Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs), Considerations and Working Definitions

1-My approach is experiential and body centred:

This is not traditional talk or cognitive based support. This involves an embodied framework where verbal communication is used to support conveying information, processing, guiding and debriefing, however we are directly engaging with the body’s sensations, movements, and whole body responses. This method focuses on sensorimotor processing, learning through doing and experiencing, allowing you to gain awareness and process information from the bottom up in addition to top down by focusing on your body’s own feedback systems. Instead of primarily using verbal dialogue alone, you actively explore what’s happening in your body in real time, using direct physical experience as the pathway to insight, awareness and understanding.

2-My perspective on healing and wellness:

My practices create space for and welcomes all belief systems and cultural backgrounds. My approach integrates connection to spirit and ancestral memory as part of my African diasporic and multicultural framework. I don’t impose these beliefs or ask clients to adopt them—they simply inform how I understand healing and wellness. Our work will always centre your care, autonomy, and what feels right for you. Wherever you are at, your cultural beliefs and values will be honoured. I ask all prospective clients to consider how comfortable they are working with someone whose practice is informed by these perspectives.

3-Dual Relationships:

I do not hold dual relationships and do not provide services across my practices to the same individual. I do not provide any somatic service, including somatic coaching and psychotherapy services to the same individual, whether at the same time or sequentially. If you are or have been a client of mine through any previous service, I will not be able to see you in any other capacity / new client relationship for any additional/new service.

When you’re considering a psychotherapy session it’s helpful to know that psychotherapy is a controlled act, and in Toronto, Ontario psychotherapists are regulated by provincial law and must be registered with the College of Registered Psychotherapists of Ontario (CRPO). You can find detailed information about the practice standards on their website. Psychotherapy sessions are documented in your health record. Various health insurance plans in Ontario cover registered psychotherapists, however I’d encourage you to verify your specific coverage with your insurance provider for details.

In general psychotherapy focuses on supporting your awareness and insights into the psychosocial issues affecting your wellbeing. Rather than providing advice or diagnosis, I offer guidance and wellness plans that help build your capacity to engage with the challenges you bring forward. How this unfolds in our work together is shaped by my professional practice standards, my individual scope of practice, and the modalities I’m trained in. (You can find more details, under my About section.)

When you choose any other somatic service sessions or Somatic Coaching packages, these services operate outside the regulatory framework mentioned above. My somatic service offerings are distinct somatic modalities with their own lineages, training and applications, guided by my personal and professional ethics, grounded in years of praxis, continuous self-examination, and ongoing consultation with fellow somatic educators and practitioners. My expertise and training in trauma-informed, expressive, embodied somatic modalities inform how I support you. Our sessions honour your privacy, confidentiality and consent, and are not subject to regulations surrounding documentation or overseen by an institution or government body that are a part of your health record. My role is to assess and guide you through processing and integration using body centred, movement based, expressive, and somatic modalities. If you are seeking insurance covered services, you’ll want to check with your insurance provider or benefit plan to see if they offer the flexibility of coverage for these services.

If you’re unsure which service to choose, book a complimentary consult call to help determine which service is best for you.

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Somatic Coaching and Psychotherapy are distinct services with different frameworks, purposes, and scopes — even though both may draw on somatic and body-centred approaches.

Psychotherapy in Ontario is a regulated act, governed by the College of Registered Psychotherapists of Ontario (CRPO). It focuses on supporting your awareness and insight into psychosocial issues affecting your wellbeing, and operates within a clinical framework that includes health records, regulatory oversight, and in many cases, insurance coverage.

Somatic Coaching is not psychotherapy, and does not operate within a regulated clinical framework. It is a future-oriented, collaborative practice focused on who you’re becoming and the changes you want to make — grounded in your values, your body’s wisdom, and what matters most to you. Coaching does not involve diagnosing, evaluating, or treating psychological or medical conditions, and is not a substitute for registered or licensed healthcare or psychotherapy.

In practical terms: if you are navigating significant mental health concerns, trauma that requires clinical support, or are seeking insured treatment, psychotherapy is likely the more appropriate fit. If you are in a relatively stable place and are ready to do active, embodied work toward your goals and the life you’re building, Somatic Coaching may be what you’re looking for.

If you’re unsure, I’m happy to help you figure out which would be most supportive — book a complimentary consultation and we can talk it through.

Somatics involve a field of study and practice of the body as experienced from within—focusing on internal sensations, movement, and awareness rather than external observation. This field recognizes the body’s innate wisdom and capacity for healing, drawing from ancient practices that honour the mind-body connection and blend it with modern day science.

I offer somatic therapy as a gentle, body-centred approach that honours the deep connection between your mind, physical sensations and emotional experiences. Through bottom-up processing, we work with your body’s natural responses and movements to support emotional awareness, nervous system regulation, and therapeutic growth. This approach invites you to tune into your embodied experience. My role is to help you develop a compassionate relationship with your bodymind (through bottom-up and top-down processing) as we work together toward integration and felt sensations of safety and wholeness.

Most insurance providers/health plans cover psychotherapy by a registered psychotherapist. It is advised that you check with your insurance/plan provider to determine your coverage.

