Yaoxin Zhang

Life is always full of challenges and difficulties. It is not easy to deal with those unbearable emotions, lingering thoughts, or painful past. However, you are resilient and brave as you decide to face them and keep growing. Importantly, you are not alone. I am strongly willing to listen to you and it is my honor to be with you at this important time in your life. You will be totally accepted just as who you are. I will do my best to provide you with a warm and safe space where you can say whatever you want.

With 7 years of professional training and practice, I am adept at assisting people with processing strong emotions, such as depression, anxiety, and stress, and helping clients adjust relative behaviors like binge eating, anorexia, avoidance in social situations, or burnout. Besides, my training in prolonged-exposure therapy equipped me with abilities to facilitate release from PTSD and trauma, including emotional and physical abuse and neglect. Moreover, I have extensive experience helping clients deal with relational issues (e.g., attachment, intimate relationship, sense of security, parent-child relationship, friendship). Specifically, I have been trained and practiced in different countries, including China, UK, and US, which strengthens my abilities to deal with multicultural issues (e.g., culture adaptation, immigration, stereotypes and perceived discrimination, culture identity).

Throughout our journey together, we will have an initial assessment session and subsequent counselling sessions focusing on exploration, insight, and behavioral changes respectively on different stages. In a first visit with me, I will conduct a comprehensive scientific-based assessment of your difficulties, which aims to help you gain an understanding of the nature of your current situations. Besides, we will establish your therapeutic goals and treatment plan together. To help you achieve the goals in the following sessions, I will employ various psychological approaches and tailor them based on scientific evidence and your special needs. To begin with, I will draw from humanistic models to help you explore your inner experience and figure out the deep roots of the distress. Psychoanalytic techniques will also be used to facilitate the formation of a full picture of your struggles. You will have a deeper understanding about the influence of the past on the present. When we work on behavioral changes, cognitive-behavioral and mindfulness-based strategies with be employed to help establish adaptive behaviors. Importantly, the vital base of these techniques is a trustworthy therapeutic relationship marked by empathy and geniuses, which is also my focus through the counselling process.

I have completed my master’s degree in counselling psychology from the University of Pennsylvania, USA, also and hold a master’s in counselling studies from the University of Edinburgh, UK. I am currently finishing my doctoral degree at the University of Toronto. During my work period, I have also contributed in some research projects, including multicultural counseling for Chinese population and Asian healing traditions.