches?
Relational therapy differs from classical psychoanalysis in acknowledging that the therapist is not a neutral blank screen — the therapist's own subjectivity is recognized and is part of the therapeutic field. It differs from CBT in that the relationship is the primary focus, not techniques. Relational therapists attend carefully to what happens in the therapeutic relationship in the moment — ruptures, repairs, moments of connection, and the enactments of the client's relational patterns within the therapy room. Authenticity and genuine contact matter more than neutrality.
What issues does relational therapy address?
Relational therapy is particularly suited to attachment difficulties, relationship patterns (repeating the same dynamics across different relationships), depression and anxiety with relational roots, the effects of early neglect or emotional unavailability (which often produce less visible but deeply felt wounds), personality difficulties, and the long-term effects of relational trauma. It is also valuable for people who have found more technique-focused therapies insufficient or who crave genuine human connection as part of their healing.
What is the role of the therapeutic relationship in relational therapy?
In relational therapy, the therapeutic relationship is not just the container for delivering treatment — it is the treatment. When a client who has been hurt in relationships encounters a therapist who is consistently attentive, honest, and genuinely caring, the experience itself begins to create new relational expectations. Ruptures in the therapeutic relationship (misattunements, misunderstandings) are important opportunities — the therapist acknowledges them and repairs them, modeling how ruptures can be repaired in ways the client may never have experienced.
Is relational therapy evidence-based?
The therapeutic alliance — the quality of the relationship between therapist and client — is one of the most robust predictors of therapy outcome across all approaches, supported by decades of research. Relational therapy is the approach most explicitly organized around this finding. While "relational therapy" as a distinct modality is harder to study in randomized trials than manualized approaches, the relational factors it prioritizes have the strongest evidence of any component of psychotherapy.