Rom Malik

My style is warm, direct and curious. I’m not a “blank wall” therapist who simply sits back, nods and asks, “And how does that make you feel?” I’ll ask questions, make observations, offer feedback, help you connect the dots and, at times, challenge you. Therapy is collaborative: we’re trying to understand things together. There’s also room for humour when it feels right, and I may occasionally share something from my own experience when I believe it could genuinely help.

We begin with your story. During the first few sessions, we explore your life from your early years to the present—the relationships, experiences and pivotal events that may have helped shape who you are. I usually recommend 90-minute sessions for this initial history phase so we have enough time to explore your story without rushing. Many people find the process enlightening in itself: things they’ve felt or done for years can begin to make more sense.

But the history is about much more than understanding your past. It gives us a map for the work ahead. We may begin to see where anxiety, self-criticism, ways of coping, relationship patterns or symptoms first took shape—and why something that once helped you cope may now be getting in your way.

Our earlier experiences don’t simply influence what we expect from other people. They can also shape how we actually perceive them—what we hear in their words, what we see in their behaviour, and how we experience the way they treat us. Sometimes we may genuinely experience criticism, rejection or disapproval where none was intended or expressed. These perceptions can feel unmistakably real because they have been shaped by experiences in earlier relationships.

These influences can become visible in the present, including in our relationships and sometimes even in what happens between you and me in the therapy room. When an old expectation or way of relating emerges, we have an opportunity to examine what’s happening, recognize its possible connection to earlier experiences, and begin tracing it back to its origins.

Recognizing these connections is an important beginning, but insight alone doesn’t necessarily change the pattern. The same expectations, perceptions and emotional reactions may emerge again in different situations. Each time we recognize and explore them, we have another opportunity to work through their origins and gradually dismantle the hold they have on your life. Over time, these reactions may become less intense and less frequent, giving you greater freedom to see yourself and others more clearly, express yourself more openly, and respond to life as it actually unfolds.

With your history as a foundation, we turn more fully to the here and now—the nitty-gritty of what brought you to therapy and what you want to change. We work with the anxiety, depression, relationships, stress, self-criticism or other concerns affecting your life today. The aim isn’t simply to understand why something happens, but to help you experience yourself and your relationships differently.

Couples follow the same process—with an important difference: there are three stories to understand. We explore each partner’s history, with the other partner present, and then the history of the relationship itself: how you met, what drew you together, how the relationship developed, and what has brought you to couples therapy now.

Each partner brings expectations and perceptions shaped by earlier relationships into the relationship they have today. Sometimes these influences contribute to recurring misunderstandings or conflicts. Hearing one another’s histories can create a different context for understanding what happens between you, while the interactions that unfold during sessions give us opportunities to recognize these patterns as they occur.

We can then work through the earlier influences that may be contributing to those difficulties, sometimes repeatedly as they reappear, while also addressing actual hurtful behaviour and developing better ways of communicating, resolving conflict, and experiencing trust, closeness and intimacy. The aim is greater freedom from the past—and a more satisfying relationship in the present.

I’ve been a psychotherapist for more than 30 years, but the way I understand adults was shaped, perhaps unusually, by learning to understand people across the lifespan.

My Master’s degree focused on Adult Counselling, followed by extensive doctoral training in Child and Adolescent Development. Earlier in my career, I also trained and worked as a child and play therapist, working directly with children and their parents.

That experience gave me something textbooks alone could not: the opportunity to observe firsthand how a child’s sense of self develops, how relationships with parents matter, and how anxiety, self-criticism, low self-esteem, psychological symptoms and different ways of coping can begin taking shape.

Today, I bring that developmental understanding into my work with individuals and couples. When someone is struggling at 25, 45 or 65, I’m interested in the person they are today—but also in the child, adolescent and younger adult they once were. Understanding those different chapters of a life can help us recognize where something became difficult or got stuck, and give us a better opportunity to work with it.

Relationships have also been a longstanding focus of my clinical work and academic research. My Master’s thesis explored the inherent tension in intimate relationships between our need for closeness and intimacy and our equally important need for individuality, personal growth and development. That interest in the relationship between individual development and intimacy has remained central to my work with couples.

My later doctoral research grew out of many years of clinical work with police officers and their spouses. It examined what differentiated police couples who were satisfied in their relationships from those whose marriages were struggling. That experience deepened my understanding of how stress, work, family history and individual differences can affect a marriage—and how some couples develop ways of managing these challenges successfully, while others find themselves increasingly overwhelmed by them.

My South Asian background brings another dimension to my work. I understand many of these experiences not simply through professional training, but from having lived within the culture myself and reflected on its psychology throughout my life. Over the years, I’ve also given considerable thought to how parental and cultural expectations shape our sense of ourselves, our relationships, and the choices we feel free—or not free—to make.

Family can be an extraordinary source of belonging, loyalty and support, while also bringing powerful expectations around achievement, marriage, responsibility, reputation and the obligations we have to one another. When those expectations feel difficult to question, they can also give rise to guilt, fear of disappointing others, difficulty speaking up for ourselves, and a growing distance between who we genuinely are and who we feel we’re expected to be.

For people growing up between cultures, or for immigrant families adapting to life in Canada, these questions can become particularly complicated. How much of my life belongs to me? How much do I owe my family? How do I pursue my own relationships, career or way of living without feeling that I’m disappointing the people I love?

I understand the tensions that can arise between family loyalty and individual growth, tradition and change, belonging and independence. Therapy doesn’t require rejecting your culture or choosing one world over another. We can respect the values and relationships that matter to you while also making room for greater personal freedom.

What I find most rewarding about my work is watching people gradually discover the roots of difficulties that may have troubled them for years, and begin to free themselves from their hold. As that happens, something else often emerges: parts of themselves that had been lost, suppressed or never fully expressed begin to find their way back. People become more comfortable speaking up, standing up for themselves, expressing what they genuinely feel and want, and pursuing possibilities they may once have considered beyond their reach. Perhaps most importantly, they become freer to live in the present—with a stronger sense of themselves, greater openness to life’s possibilities, and a growing capacity for happiness.

I offer a free 20-minute phone consultation. You can tell me a little about what has brought you to therapy and what you’re hoping to get from it. I can tell you more about how I work, how I might be able to help, and answer any questions you may have. Together, we can get a sense of whether we’d be a good fit.

If we decide to book a first session, there’s no commitment to continue. At the end of that session, I’ll ask how the experience was for you and whether you feel comfortable and confident moving forward. Fit goes both ways, and if it doesn’t feel right, that’s perfectly okay.

I offer virtual therapy by Zoom throughout the week, with some weekend availability, as well as in-person therapy in Toronto at Danforth & Broadview and in Richmond Hill.

You’re welcome to contact me by phone at 416-385-7777 (leave a message if needed) or by email at rom.malik@rogers.com.

If something you’ve read here resonates with you, feel free to reach out. We can start with a conversation and take it from there.