Online ADHD, Autism & AuDHD Support Across Ontario
Neurodivergent-Affirming Therapy in Ontario
Therapy that works with your brain instead of trying to make you look like everyone else. Whether you’re diagnosed, self-identified or still figuring it out, you can start online with no waitlist.
- No waitlist
- Secure video sessions
- Reduced-fee sessions available
- Receipts for extended health benefits
Support That Doesn’t Ask You to Seem Neurotypical
Neurodivergent-affirming therapy starts from a simple position: your brain is not a defect to be corrected.
Many people arrive having already tried therapy that quietly pushed the other way. Sessions focused on being more organized, more consistent, better at small talk, and even when nobody said it out loud, the measure of progress was looking less different. That kind of work tends to leave you more tired than when you started.
Affirming therapy does the opposite. Your therapist works with how your attention, energy, senses and emotions actually function. Difficulty is taken seriously, and so are the reasons behind it. When something in your life genuinely isn’t working, you build supports shaped around you rather than borrowing strategies designed for a brain that runs on different fuel.
Often the first real piece of work is separating what is hard because of how you’re wired from what is hard because of years of being called lazy, too sensitive, too intense or not trying hard enough. From the inside those two things feel identical. Pulling them apart changes how you treat yourself.
What People Work On With Us
No two neurodivergent people need the same thing, so therapy starts with what is actually happening in your life. These are some of the most common reasons people begin.
Masking
The Cost of Performing
Notice where and why you mask, what it takes out of you, and where it might be safe to stop.
Burnout
When Everything Stops Working
Recover from the kind of depletion where skills you had last year are suddenly out of reach.
Sensory
Overload and Shutdown
Understand your sensory profile and plan around it rather than pushing through it every day.
AuDHD
ADHD and Autism Together
Make sense of needing novelty and sameness at once, and stop reading that as failure.
Late identification
Recognizing It as an Adult
Work through the relief, grief and rewriting that come with understanding yourself later in life.
Emotion
Intensity and Rejection Sensitivity
Build ways to ride big emotional waves without turning them on yourself. About emotion regulation
Anxiety
Anxiety Built From Coping
Untangle the constant self-monitoring that comes from years of bracing for getting it wrong. About anxiety therapy
Daily life
Executive Function, Work and Study
Find approaches to time, tasks and follow-through that suit your brain. About ADHD therapy
Relationships
Boundaries Without Over-Explaining
Ask for what you need and say no without a paragraph of justification. About boundary setting
Masking, Unmasking and Burnout
Masking is the effort of appearing fine. Rehearsing how you’ll answer a question, tracking your face and tone, holding still when your body wants to move, saving your reaction until you’re alone in the car. For many people it started so early that it doesn’t feel like a choice, it feels like being a person.
The trouble is that masking runs on the same energy everything else needs. Do it for years and the bill arrives as burnout: a flat, heavy state where coping you used to manage effortlessly simply isn’t available. Words go missing. Familiar sounds become unbearable. It’s common to read this as laziness and push harder, which only makes it deeper.
Therapy here is less about adding techniques and more about lowering the load. Your therapist helps you map where your energy actually goes, which demands are genuinely required and which are inherited habit, and what recovery looks like in practice. Unmasking happens at your pace, in the places you choose. Nobody is asking you to drop your protection everywhere at once.
When Sensory Needs Are Part of the Picture
Sensory experience is not a preference to be talked out of. Lighting, fabric, background noise, smell, temperature and the wrong kind of touch can all use up capacity before the day has started. We treat sensory needs as information, so you can build a life with fewer unavoidable collisions and reliable ways to settle when one happens anyway.
ADHD and Autism Together, and Finding Out Later
ADHD is one form of neurodivergence, autism is another, and a great many people are both. AuDHD, as it’s often shortened, is not two lists of traits stacked up. It can feel like an internal negotiation: wanting novelty and needing routine, craving deep focus while your attention scatters, longing for connection and running out of social capacity halfway through. Strategies aimed at only one side tend to fall apart.
Recognizing any of this as an adult brings its own work. Some people feel immediate relief, as though a long argument with themselves has finally been settled. Others feel real grief for the years spent trying to be someone easier and for the accommodations nobody offered. Both reactions are normal, and they often arrive in the same week.
Neurodivergent-affirming therapy may be a good fit if you:
- Recognize yourself in ADHD, autism or both, whether or not it’s official
- Are worn out from performing a version of yourself all day
- Have hit a wall where your usual coping no longer works
- Want support with sensory needs instead of being told to adapt
- Found past therapy unhelpful or subtly corrective
- Are reinterpreting your history after a late identification
- Need a therapist who gives clear, direct answers rather than hints
How to Get Started
Getting started is deliberately low effort, 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 to Expect in Your First Sessions
First sessions can be the hardest part, especially if you’ve had to explain yourself to professionals before and come away feeling misread. This one is about your therapist understanding how you work, not about you proving anything.
You’ll usually talk about what brought you in, what drains you fastest and what helps you recover. If you have a diagnosis, share as much or as little of it as you want. If you don’t, your own description of your experience is enough to work from.
