Online Emotion Regulation Support Across Ontario
Emotion Regulation Therapy in Ontario
If you go from zero to a hundred and then shut down completely, the problem isn’t that you feel too much. It’s that no one taught you what to do with it. Work with a therapist online, with no waitlist.
- No waitlist
- Secure video sessions
- Reduced-fee sessions available
- Receipts for extended health benefits
Full Volume, Then Nothing at All
Emotional regulation is the ability to feel something strongly and still choose what you do next. It’s a skill, not a personality trait, which means it can be learned at any age.
Emotional dysregulation is what happens when that ability keeps getting overrun. The feeling arrives at full volume and there’s no dial, only an on and an off. You go from zero to a hundred, say the thing you’ll replay at 2am, then flatten into a numb, foggy quiet that can last for days.
Most people who come to us for this are not out of control. They’re exhausted from holding it together all day, at work, in the group chat, in front of the kids, so it all lands later at home, on the people they love most.
That isn’t a character flaw. Your nervous system learned to react fast when reacting fast mattered, and nobody taught you the rest: how to catch a feeling early, name it, settle your body, and act on purpose.
What People Bring to Emotion Regulation Therapy
Emotional overwhelm shows up differently in everyone. These are the patterns we hear about most.
Anger
Faster Than Thought
You snap, raise your voice or go cold, then see how far it went.
Stress
It Never Switches Off
Your body stays braced even on a quiet Sunday, long after the deadline passed.
Burnout
Running on Empty
Work, caregiving or both have drained everything, and a weekend off no longer touches it.
Sensitivity
Highly Sensitive People
You take in more than most people, feel the mood of a room, and need real recovery time.
Shutdown
Going Numb
After the surge comes the flat part, where you can’t feel much and can’t explain why.
Coping
Numbing and Distraction
Scrolling, snacking, drinking, staying busy. It works in the moment, which is why it’s hard to stop.
Anxiety
Wired and Worrying
Regulation skills sit underneath most anxiety work. About anxiety therapy
Trauma
Reactions With History
When the response makes sense given what you lived through. About CPTSD therapy
Neurodivergence
ADHD and Sensory Overload
Big feelings, fast shifts, low tolerance for overstimulation. About ADHD therapy
Fight, Flight and Freeze, in Plain Language
When something registers as a threat, your body reacts before you’ve had a chance to think it through. The fight, flight and freeze stress response speeds you up to push back, pushes you to get away, or locks everything down and holds you still. It happens in well under a second, which is why you can be halfway into an argument before you notice you’re in one.
That system isn’t broken when it fires often. It’s doing what it learned to do, usually because at some point it had to. If voices rose without warning in the house you grew up in, your body got good at scanning for trouble and quick at reacting to it.
Anger is the clearest example. It arrives faster than thought, does something useful for about ten seconds, and leaves the mess with you. Anger itself isn’t the problem. It’s information, usually about a line that’s been crossed or a need that’s gone unmet for a long time. What we work on is the gap between the surge and what you do with it.
The shutdown side matters just as much. Going quiet, numb or blank isn’t weakness. It’s the same protective system choosing a different setting when the alarm has been on too long.
Stress That Never Switches Off, and Burnout
Stress is supposed to be a wave: it rises, you handle the thing, it falls. The trouble starts when it stops falling. Deadlines, a sick parent, money, a phone that never stops, and your body stays braced: jaw tight, shoulders up, sleep thin, patience gone by 4pm.
Most advice about how to reduce stress assumes you can do less, which is rarely on offer. So we work both sides: the load, and what your nervous system does with it.
- Slow, long exhales, because breathing out signals safety
- Naming the feeling out loud, which lowers its intensity fast
- Movement that discharges the energy instead of storing it
- One protected part of the day that belongs to nobody else
- Saying no earlier, before resentment does the talking
Burnout Is Not the Same as Being Tired
Ordinary tiredness lifts after a good sleep or a week away. Burnout doesn’t. It builds over months of demand without enough recovery, and it brings something tiredness doesn’t: a flat detachment, where work you cared about stops landing and the people you love start to feel like tasks. Caregiver burnout has its own shape, because you can’t hand the job back.
