Meet Jillian

Registered Social Worker & Trauma Therapist

When the Past Lives On,

Talking Isn’t Always Enough

Do you remember the last time you felt triggered? Chances are, your body went into survival mode and you felt the need to fight, freeze or flee rather than think, review and reflect. In order to engage in the traditional type of talk therapy, known as Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), we need to access our thinking brains. However, extensive research has shown that when we are triggered, our thinking brains go offline.

Therapies that only focus on thoughts or emotions, fail to address the ways in which trauma is stored in the body. The deeper healing work then goes untouched and the root cause unexplored. You may walk out of a session thinking, ‘that just didn’t work for me’. Using a trauma-specific approach, I work with the whole person to help calm the survival and emotional part of the brain first, so we can then access the thinking brain … and create lasting, transformational change.

My Journey as a Therapist

When I was younger, I had no idea what my future path would be. Yet, I always felt an overwhelming sense of compassion and empathy. Later on, I would realize that this was a gift that I can share with others.

I recognized early in my professional journey that our childhood experiences can shape our past, present and future. Through my work with children, I was able to heal a young person’s path, as well as learn how to heal the inner child that resides in every adult.

Mental health symptoms – from depression to anxiety, to stress to trauma – are coping strategies. They are our brain and bodies incredible attempts to protect us, despite them often causing us distress. Through our work together, we can find new ways of protecting the self, while also realizing the amazing capacity of our brain and body.

It never ceases to amaze me how powerful the human spirit is – even in the face of extreme challenges, distress and trauma.

With the right tools and the right guide, anyone can heal.

Healthy Attachments. Healthy Minds.

From early on, our relationships play a role in our mental health. A strong emotional and physical attachment to at least one primary caregiver in our early years (ie. a parent) is essential to emotional, social, and behavioral development. These attachment patterns become embedded in the pathways of our brain and central nervous system and can affect our ability to regulate our emotions.

After taking a developmental, relationship, and family history, I determine the therapeutic approach to healing attachment wounds, complex trauma, dissociation and more. Together, we will relearn healthy relationship patterns, heal parts of your younger self, and better navigate your emotional landscape.

The result is a happier and mentally healthier child, parent and adult.

Supporting Mental Strength, at Every Step

Whether you are four, fourteen or forty – one size does not fit all. That’s why I use an assortment of therapeutic techniques to guide clients on a journey that breaks through harmful thought and relational patterns, makes sense of negative memories, and empowers them to reach their full – and amazing – potential.

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Child, Youth & Adult EMDR Therapy

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is a technique focuses on the past, present, and future to help the brain reprocess negative memories and neutralize triggers. This alleviates emotional distress, sensations of ‘stuckness’, and related symptoms of mental unease.

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Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)

Trauma-focused CBT addresses the unique needs of persons with trauma symptoms and resulting symptoms of depression, difficult behavior problems, and other challenges related to trauma.

I incorporate individual sessions for adults, children, and combined parent-child sessions.

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Sensorimotor Psychotherapy (SP)

Sensorimotor Psychotherapy incorporates body processing into the emotional and cognitive processing of trauma. By using the body (rather than just thought or emotion) as a primary entry point in trauma processing, we can directly treat the effects of trauma on the nervous and sensorimotor systems.

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Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction

This therapy incorporates aspects of mindfulness, cognitive behavioural, and self-regulation skills to help clients develop their own inner resources and make positive shifts in attitudes, behaviours, and relationships. It teaches acceptance, non-judgement, and observing (rather than becoming).

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Polyvagal Theory in Trauma Therapy

Polyvagal Theory offers a way to understand how our autonomic nervous system relates to the ability to connect to and communicate with others. It also offers a way of conceptualizing and understanding the internal mechanisms of fear or trauma-based reactions and symptoms.

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Structural Dissociation Treatment

This therapy addresses complex trauma-related symptoms, disorders, or experiences characterized by a division of the personality into different parts as a means of survival. It is a phase-oriented treatment focused on symptom reduction and stabilization, integration, overcoming fears, attachment patterns, and more.

From Trauma to Triumph

Our brains have a natural information processing system that may get blocked when traumatic or adverse events occur. This can overwhelm our ability to cope, causing them to get locked in the brain with the original picture, sounds, thoughts, feelings and body sensations – like a scene from a movie. Whenever we encounter a reminder of the event, the same distressing response may be triggered. Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) helps the brain reprocess these memories so they no longer hold the same negative emotional charge.

I’m one of the few practitioners in Canada who is trained and experienced in using EMDR with children and youth (ages 4 and older). I’m trained under the supervision of Ana Gomez, Psychotherapist, Author, Lecturer, and Researcher in EMDR (Arizona).

I’m also a founding partner of the Healing Therapy Alliance, a collective of integrative Psychotherapists, Wellness Therapists, and Addictions Counselors.

CONTACT US

55 Eglinton Ave E Suite 507,

Toronto, ON M4P 1G8

BY APPOINTMENT

Monday 9am – 5pm

Tuesday – Thurs 10am – 7pm

Friday 9am – 5pm

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JILLIAN HOSEY

55 Eglinton Ave E, Suite 507