“I am not what happened to me. I am what I choose to become.”

~ Carl Jung


My Story

For much of my life, I moved through the world with a deep sense of anxiety and disconnection. As a child and young adult, my emotions often felt overwhelming, and I carried a persistent fear of rejection and not being fully accepted. I often struggled with self-doubt, overthinking, and a lingering sense of loneliness.

These feelings led me to believe that something about me was fundamentally flawed. I tried to understand my experiences through labels and diagnoses, and for a long time I assumed that anxiety and low mood were simply parts of who I was. These beliefs shaped the way I related to myself and others, often leaving me longing for deeper connection while fearing the vulnerability it required.

I sought therapy during these years, hoping to feel understood and supported, but often left feeling as though the deeper layers of my experience had not quite been reached. Those experiences strengthened my sense that I might always feel somewhat alone in my struggles.

Things began to shift when I eventually worked with a therapist who helped me look beneath the surface of my anxiety and understand the roots of my pain. Through that work, I began to see how earlier experiences had shaped the ways I protected myself emotionally and the patterns that continued to show up in my life and relationships. With time, curiosity, and compassion, those patterns slowly began to soften.

Alongside therapy, I began exploring mindfulness and contemplative practices that helped me reconnect with my inner world in a different way. These experiences deepened my understanding that healing is rarely about eliminating our emotions, but is about learning to approach them with greater awareness, care, self-understanding, and compassion.

These experiences continue to shape the way I show up as a therapist. I care deeply about creating a space where people feel safe enough to explore their inner world honestly and at their own pace. I am often described as warm, thoughtful, and easy to connect with, and I value building relationships that feel genuine and collaborative.

I believe that healing happens when we feel fully seen and understood as a whole person. When this kind of understanding is present, new ways of relating to ourselves and others can begin to emerge.

My Why

Because beneath every anxious thought, every fear of rejection, every moment of feeling fundamentally not enough, there's a part of us that simply wants to feel safe, and seen, and okay.

I know that place. And I know it doesn't have to be permanent.

I believe that the emotions we've spent years trying to manage, escape, or silence aren't the problem - they're the message. Anxiety, disconnection, self-doubt: these are rarely character flaws. More often they're the echoes of earlier experiences that never quite got the understanding they deserved.

Healing, in my experience, isn't about fixing what's broken. It's about approaching what's been buried with curiosity and compassion. Gently enough that the parts of us we learned to hide begin to feel safe enough to emerge. I work in a way that is relational, unhurried, and attuned to the whole person: mind, body, and the quiet spaces in between.

My Philosophy

My Career

I came to this work through my own experience of feeling unseen in it, sitting with therapists who were skilled but couldn't quite reach the deeper layers of what I was carrying. That experience shaped everything about how I practice.

I hold a Master of Social Work from the University of Toronto and am a Registered Social Worker with the OCSWSSW. Over six years of clinical practice have taken me across hospital psychiatry at SickKids, community mental health, and front-line work with Indigenous youth and families navigating complex trauma and exploitation. These environments that deepened my commitment to holistic, non-pathologizing, and culturally responsive care.

I am trained in Internal Family Systems, Emotion-Focused Therapy, Trauma-Informed CBT, Somatic Therapy, and hold a Certificate in Trauma Counselling through SickKids Centre for Community Mental Health.

My Areas of Focus

Attachment & Developmental Trauma

Self-Esteem and Self-Worth

Highly Sensitive People

Relationship Struggles

PTSD & Complex PTSD


Contact Alissa at alissa@innersummits.ca, or book a complimentary phone consultation