About

Meet Tatyana Bashkatova, MPsy, Registered Psychotherapist, AAC

Tatyana is a Registered Psychotherapist with the College of Registered Psychotherapists of Ontario (CRPO). She has a Master’s Degree in Psychology and an Ontario Graduate Certificate in Addictions: Treatment and Prevention.

Throughout more than 15 years of her professional journey, Tatyana has obtained outstanding training and certification in the following therapeutic modalities:

Tatyana believes that the process of psychotherapy implies the creation of a confidential and supportive space, where clients feel safe and comfortable to explore themselves and the underlying causes of their mental health and/or relationship issues. She walks her clients down this road and helps them find their way to perform crucial changes.

The therapy methods Tatyana uses in her work allow clients to project their inner reality or relationship dynamics into visual presentations. These presentations help clients acknowledge the roots of their problems and get compassionate guidance on making necessary changes and transformations.

Tatyana welcomes clients for individual, couples, and family therapy.

Therapy Approaches We Use

1. Gestalt Therapy

Gestalt therapy is one of the most sought-after therapy modalities developed by Fritz Perls, Laura Perls and Paul Goodman in the 1940s and 1950s. This approach allows a person to reconnect with themselves, their emotions and needs, realize underlying feelings, and incomplete situations, work them out and take responsibility for their own life.

The word Gestalt is translated from German as “a whole image” and implies our subconscious mind’s desire for completion. The unresolved problematic situation in the past may cause negative emotions and psychological discomfort.

2. Family Systems Therapy

Systemic family therapy originated in the 1950s in the USA and Europe and absorbed the ideas of cybernetics and communication theory. With a systematic approach, one person, a couple, and the whole family may become a client. The problem of one family member is considered to be the result of the functioning of the family as a system that is constantly evolving. All processes occurring in the family system are both cause and effect of each other.

Sometimes problems of family members indicate dysfunctional relationships within the family. The therapist seeks to identify the purpose of the symptom exploring family history and how family members communicate with each other by using role-play and circular questions. In the course of therapy, the whole family and the system of relations in it change, so the behaviour of the initial client also changes.

Family System Therapy helps with difficult relationships in couples, sexual disharmony, communication problems between parents and children, issues with creating long-term relationships, loss of a loved one, divorce, psychosomatic disorders, child behavioural and other emotional concerns.

3. Art Therapy

Art therapy is a gentle and safe approach to working with a person through creative self-expression and includes intermodal therapy, drama therapy, music therapy, and fairy tale therapy.

Art therapy is based on the mechanism of projection – the ability of the psyche to project internal processes, experiences and thoughts onto external objects: people, events, and works of art. The creative process allows you to safely approach strong emotions that can be blocked or restrained by the protective mechanisms of the psyche. Blocked feelings do not disappear, but accumulate, creating discomfort and tension.

Art therapy provides an opportunity for relaxation, helps to express emotions through creativity, recognize and accept them in a supportive atmosphere of the session.

Art therapy has no age restrictions and is equally effective for children, adults, and elderly people. Art therapy works effectively with intra- and interpersonal conflicts, psychological trauma, fears, PTSD, crises, anxiety, low self-esteem, and more.

4. Psychodrama

Psychodrama was created in the 1920s by Jacob Moreno and became the first group therapy method. However, elements of psychodrama can also be successfully incorporated into individual therapy and counselling (monodrama).

Psychodrama proposes to approach the solution of the problem through a game that takes place under the guidance of a guide (therapist). The game does not take place on stage, but with the participation of group members (they can be actors or play the role of the audience). In the work process, the protagonist (client) becomes both the creator and the main character of their drama.

They create a play of significant events in his life by acting out scenes related to his problem as if they were happening at the moment.

“Drama” is approached not as theatricality, but as dramaturgy. Being the author of their own inner reality, clients can revise and rethink the events of their lives and make the necessary corrections. The purpose of psychodrama is to teach the client to solve personal problems by playing out their fantasies, conflicts and fears. Psychodrama work allows clients to play out problematic situations, meet different inner parts of their personality, and see how these parts influence each other and clients’ behaviour, also, they can replace the strategies of communication with more productive ones. For instance, a client may understand how their “scared” part blocks the part that strives for happiness.

Psychodrama allows you to find new ways of behaviour, resolve conflicts, and prepare for a difficult situation. It is accessible to everyone and effective in working with children and adolescents.

5. Transactional Analysis

Transactional Analysis was created by Eric Bern in the early 1960s. It is a psychological model that describes and analyzes human behaviour both individually and in groups. This model includes philosophy, theory and methods that allow people to understand them and the peculiarities of their interactions with others.

According to transactional analysis, there are three ego states in each of us: Parent, Adult, and Child. With the help of a therapist, clients learn the structure of their personalities, recognize the characteristics and signs of each ego state, and how those states affect their behaviour and relationships with others. Therapy helps clients to grow or strengthen deficient parts of their personalities, regulate inner communication of ego states, and improve their communication with other people.

6. Emotion-Image Therapy

Emotion-Image Therapy (EIT) is a new modality that belongs to the psychodynamic direction of psychotherapy. The purpose of EIT is the detection and positive transformation of unconscious chronic pathogenic emotional states that give rise to psychological or psychosomatic conditions.

This task is solved with the help of spontaneous images created by the client that express a problematic emotional state, with the subsequent analysis of these images, and specific interventions that aim at transforming troublesome emotional states through work with images.

7. Gottman Method of Couples Therapy

The Gottman Method was developed by Dr. John Gottman and Dr. Julie Schwartz Gottman in the 1980s. It is a science-based approach to couples therapy that aims at helping couples in reaching a deeper level of understanding, awareness, empathy, and emotional connection within their relationships, which ultimately improves their intimacy and communication skills.

The therapeutic process starts with the assessment of a couple that contributes to therapeutic planning and establishes specific interventions that the couple needs the most.

The Gottman Method is designed to assist couples across all economic, racial, sexual orientation, and cultural aspects. Some of the relationship issues that may be addressed in therapy include conflicts, emotional distance, poor communication, lack of intimacy, parenting questions and more.

8. Addiction Counselling

Addiction is a complex disease that may be associated with the consumption of chemical substances such as alcohol, marijuana, cocaine, etc, as well as behavioural dependencies like shopaholism, internet addiction, and more. Such dependencies demand personalized treatments using modalities that can address both the symptoms and underlying reasons and assist clients in the improvement of their social and family life should they be affected.

Often the underlying reasons for the addiction are deeply rooted in the clients’ past; this is where a psychotherapist can undertake therapeutic interventions and help clients break free from harmful behaviours.

The purpose of psychotherapy in addiction treatment is to facilitate necessary inner transformations for clients to be able to maintain sobriety and prevent relapse.

Virtual and In-Person Appointments are Available!

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