Tired of repeating the same patterns in relationships?
Online individual relationship therapy in Ontario can help.
This isn't couples therapy. It's one-on-one support to help you understand yourself so your relationships can actually change.
Who this is for
This work is for people who recognize something in their relationships keeps not working, even when they're trying hard to make it different.
That might look like:
- Repeating the same unhealthy patterns across different relationships
- Struggling to trust people, or trusting too quickly and getting hurt
- Difficulty setting limits with people you love
- Complicated or painful family dynamics that follow you into adult life
If any of that sounds familiar, you're not alone and you're not stuck. This is exactly the kind of thing therapy can help untangle.
Understanding your attachment style
A lot of relationship patterns trace back to attachment: the way you learned to connect with people early in life, and the strategies you developed to feel safe. Those strategies don't disappear when you grow up. They just show up in your adult relationships.
Anxious attachment tends to show up as a constant need for reassurance, fear that people will leave, difficulty believing a relationship is secure even when it is. It can look like over-texting, people-pleasing, or reading into small signals.
Avoidant attachment tends to show up as pulling away when things get close, discomfort with emotional intimacy, and a tendency to prioritize independence in ways that create distance. It can feel like "I want connection but I also can't stand it."
Secure attachment is the goal, not a personality type you were either born with or not. It means being able to rely on others without losing yourself, tolerate conflict without catastrophizing, and feel generally settled in relationships rather than constantly braced for something to go wrong.
Knowing your attachment style is useful. Knowing how it shows up in your specific relationships is where the real work happens.
How Genevieve works with relationship patterns
Genevieve Pasheek is a Registered Psychotherapist (Qualifying) completing her MA in Counselling Psychology, with five years of direct experience working with relational trauma, intimate partner violence, and complex relationship dynamics.
Two frameworks do a lot of the work here:
DBT (Dialectical Behaviour Therapy) helps you regulate your reactions in the moment. Instead of responding from a place of fear, shutdown, or panic, you build the ability to pause, feel what's happening, and choose how to respond. This is especially useful for people whose relationship patterns are driven by emotional intensity or dysregulation.
Attachment-based therapy helps you understand where your patterns came from and how they're showing up now. It's not about blaming your upbringing. It's about making the connection between what you learned and what you keep doing, so you can actually change it.
Sessions are virtual, available across Ontario, and grounded in Genevieve's direct experience with relational trauma on both sides: supporting people healing from harmful relationships and working with individuals taking accountability for their own behaviour. That dual perspective means she understands these dynamics without taking sides or assigning blame.
What to expect
Step 1: Free 15-Minute Consultation
Step 2: First Session: Context and Goals
Step 3: Ongoing Work
What gets better
Healthier relationships. Not perfect ones. But ones where you're able to show up more honestly, set limits without guilt, and actually feel connected rather than constantly managing distance or anxiety.
Real boundaries. Not the kind you read about and can't seem to hold. The kind that come from understanding what you actually need and feeling solid enough in yourself to say it.
Confidence in who you are in relationships. Less second-guessing, less shrinking, less performing. More of a sense that you know yourself and can trust that.
Frequently Asked Questions
No. Thistle Psychotherapy offers individual therapy only, meaning sessions are one-on-one with you, not with a partner or family member. If you're looking to work on a relationship, this is about helping you understand your own role in it so things can shift.
Anxiety in relationships, fear of abandonment, conflict avoidance, recovering from emotionally harmful dynamics, difficulty with limits or self-worth in relationships, repeating unhealthy patterns, and navigating high-conflict family situations. This work is also well suited to people processing the aftermath of intimate partner violence.
Not at all. Many people come to relationship therapy when they're single: to understand what happened in a past relationship, to change patterns before starting a new one, or to work on relationships with family or friends.
It depends on what you're working on and how you respond to the process. Some people notice meaningful shifts within 8 to 12 sessions. Others prefer ongoing work. There's no required commitment and you can re-evaluate at any point.
Transform Your Connection with Relationship Therapy
Schedule your call today and find the solution you seek.