It is best to confirm with me about direct billing availability for your specific plan. For plans where direct billing isn’t available, you’ll need to pay on the day of your session, and you’ll be provided with a receipt to submit your claims directly for reimbursement.

I practice cultural humility from my social cultural location and politicized lens as a Black queer neurodivergent somatic practitioner. I primarily support BIPOC individuals/Global Majority, those with marginalized identities, and anyone who is looking for a socio-culturally attuned and responsive approach.

I offer sliding scale fees from $185-200 per session, based on mutual capacity and social equity, particularly for folks navigating systemic barriers related to race, class, disability, LGBTQ+ identities, and other factors that shape access to care.

During your consultation, we’ll discuss what fee feels sustainable for you and for me.

I also offer community and group drop-in classes:

• All bodies sessions generally priced: $35-45
• BIPOC community sessions generally priced: $0-35 (PWYC)

Pricing may vary by session length. These offerings are offered from time-to-time based on capacity and resources. Upcoming sessions can be found in the Workshops section of my website.

Cancellation Policy:

I have a 48hr cancellation policy (excluding weekends or statutory holidays).

The full session fee will be billed for missed or cancelled appointments without 48 hrs. advance notice. Late arrivals beyond a 15-minute grace period are considered cancellations and incur full session fees.

I use a secure telehealth platform for all my virtual sessions as well as a secure online practice management system. The platforms are password-protected, encrypted, and comply with Ontario’s Personal Health Information Protection Act (PHIPA) and the Federal Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA), which govern the secure collection, use, and storage of personal health information (and complies with the professional standards of practice for registered psychotherapy in Ontario).

Movement honours both that sometimes the most profound healing happens in complete stillness, while other times the body needs gentle movement to process and integrate experiences.

Movement/dance includes your experience of energetic movement and flow.

This could look like:

• Gentle swaying or rocking
• Stretching
• Moving authentically (how the body wants to move)
• Walking or moving through space
• Shaking or trembling to release tension
• Gentle joint rotations
• Macro movements
• Quick movements
• Force-filled or deliberately effortful

As well as stillness:

• Conscious breathing
• Noticing organic movements
• Mindful awareness of internal sensations
• Grounding through stillness (feeling connection to the earth)
• Pausing to notice sensations during movement
• Holding gentle positions and noticing what arises
• Silent presence with whatever is happening in the body

My practice in movement extends far beyond standardized disciplines or socialized structures. Movement is the sacred conversation between your body’s sensations and motor pathways—a dialogue that includes the subtle rise and fall of your breath, the gentle slide of an eyelid, energetic shifts that live in imagination and felt sense, or the powerful act of moving through space. I honour that all movement is good movement, all bodies have their own unique capacities and abilities, and the wondrous variety of human expression deserves celebration rather than standardization.

No. Movement can appear as stillness, as micro-gestures, or as full-body expression. There is no singular authority that defines ‘correct’ movement—only diverse modalities and the infinite wisdom of bodies in motion. My approach reclaims movement as your birthright, free from the judgments of dominant institutional systems about what bodies ‘should’ do.

You’ll never be asked to move in ways that don’t feel right for your body, and your consent is key. There’s no requirement to dance in our sessions—movement includes everything from conscious breathing and gentle stillness to micro-gestures like shifting your posture or noticing sensations. Dance, when it emerges, is simply your body’s authentic expression, not any formal technique or choreography. We follow what feels authentic and safe for you in each moment, honouring that stillness itself can be deeply transformative and healing too.

Embodiment practices involve intentionally connecting with and inhabiting your body to deepen awareness of your felt experiences. These somatic approaches help you tune into your body’s sensations, emotions, and wisdom, creating a clearer understanding of how you experience yourself and the world through your physical being. Embodiment practices invite you to move beyond thinking about your body to actually feeling and sensing from within it.

Experientials are therapeutic practices where I invite you to engage through direct, lived experience rather than just talking or thinking about your concerns. These approaches recognize that trauma, emotions, and psychological patterns are stored not just in your thoughts but in your body, relationships, and immediate felt sense of being. We work together through action, sensation, emotion, and embodied practice because meaningful change often happens when you experience something new rather than discussing or analyzing it.

I offer somatic relational touch as a gentle, collaborative approach. The practice is provided virtually (online) through my guidance and your self-directed touch. While remaining deeply attuned to your nonverbal cues, bodily responses, and communication, I support you in reconnecting with your body’s sensations and emotions. This approach offers the opportunity to cultivate felt sensations of safety and connection within our therapeutic relationship. By encouraging your agency and providing supportive guidance, this work helps restore your capacity for healthy connection, emotional regulation, and secure (enough) attachments—particularly for those healing from relational, historic and colonial trauma including childhood experiences that have impacted their emotional processing.

*All self-touch and, or energetic touch support is done fully clothed and within professional ethics and standards of practice.