Recovering from burnout is rarely about rest alone. It means looking honestly at the load, at the parts of it that were never yours, and at the guilt that arrives the moment you put something down. That work overlaps with boundary setting and people pleasing more often than people expect.
Being a Highly Sensitive Person
Some people are built to take in more. If you’re a highly sensitive person, you notice detail others walk past, feel the atmosphere of a room as you enter it, react strongly to noise, light and other people’s distress, and need real recovery after a full day. Called too sensitive often enough, you start treating your own responses as a flaw.
Sensitivity is a temperament, not a disorder, and it has real advantages: empathy, nuance, noticing what everyone else missed. What makes it painful is living without the regulation skills to match. Sensitivity plus no recovery time is constant overwhelm. Sensitivity plus good skills and honest boundaries is a different experience entirely.
Numbing, Distraction and the Quiet Side of Dysregulation
Not all dysregulation looks loud. Often it looks like a phone at midnight, a second glass of wine, or another hour of work because stopping means feeling. Numbing isn’t a character failure. It’s a solution that works immediately, which is what makes it hard to give up.
The goal isn’t to strip away every comfort. It’s to build enough tolerance for your own feelings that you stop needing an exit, and to notice which habits are rest and which are avoidance in rest’s clothing.
Skills You Practise, Not Just Talk About
Insight helps, but regulation improves through repetition. Sessions give you something specific to try between appointments, then time to review how it went.
Naming What You Feel
A vocabulary beyond fine, stressed and angry. Precise words shrink a feeling to something workable.
Catching It Early in the Body
Heat in the face, a tight jaw, a held breath. Your body flags the surge before your thoughts do.
The Pause
Ways to buy back a few seconds: stepping out, putting the phone down, one long exhale before you answer.
Distress Tolerance
Riding out an intense wave without making things worse, so you don’t have to fix a feeling instantly.
Self-Soothing
Knowing what settles your nervous system, and having it ready before you need it.
DBT Informed Skills
Dialectical behaviour therapy skills for emotion regulation, distress tolerance and mindfulness of what you feel.
Approaches Our Therapists Draw On
Every therapist has their own style. Depending on who you work with, sessions may draw on one or more of these, in a trauma-informed way.
Emotion-Focused Therapy
Works with the feeling itself, so emotions become guides instead of things to survive.
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy
Helps you catch the thoughts that pour fuel on a reaction, and respond differently.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
Builds your ability to sit with a hard feeling without acting on it.
Somatic and Nervous System Work
Starts in the body, where regulation happens, using attention, breath and movement.
Solution-Focused Therapy
Builds the next small change from the moments you already handle well.
Narrative Therapy
Separates you from the label, so being the angry one stops being the whole story.
Our therapists offer DBT informed skills work within individual therapy. We do not run a structured DBT programme or a DBT skills group, and we do not offer full DBT adherent treatment.
How Emotion Regulation Therapy Works
Getting started is simple, and everything happens online.
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Pick a Time
Choose a free 15 to 20 minute consultation slot and tell us a little about what’s going on.
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We Match You
Behind the scenes, we pair you with a therapist based on what you’re working through, how you like to work and your background, then confirm your appointment by email or text.
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Free Meet & Greet With Your Therapist
Ask your questions and assess fit. Start sessions within days and schedule with them directly.
What Changes When Regulation Improves
- The gap between feeling something and reacting gets wider
- You recover from a hard day in hours instead of days
- Anger says what it needs to without the fallout afterwards
- You can be upset and still get through the meeting or the bedtime
- You reach for the screen or the drink less, because you don’t need the exit
Our team includes Registered Psychotherapists and Registered Psychotherapists (Qualifying), and every session takes place online across Ontario.
Therapists Who Work With Emotional Regulation
These therapists list emotion regulation among their areas of focus. During your free consultation, we’ll help you find the right fit.
Want to see everyone? Meet the full team.
What Emotion Regulation Therapy Costs
We offer different price points depending on your needs and your therapist’s qualifications. Every session comes with a receipt for your extended health benefits.
