Rosa Bergman

The relationship between the client and therapist is important, for it is through this relationship that healing occurs. Rapport, alliance, and trust are what give clients confidence and the feeling of safety, and in this environment they find the ability to change their lives for the better. New possibilities and choices open up before them as they come to know that they have a place where they can be themselves, where they will be listened to, perhaps in a way that they’ve never been listened to before. I work also with the awareness, in my practice of psychotherapy (‘the talking cure’), that our non-verbal communications are as important as the words that are shared.

In addition, therapy is not about achieving perfection or conforming to what others say you should be. It is about working with fears and limitations. There is no magical solution in therapy; it requires curiosity, courage and honesty. As a therapist, I am open to the mystery of life and encourage the client’s curiosity about him or herself and the pathways ahead. I am patient when things are unclear. I am willing to hold the not-knowing until there is clarity.

I therefore encourage you to enter upon a journey with a therapist who has already made her own journey. In a safe, supportive and quiet environment, I invite you to explore your life and your thirst for self-knowledge and self-expression. While discovering and expressing yourself in the presence of acceptance and empathy from the therapist, you can begin to celebrate your life in a way that has not been afforded to you before. You will develop the capacity to love in wisdom, to taste life, and to learn that life is not just a chore or a fight. You learn to build relationships and boundaries, while accepting both your strengths and vulnerabilities.

I have been practicing since 1991 and consider myself to be an eclectic and seasoned psychotherapist.

My Practice

I have undergone extensive training in depth psychotherapy, and my tools include dream work, body awareness, and trance/relaxation work. These techniques facilitate access to deeper thoughts and feelings of which we may initially be unaware. My particular history provides me with empathy and understanding of people from different backgrounds and cultures. In my 24 years of practice, in a safe, supportive, and quiet place, I have provided my clients with an environment where they bring both their strengths and difficulties.

Additional Focus: Intergenerational Trauma

As part of my varied private practice here in Toronto, I have an interest in working with those whose lives have been touched by traumatic experience—experience that might not directly have been their own but rather the trauma of primary caregivers or even of generations prior to their own. The transgenerational transmission of parents’ traumatic experiences to their children and even grandchildren is a well-documented phenomenon, particularly in descendents of Holocaust survivors but also among other groups as well. My aim is to help clients stay curious about their cultures, context, and transgenerational story. Exploring together how intergenerational trauma continues to work its effects in memory and in the body down the generations can be a very healing endeavour.

Languages Spoken:
English, French, Yiddish, some Hebrew

If you are interested in engaging in this life-enhancing, transformative, and challenging process, I invite you to email me at rbergman@rogers.com to ask any questions you might have and to arrange a free initial psychotherapy consultation. This is a very important decision for you to make and together we will determine whether this will be a good match for both of us. I look forward to embarking on this significant journey with you.