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Elizabeth Bala

Elizabeth Bala

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Registered Social Worker
She/Her
$160
Sessions start at
$160

Elizabeth is here to support you with disordered eating, trauma, sexuality, and gender identity.

Right for you if:

You are hoping to build a better relationship with your body and food.

You want to learn about practical, flexible strategies that support your mental health.

You’d like to collaboratively work with a therapist that specializes in processing trauma.

You prefer a harm reduction approach to addressing substance use & addiction.

Right for you if:

You are hoping to build a better relationship with your body and food.

You want to learn about practical, flexible strategies that support your mental health.

You’d like to collaboratively work with a therapist that specializes in processing trauma.

You prefer a harm reduction approach to addressing substance use & addiction.

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Elizabeth supports people who face challenges due to trauma, disordered eating, issues related to gender and sexuality, anxiety, and ADHD. Since 2016, Elizabeth has also supported young adults with substance use concerns and a variety of mental health diagnoses. Elizabeth will draw on your strengths and foster a space for you to lead your own healing. She’ll encourage you to remember your inherent worth and tap into your inner wisdom. You can expect this collaborative, client-centered approach in sessions with Elizabeth.

Elizabeth uses a trauma-informed, anti-oppressive approach to psychotherapy. This often means unpacking power dynamics and social systems that affect your mental health and create barriers to collective wellness. Elizabeth always uses a harm reduction approach in therapy. While Elizabeth’s practice is grounded in narrative therapy, she draws on several modalities, including cognitive behavioural therapy, dialectical behavioural therapy, traumatic incident reduction techniques, and mindfulness-based stress reduction. Elizabeth will meet you where you are without judgment, celebrate you as you are, and support you to navigate your mental wellness journey. In her graduate practicum, Elizabeth supported newcomers to Canada in a LGBTQ+ program at a community health organization. There, she supported folks who faced challenges in both their settlement process and marginalization due to their sexuality and/or gender identity.

In her personal life, Elizabeth has maintained a dedicated yoga/meditation practice for over a decade. This has given Elizabeth a deep awareness of and appreciation for the intimate connection between mind and body. For many people, the body is the site of pain and/or trauma, and it can equally be the source of healing. Elizabeth’s holistic approach blends therapeutic modalities with her fervent belief that every person can find a pathway to mental wellness. She’ll support you to find your own path to wellness through your community, culture, lineage, and the innate wisdom in your own body.

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What therapists say about

Elizabeth

Elizabeth is an incredibly person-centred, compassionate, and skilled therapist. She brings her breadth of information and training and works with you to address any trauma, disordered eating patterns, or addiction that you would like to work on.
Julieta Strugo
Registered Social Worker
Elizabeth’s passion for therapy that is trauma-informed and up-to-date with recent findings in mental health comes through in all that she does. She is knowledgeable, highly engaged and never fails to bring a fresh perspective.
Naomi Hyba
Registered Social Worker

More about

Elizabeth

Elizabeth Bala sitting in a chair holding her glasses and smiling.

Q&A

What is a motto or idea that gives you reassurance when you’re having a difficult time?
"When all the good in you starts arguing with all the bad in you about who you really are, never let the bad in you make the better case." - Andrea Gibson
How do you describe therapy?
A rest-stop place to put down everything you have been carrying. I hold the space for clients to choose (even if only temporarily) if there are things they want to leave behind in the rest place, or store them here for now. Clients decide what they want to pick back up to carry forward and explore different ways to pick those things back up; perhaps carrying them in a new way that feels less heavy, and makes life feel lighter.
What does good mental health look like to you?
To me, good mental health looks like having the most loving and caring relationship with yourself as possible. Like any healthy relationship this requires safety, accountability, responsive boundaries, a willingness to grow, a soft place to rest when necessary, and cannot occur in isolation.

Master of Social Work, University of Toronto (2020)

Bachelor of Social Work, Ryerson University (2018)

EMDR Basic Training (Personal Transformation Institute)

Getting Unstuck: Processing Trauma-Induced Guilt and Shame (MAGentix)

Unified CBT for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (University of Ottawa)

Advanced Standing Practice Seminar (University of Toronto)

Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training (LivingWorks)

Non-Violent Crisis Intervention Training (Crisis Prevention Institute)

Traumatic Incident Reduction (Applied Metapsychology International)

DBT Foundational Skills (Psychwire)

Ontario Association of Social Workers

Ontario College of Social Workers and Social Service Workers

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Elizabeth

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