Rebecca Gibbins (she/her)
- Availability:
- Accepting New Clients
- Session Format:
- PhoneIn-Person
- Office Days:
- TuesdayWednesdayThursdayFriday
- Clientele:
- Adults (18+)
About
Doing psychotherapy, “going to therapy,” is about working with our conscious and unconscious awarenesses of how we may have been impacted by the people and the world around us. We do this by sharing with a therapist the stories, narratives, and moments of our lives— past, present, and future.
We use words to do this. Words can be both sound and symbol: there is an immediacy to them. Our words quickly and effectively fill in the gaps between the pieces of things, fill in for things, stick things together. Language is our most obvious way to link with others.
However, we also communicate with our silences, with the spaces between our words. We speak with our laughter and our tears; with our eyes and how they meet, or not; with our breath, our movements, and our body language.
In psychotherapy, we tell our stories in all of these ways, as we try to make our own sense out of being human in this world. And, over time, something elemental can be reclaimed. Parts of us can emerge in new ways. The ways we see and feel about ourselves gradually change. The way we live does, too.
Therapy, as I know it, takes time. It’s non-linear and exploratory. It’s different for everyone. It’s collaborative, it’s sometimes messy, and it requires commitment.
During our conversations, my job as your therapist is to stay present. I will strive to be steadfast, responsible, non-judgemental, and kind.
The work will be led by you. I will listen, and there will be questions along the way. An important thing to remember is that I am trained to listen carefully, to listen for what you are trying to tell me even when you are at your most quiet; even when you are silent.
As you work to express – with me, and in the therapy space – who you are and what the world is like for you, you will hopefully begin to develop a sense of trust and a practice of compassion and curiosity towards yourself that will help you to figure out where it is you want to go.
The word psychotherapy comes from the ancient Greek words psyche, meaning “soul, breath, mind” and therapeia, meaning “healing”. The word kintsugi means “gold joinery” in Japanese, and is the ancient art of using resin and gold dust to repair broken pottery.
There are a few different kintsugi techniques.
The crack technique uses the gold mixture as glue to re-attach broken pieces; the piece method is when a fragment is missing and the space is filled instead with gold; the joint call method uses a similarly-shaped fragment in place of a missing piece.
In the end, the bowl – or vase, or plate – is both old and new; changed, yet the same; its damage incorporated into a stronger and differently-beautiful version of itself. Practitioners speak of the meditative nature of the work, and of how an object will seem to reveal itself to itself, their work more of a channelling than an imposition.
Similarly, in psychotherapy, a person may sometimes gather up pieces of themselves and reattach them; sometimes replace what’s missing with what they have now; sometimes choose to fill in the spaces with something new. It is a process of self-discovery, re-connection, self-acceptance, self-forgiveness, and love.
At its very best, psychotherapy moves us.
To a place of realignment. From feeling broken to feeling more whole. Towards being more able to know and hold our own shape within the world.
I see clients at my office in Toronto’s north Annex neighbourhood, and I also offer telephone sessions after meeting at least one time in person. If you’d like to book a free half hour consultation, please contact me at rebecca@kintsugipsychotherapy.ca or through my website www.kintsugipsychotherapy.ca
Issues
- Abuse (intimate partner violence)
- Aging and Age-Related Concerns
- Anger
- Anxiety
- Career Dissatisfaction or Transition
- Climate Anxiety/Climate Grief
- Depression
- Existential Concerns
- Immigration and Newcomer Experiences
- Life Crisis and Transitions
- Loneliness and Isolation
- Loss and Grief
- Parenting and Co-Parenting
Approaches
Contact
- Email:
- rebecca@kintsugipsychotherapy.ca
- Address:
- 244 Dupont Street, Main Floor
Toronto, ON M5R 1V7