By the end of your first session, you can expect to:
- Be believed about your own experience without having to justify it
- Have named the demands that are costing you the most
- Agree on goals that are yours, not a checklist of normal
- Know how sessions will be structured from here
Things You Can Ask For
You don’t have to fit a format that works against you. Bring these up at your free consultation, and we’ll match you with a therapist who works that way.
- Keeping your camera off, on, or somewhere in between
- Breaks partway through, and quiet when you need to think
- Stimming, fidgeting, doodling, pacing or lying down during session
- Direct language and plain answers instead of hints or long silences
- A short written summary after sessions, so you aren’t holding it all in your head
- Knowing the plan for a session in advance, if surprises are the hard part
Every session takes place over secure video, anywhere in Ontario.
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 approaches, adapted to how you process and grounded in a trauma-informed way of working.
Trauma-informed and goal-oriented. If your family history or past experiences are relevant, your therapist can explore them with you, while keeping sessions focused on the goals you came in with. The work is paced with you, so you are never pushed into feelings that are too overwhelming, or left on your own to figure out how to manage them.
Emotion-Focused Therapy
Makes room for intense feeling and helps you name what sits underneath it, which matters when emotions arrive faster than words.
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy
Used flexibly, it helps you examine the harsh conclusions you’ve drawn about yourself, without treating your traits as the thing to fix.
Solution-Focused Therapy
Builds on what already works for your brain and the small, concrete adjustments that free up capacity this week.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
Strengthens your ability to sit with discomfort while still acting on what matters to you, rather than waiting to feel typical first.
Narrative Therapy
Separates you from the story you were handed, so lazy, difficult and too much stop functioning as descriptions of who you are.
Somatic and Nervous System Work
Helps you read your own signals earlier, so overload and shutdown become something you can respond to rather than discover too late.
No idea what you need? That’s a normal starting point, and you don’t have to work it out before you get help. Book a free consultation and we’ll talk it through — working out what would suit you is part of what the call is for.
Know what you’re looking for? Tell us when you book and we’ll match you with a therapist who works that way.
Neurodivergent-Affirming Therapists
These therapists list ADHD, autism and neurodivergence 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 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 15 to 20 minute consultation is free. Fees can vary by therapist, so check their profile for details. OHIP does not cover private psychotherapy. See our affordable care, sliding scale and standard options. Individual sessions are 50 minutes.
Using Your Benefits
Many extended health benefit plans cover psychotherapy. Check which provider types your plan covers, and keep in mind that a Health Spending Account may cover sessions too. We provide a receipt after every session so you can submit your claim.
Online Therapy Anywhere in Ontario
Being online isn’t a compromise here, it removes two of the biggest barriers to getting support. There’s no commute, no parking, no unfamiliar building to navigate and no waiting room with strip lighting and other people’s conversations. You arrive with your capacity intact instead of spending it before the session starts, whether you live downtown or three hours from the nearest clinic.
- TorontoOnline therapy
- OttawaOnline therapy
- MississaugaOnline therapy
- HamiltonOnline therapy
We see clients across the province. See all locations.
Setting Up a Session That Suits You
- Pick your own lighting, sound level and seating
- Keep headphones, a blanket, a fidget or a pet within reach
- Silence notifications and close anything you’ll want to check
- Leave a buffer afterward to decompress before the next thing
Related Services
Frequently Asked Questions
What does neurodivergent-affirming therapy mean?
It means your therapist works with how your brain actually functions instead of trying to make you appear neurotypical. Difficulty is taken seriously, and so are the reasons behind it, so the goal is a life that fits you rather than one that looks conventional from the outside.
Is ADHD neurodivergent?
Yes. Neurodivergent is an umbrella word for brains that process attention, information, emotion or sensory input differently from the typical pattern, and ADHD is one of the most commonly named forms of it. Autism is another, and many people identify with both.
Do you provide ADHD or autism assessments or diagnoses?
No. We provide therapy only. In Ontario, a formal diagnosis comes from a physician, psychiatrist or psychologist, not from a Registered Psychotherapist. Our therapists work with people who are diagnosed, self-identified or still questioning.
Can I start therapy if I am not formally diagnosed?
Yes. You do not need a diagnosis, a report or any paperwork to begin. Many of the people we work with are self-identified or still questioning, and therapy can help you make sense of your experience either way.
How much does neurodivergent-affirming therapy cost?
Sessions are $90 through Affordable Care with our Masters Level Resident Interns, who work under supervision, $100 to $160 on our Sliding Scale, and $170+ for Standard & Specialty sessions with our most experienced therapists. Your 15 to 20 minute consultation is free, fees can vary by therapist, and every session comes with a receipt for your extended health benefits provider.
Does OHIP cover therapy for ADHD or autism?
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 can book a free consultation and begin therapy within days.
Can I keep my camera off during sessions?
Ask us at your free consultation. Many of our therapists are glad to work with your camera off, and with looking away, moving around, stimming, doodling or taking a break partway through, and we’ll match you with someone whose way of working fits yours.
How does online therapy help with sensory and travel barriers?
Every session is online, so there is no waiting room, no fluorescent lighting, no commute and no unfamiliar building to manage before you start talking. You attend from your own space, with your own lighting, sound and comfort items, anywhere in Ontario.
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 a referral before they reimburse psychotherapy, so it’s worth checking your plan.
Ready to Start?
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.