Break Free from Emotional Eating: 6 Tips to Regain Control

Emotional eating is something many of us struggle with—turning to food for comfort, stress relief, or to cope with difficult emotions. While food can bring temporary relief, it often leads to guilt, and a frustration cycle that is hard to beat. The good news? There are ways to manage emotional eating and develop a healthier relationship with food. Here are six practical strategies to help you regain control.

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Lauren Gilbey RD, CDE
Recent Research Findings of Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy (CBT) for Social Anxiety Disorder

One of the most well-known psychological treatments for anxiety disorders is cognitive-behavioural therapy. This form of therapy is proposed to reduce social anxiety by addressing and reconstructing distorted cognitions, teaching adaptive coping skills, anticipatory processing, and emotion management. Evidence generally suggests that cognitive-behavioural therapy is an effective treatment method for social anxiety disorder, and we’re going to explore what that research says the related strengths and weaknesses to this treatment are.

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Kendra Michano, BSW RSW
What is The Realization Process, and How Can It Help Me?

The Realization Process is a series of gentle, body-oriented meditations that help you integrate your body-mind while supporting spiritual growth. It’s about learning to fully inhabit the space within your body, which can help you discover a sense of wholeness and stillness that’s always there, even in challenging moments. This inner stillness creates room to hold all your thoughts, feelings, and sensations in a more grounded way. Through the practice, you can discover a dimension of yourself that feels fundamentally whole and undamaged.

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Thomas Lai
Exploring the Dark Triad Traits: Communication and The Four Horsemen

How individuals communicate during a conflict is important, as it can predict the satisfaction and longevity of a particular relationship. Personality is crucial in understanding this process, and the Dark Triad personality traits of narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy can impact how a partner engages in communication in a relationship. Based on the understandings of the personality characteristics of an individual high on the Dark Triad traits (including callousness and manipulation), maneuvering a romantic relationship with such a person can prove to be complicated but is still possible if both parties are aware of the pitfalls they may fall into when it comes to communication.

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Aleena Kazi, RP
What Topics Can I Talk About With A Dietitian?

If you’ve never met with a Registered Dietitian before, you might be wondering “What exactly could I even talk to them about it in session?” The answer is that there are many things you can talk about: from meal planning, to your history with food and your body, to how to increase your water intake. Here’s some ideas of a handful of things you might want to explore in your appointments with an RD.

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Katherine Hall, MSW RSW
5 Ways to Support Someone Who Is Grieving

Supporting someone through their grief can be challenging. Many people struggle to talk about death because it’s a sensitive topic that tends to be avoided, leading to uncertainty about what to say or how to deal with the intense emotions that come up. The societal taboo around discussing death only makes it more difficult. Here are five meaningful ways to help someone who is grieving.

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Julie Klassen, BSW MSW RSW
(Re-)Meet Emma Getty, RP (Qualifying) Intern: Combining Yoga, Breathwork and Neuroscience to Support You!

Today we’re sharing more with you about a member of our team who might be a familiar face. Emma Getty is with us at GWTC as a secondary practicum site for her Masters in Counselling Psychology degree, and is also a member of our intake & administration team! If you’ve been in touch with our front desk you may have crossed paths with her, and today we’re getting to know her clinical side.

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Katherine Hall
Meet Kendra Michano, MSW Intern: Supporting Communities and Individuals

Today we’re thrilled to introduce you to Kendra Michano who is completing her Masters of Social Work at the University of Toronto focusing on Mental Health. Kendra works with both children and adults around issues of anxiety, emotional regulation, depression and trauma, and takes a trauma-informed and anti-oppressive stance in her work with individuals and in her perspectives of community care.

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Katherine Hall
Meet Caroline Dsouza, Therapy Intern: Mindful, Empathetic and Enthusiastic About Therapy

Today we’re introducing you to Caroline Dsouza, one of our Therapy Interns for September. Caroline is joining us from the BREM program which is a bridging program for internationally-trained professionals, designed to facilitate their registration with the College of Registered Psychotherapists of Ontario and grow their career in Canada. Caroline has her Master of Science in Clinical Psychology and will be working with children (4+), teens and adults around issues including trauma, neurodiversity, pain management, chronic illness, burnout and parent coaching.

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Katherine Hall
Understanding Dark Triad Traits: Narcissism, Machiavellianism, and Psychopathy

The Dark Triad is a constellation of three personality traits: narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy. Though these three traits are all connected by a common foundation of callousness and manipulation, each trait is still unique. These traits are similar in terms of readiness to harm others, but how they manifest in behaviours may be different based on each trait’s specific characteristics.

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Aleena Kazi, RP
How to Break Free From Comparison and Rumination On Social Media

When we are scrolling through social media, we may face the overwhelming urge to compare ourselves, our friends, possessions, and even our mental health to the "picture perfect" people we see on these platforms. While this is normal to do, it can start to impact our mental health if we don’t stay aware of how we might be internalizing the content we are consuming.  Let’s talk about how you can try to limit the impact that has on you.

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Kirusana Ravindran
How to Talk to Kids About Joy

Joy and happiness are emotions everyone feels in a variety of situations - maybe we feel them because someone gives us a gift, or tells us something kind, or helps us with something! Emotions can be felt in our bodies and influence the way we think and act. We can have positive or negative emotions, but all of them are useful. If you need help talking about this with your kids, Toni has some tips and information that might help!

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Toni Lui, MSW RSW
Meet Tabitha Dovell - Therapy Intern and Child and Youth Practitioner!

Today we’re getting to know Tabitha Dovell, MA CYC Candidate from Toronto Metropolitan University. Tabitha is completing her internship practicum with us working primarily with children and youth. She supports issues like trauma, family dynamics, bullying and peer pressure, self-esteem and more. We’re thrilled to share more information with you so you can get to know her while she’s with us!

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Katherine Hall
5 Things That Happen to Your Body When You Don’t Sleep

For those of you who may not know or do not believe it, sleep is actually very important to keep our bodies healthy. There are many theories that go into explaining why sleep is important, but the most common one almost everyone knows is that sleep rejuvenates and repairs the body. After a hard day of processing and functioning, going to sleep refuels us. Our bodies need to shut down to remain in top shape for the next day. And if they don’t, there are a number of ways our body and mind can be negatively impacted.

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Aleena Kazi, RP
How to Talk to Kids About Sadness

Everyone experiences sadness from time to time. It can be because something happened, or something was said to us, or because our thoughts got caught on something that worries us. If you need help talking about this with your kids, Toni has some tips and information that might help!

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Toni Lui, MSW RSW