Sault Ste. Marie

Locations Served

Sault Ste. Marie, embraced by Ontario’s natural splendor, epitomizes a rich history, community resilience, and scenic landscapes. Celebrated events like the Rotaryfest showcase local talents. The city offers diverse job sectors, from manufacturing to tourism. With serene spaces like Bellevue Park and a vibrant downtown bustling with local businesses and eateries, Sault Ste. Marie seamlessly blends historical significance with modern liveliness. Its stunning setting along the St. Mary’s River and the captivating Soo Locks, combined with a resilient community spirit, create an inviting ambiance, making Sault Ste. Marie a cherished destination for residents and visitors seeking a blend of history and natural beauty.

About YYZ Talks Psychotherapy:

We’re a diverse team of Psychotherapists and Social Workers, offering virtual Psychotherapy, Counselling, and Coaching to individuals and couples across Ontario. Our network of therapists is dedicated to providing a confidential, non-judgmental, and supportive environment that fosters healing and growth.

Our practice was born from a shared passion for Psychotherapy and a commitment to create a different approach, recognizing the underserved need for mental health support. We’re here to make this process as easy as possible. With flexible appointment slots (evenings and weekends too!), accessible rates ($100-$180), and a team that’s dedicated to professional development, we’re a solid first step towards getting help with your mental health. Our team of Registered Psychotherapists and Social Workers serve all of Ontario virtually!

Whether you’re looking for coping strategies, new perspectives, trauma processing, support with stress, anxiety, depression, boundaries, or simply a deeper understanding of yourself, our team is here to support you.

We are deeply committed to continuous professional development, ensuring ethical and optimal care for our clients. We all meet regularly to discuss professional development, extend mutual support, and share theories and techniques. This collective approach ensures our ongoing growth and learning, enabling us to assist you through a wide range of challenges while striving to be the psychotherapists we aspire to become. All of us are regularly engaged in courses and certifications as well.

Deciding to finally seek therapy can be hard enough, you shouldn’t have to struggle further to find the right fit. We start with a free initial consult with the Clinical Director and he then proceeds to match you with a therapist or 2 who he thinks would be a good fit for you. From there, the therapists will also do free 15-min consults with you to see how you feel about working with them. We want you to choose the therapist you feel most comfortable with.

We are well-versed in various therapy modalities and during intake, our Psychotherapists engage with you to discuss their approaches and make recommendations. Our emphasis on integrative Psychotherapy allows us to address mental health holistically, considering not just current symptoms but their origins and development. We also focus on sustaining your progress by identifying risk factors and building coping strategies and resilience.

Our team of Psychotherapists is carefully chosen for their warmth, passion, and commitment to the field. While our therapeutic approaches vary, our foundation remains rooted in non-judgmental inclusivity, providing a safe emotional space for your exploration, growth, learning, and healing.

 Issues we can help with

• Anger

• Anxiety

• Depression

• Trauma

• Stress

• Couples and Relationship Issues

• Gaslighting

• Grief and Loss

• Neglect

• Phobias and OCD

• Student Support

• And more

What makes our team different from most practices?

Intake Process

Our intake process is fairly unique in our industry in that we start with a free 15-min call with the Clinical Director, Zell. Most practices just take down a bit of info about what you’re looking for and assign you to the next free therapist. We find that absurd and unethical. Zell knows how all the therapists practice, and what types of clients they shine with. After learning about what you’re looking for help, he makes a recommendation of which therapist he feels would be the right fit. Sometimes he will even suggest 2 therapists if he feels both would be helpful. The referred therapist(s) will reach out to you within 24h by phone or email (whatever you prefer) to set up a 15-min consult with you to ensure you feel comfortable working with them. The reason we do these free consults is because we believe that it’s part of ethical practice. We don’t want you working with someone you don’t feel comfortable with. Mountains of research has shown the importance of therapist fit, you can’t possibly talk freely about the contents of your life if you don’t feel comfortable with the other person. On our end we also make sure that the therapist feels that they can actually help you. There are scenarios where we may speak to you and conclude that we’re not the right practice for you. In those scenarios we will provide a few potential referrals to help you get to help you need. It’s very important to us that we don’t take on clients that we don’t believe that we can help. 

PS in the interest of time and reducing the amount of people you have to speak to, we also have an online questionnaire you can fill out and then the director will review it and assign you to the therapist for a consult. Part of the motivation for this is the acknowledgement that not everyone enjoys talking on the phone. 

Rates

Our rates range from $100 to $160, with an average of $130 per session . Our rates tend to be significantly lower than the competition because of our value system. Based on our research the average rate tends to be around $160/session. Keeping our rates low is important to us because we want to make sure more people can afford psychotherapy. We do this by cutting overhead costs as much as possible. Our admin person, social media manager, and advertising manager is the Director (sometimes it shows, we know). Instead of a massive advertising budget we have a lower ad spend and rely on word of mouth. 

Scheduling

We’re proud to offer probably the most flexible hours available on the market. We generally have a therapist available to see you from Monday to Thursday between 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. and on Fridays between 8:00 to 6:00 p.m. we even have weekend appointments available as needed. We know you have a busy schedule and we’re here to accommodate to the best of our ability. Unfortunately if you need a 3:00 a.m. session that ain’t going to be us. 

Professional Development

Our practice is committed to regular professional development. In fact the clinical director is a bit of a pain when it comes to that topic, constantly encouraging The team to consistently be reading and taking workshops. He leads workshops on different topics to ensure that they are staying at the forefront of their newest research. Our whole team meets monthly to learn from each other in exchange ideas and many of us meet individually to ask questions of each other and learn from each other. We all feel so lucky that we get to do this for a living and we take it very seriously and always strive to be the best therapist that we can.

Mentorship

Mentorship is a really big part of the value and structure of our practice. We meet monthly and provide each other with both a safe and challenging place to facilitate growth and to fuel each other’s curiosity. Half of the team consists of people trained by the director since their internships, and 2 of them were trained by both the director and the person who trained the director. This isn’t just a business it’s a group of passionate people who are genuinely motivated towards helping others.

Collaboration

One of the big risks for clinicians in private is that of isolation. A lot of times that therapist will run into difficulty and have no one to turn to, or be 3 weeks away from an appointment with their own supervisor. In the event that any of our therapists ever have questions about where to go with a client or concerns, they have access to each other within 2 hours to be able to learn and receive support.

Virtual Care

We were all a little bit resistant to virtual care when COVID started. We didn’t make the decision to become virtual lightly, we all had extensive discussions about how to adapt and make adjustments to our practice. Having seen many clients both in person and virtually we have to acknowledge that there are some things lacking in virtual versus in person, however there are so many more gains that’s we’ve concluded that virtual is the way we want to go going forward. One of the main reasons is that of flexibility for both parties. You can talk to us at extended hours, from the comfort of your own space. You get to have more time available to your own life by removing travel time. Your therapist has skipped the commute, eaten better (no food court food), probably slept better and has time to attend to their personal lives, this allows them to be even more present for their clients. We adapted by spending a little bit more time asking emotion and body focused questions and we feel that we can deliver equivalent care for most people. 

If you’re unsure about virtual, feel free to reach out and test it with us in a free consult.

Full Licensure

One concern we had about seeing sliding scale services offered on the internet was that of unlicensed therapists. Just because you can’t afford the full rate does not mean you deserve a lower quality of care. Make sure you keep an eye out for that as you’re looking for care that your clinician is a member of a regulated health profession college. All of our therapists are in good standing with either the Ontario College of Social workers and Social Service Workers or the College of Registered Psychotherapists of Ontario.