Affordable Care$90Sessions completed with a Masters Level Resident Intern working under supervision. Ideal for clients experiencing hardship.
Sliding Scale$100–$160Sessions completed with a Masters Level Resident Intern or Advanced Therapists offering sliding scale. Ideal for clients with limited health insurance.
Standard & Specialty$170+Sessions completed with therapists with higher levels of experience or with specialized care with different issues. Ideal for clients with health insurance coverage.
Your first 15 to 20 minute consultation is free. Fees can vary by therapist, so check their profile for details. OHIP does not cover private psychotherapy. Read more about affordable care, our sliding scale and standard fees. Individual sessions are 50 minutes.
Using Your Benefits
Many plans cover psychotherapy, but they differ. Before you book, check whether your plan covers services provided by a psychotherapist, or psychotherapy, which provider types it covers, such as Registered Psychotherapists and Registered Psychotherapists (Qualifying), and how much coverage you have each year. We provide a receipt after every session so you can submit your claim.
Online Across Ontario
Because every session is online, you can work with the therapist who fits you rather than the one nearest your postal code.
- TorontoOnline therapy
- OttawaOnline therapy
- MississaugaOnline therapy
- HamiltonOnline therapy
See all the places we work across Ontario.
Related Services
Frequently Asked Questions About Emotion Regulation Therapy
What is emotional regulation?
Emotional regulation is the ability to feel something strongly and still choose what you do next. It means noticing the feeling, settling your body enough to think clearly, and acting in a way you won’t regret later. These are skills, not personality traits, so they can be practised and improved.
What does emotion regulation therapy help with?
Anger that arrives faster than thought, stress that never switches off, burnout, going from zero to a hundred and then shutting down, feeling everything intensely as a highly sensitive person, and numbing out with screens, food or overwork.
Do you offer DBT?
Several of our therapists list DBT skills and emotion regulation among their areas of focus, so sessions can draw on DBT informed skills such as distress tolerance and self-soothing. We do not run a structured DBT programme, a DBT skills group or full DBT adherent treatment.
How much does emotion regulation therapy cost?
Sessions are $90 with a Master’s-level psychotherapy intern through Affordable Care, $100 to $160 on our Sliding Scale, and from $170 for Standard and Specialty. Your first 15 to 20 minute consultation is free, and every session comes with a receipt for your extended health benefits provider.
Does OHIP cover emotion regulation therapy?
OHIP does not cover private psychotherapy. Many extended health benefit plans include psychotherapy coverage, and we provide receipts after each session for you to submit.
Do you offer direct billing to my insurance?
Not yet. We don’t currently offer direct billing, but we’re working on it. For now, you pay for each session and we send a receipt you can submit to your extended health plan for reimbursement.
Is there a waitlist?
No. True Self Counselling has no waitlist. Most people book a free consultation and begin therapy within days.
How is burnout different from being tired?
Ordinary tiredness lifts after sleep or a week off. Burnout doesn’t. It builds over months of demand without enough recovery and brings a flat, detached feeling with it, so things you used to care about stop landing. Rest alone rarely fixes it.
Can therapy help with anger?
Yes. Anger is information, usually about a line that has been crossed or a need left unmet for a long time. Therapy widens the gap between feeling it and acting on it. This is individual therapy rather than an anger management class.
How does online therapy work across Ontario?
Every session takes place over secure video, so you can attend from anywhere in Ontario. You book a free 15 to 20 minute consultation, we match you behind the scenes with a therapist who fits what you’re working through, and you meet them for a free meet & greet before starting sessions online.
Do I need a referral?
No. You don’t need a doctor’s referral to see one of our therapists. Some extended health benefit plans ask for one before they reimburse psychotherapy, so it’s worth checking your plan.
Ready to Feel Steadier?
Book a free 15 to 20 minute video consultation with a therapist matched to you.
or call / text 289‑270‑1220
True Self Counselling is not a crisis service. If you are in crisis, call or text 9‑8‑8 any time, or call 911 in an emergency.