My approach to dance centres movement as authentic self-expression and communication—a fundamental assertion of who you are through rhythm and embodiment. Rather than imposing western colonial standards of ‘correct’ movement, I honour dance as a deeply personal language that emerges from your body’s own wisdom and cultural knowing. Through repetition, amplification, and relationship with rhythmic qualities (ie. vibration, energy, music…) and environment, we create meaning that is entirely your own. This practice is about cultivating self-permission to move as your body wants to move, free from external judgment or standardization, reclaiming dance as a right of expression that belongs to every body.

Yes, there is still talking in somatic / experiential practices. The focus is mainly placed on embodying, learning through sensing, feeling and experiencing.

My somatic relational approach recognizes that healing happens through the safety and the trust we build together. This means I practice cultural humility and attunement by including my own socio cultural location as well as yours in our relational dynamic— As well as honouring your unique socio-cultural shaping your understanding of yourself and the world around you. Within the cultivated safety of our exchanges, you can gently explore your patterns of connection and discover new options and ways of relating to yourself and others. In essence our collaboration provides a living container where you can experience and practice more fulfilling ways of being in a relationship.

Expressive movement in therapy invites you to use your body’s natural capacity for movement as a pathway to healing and self-discovery. In our work together, we might explore how feelings, memories, or experiences want to move through your body—whether through gentle gestures, stretching, dancing, or simply shifting positions. This approach honours that your body holds wisdom and stories that words alone cannot always reach. By moving together in our therapeutic space, you can discover new ways to express yourself, process emotions, and reconnect with parts of yourself that may feel stuck or silenced. Movement becomes a language for healing that’s uniquely yours.

I integrate sensorimotor processing in our therapeutic work by paying attention to how your body receives and responds to sensory information. This approach recognizes that your nervous system is constantly processing what you see, hear, feel, and sense, then translating this into physical responses and actions. By working with these natural body-mind connections, we can support your healing process, help regulate your nervous system, and address how trauma or stress may have affected the way your body processes and responds to the world around you.

Somatic Experiencing® (SE), developed by Peter Levine, is a gentle, body-centered approach that supports your nervous system’s natural capacity to heal from trauma and stress. Drawing from various therapeutic practices, SE helps you develop tolerance for difficult sensations and emotions while completing protective responses that may have been interrupted during overwhelming experiences. Together, we work to gently release stored survival energy in your body, allowing your nervous system to find resolution and return to a state of greater ease and resilience.

Body-Mind Centering® (BMC), developed by Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, is an embodied approach that explores the living anatomy within you—your organs, fluids, bones, and systems—as sources of support, movement, and awareness.

I integrate embodied experiential anatomy, from my formative training in BMC, into our therapeutic work by inviting you to explore your body’s inner landscape through gentle awareness and movement. This approach helps you tune into your body’s sensations, rhythms, and wisdom as we work together. Rather than just talking about your experiences, we include your body’s knowledge and felt sense as valuable information in your healing process. This embodied exploration can deepen your self-awareness and support your overall well-being by honouring the connection between your physical experience and emotional life.

Developmental Somatic Psychotherapy, studied with Ruella Frank, recognizes that our early experiences shape how we move, relate, and exist in our bodies. In our work together, we explore how your developmental journey—from infancy through adulthood—lives within your body’s patterns and responses. This approach honours how your body learned to adapt and survive, and gently supports you in discovering new possibilities for movement, connection, and self-expression. By working with your body’s developmental wisdom, we can help you reclaim parts of yourself that may have been interrupted or protected, allowing for greater wholeness and authentic expression in your life.

Interpersonal Neurobiology, developed by Daniel J. Siegel (studied through lineage of Bonnie Badenoch), explores how our relationships literally shape our brains and nervous systems throughout our lives. In our work together, we recognize that healing happens through connection—that our therapeutic relationship can actually help rewire patterns that may no longer serve you. This approach honours how your brain, mind, and relationships are deeply interconnected, and how positive relational experiences can promote integration and well-being. As we build safety and trust together, your nervous system can develop new capacities for resilience, emotional regulation, and meaningful connection with yourself and others.

NeuroAffective Touch (NAT), developed by Aline LaPierre, is a gentle, touch-based approach that supports your journey toward mind-body integration. Drawing from attachment theory, neurobiology, and somatic practices, NAT recognizes touch as a powerful form of nonverbal communication that speaks directly to your nervous system. Together, we work with mindful touch to address emotional and relational concerns, honouring how your body receives and processes touch as information that can support healing and connection. This approach helps bridge what words cannot always reach, supporting your capacity for deeper integration and relational healing.

Blomberg Rhythmic Movement Training (BRMT), developed by Dr. Harald Blomberg, is a gentle movement approach based on the natural rhythmic movements that infants make in their development. This method uses specific rhythmic exercises and reflex integration techniques to support nervous system development, learning abilities, and emotional regulation. The approach recognizes that these foundational movements help create important neural connections that support overall development and well-being throughout life.

Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, developed by Dr. Pat Ogden, is a body-oriented approach that integrates the wisdom of your body with traditional talk therapy. This method recognizes that trauma and emotional experiences live in your body as well as your mind. In our work together, we pay attention to your posture, movements, and physical sensations as important sources of information for healing, helping you develop new ways of being in your body that support your overall well-being.