FSP Blog

Beginning therapy can bring up a mix of hope, curiosity, and uncertainty. At Felt Sense Psychotherapy, we believe that understanding the process helps your nervous system settle enough to engage in meaningful work. Our approach is relational, attachment-informed, and somatically grounded. Therapy with us is not about quick fixes or surface-level coping strategies — it’s about understanding patterns, building insight, and creating change that translates beyond the therapy room

Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy is a trauma-informed, evidence-based approach that helps people understand and heal the different “parts” of themselves with compassion rather than judgment. Many people come to therapy feeling confused by their inner world — wanting change, yet feeling blocked, overwhelmed, or at odds with themselves. IFS offers a framework that helps make sense of these experiences in a way that is validating, empowering, and deeply humane. The Core Ide

Have you ever noticed that your body seems to know something your mind hasn’t yet figured out? Maybe there’s a tightness in your chest, a pit in your stomach, or a heaviness in your shoulders that shows up when you think about a situation — even if you can’t put it into words. Focusing is a therapy technique that helps you tune into these bodily signals to uncover feelings, insights, and guidance that live in your body. It’s a gentle, evidence-informed method that supports em

The relationship we build with ourselves is the longest relationship we will ever have. It shapes how we see the world, how we move through anxiety, depression, trauma, and stress, and how we connect with partners, family, and friends. In therapy in Ottawa, one of the most important goals is helping people develop a healthier, more compassionate relationship with themselves. At Felt Sense Psychotherapy in Ottawa, we understand that emotional healing involves developing a kind

Finding Clarity Through Therapy in Ottawa, Ontario There’s a particular kind of stuckness that doesn’t come from indecision. It comes from doing everything you thought you were supposed to do—and still feeling empty, restless, or alone. Maybe you worked toward the life you imagined you wanted. Maybe you made choices that made sense on paper. And yet, something in you feels misaligned. If you’re searching for therapy because you feel lost, disconnected, or unsure what you actu

Trauma-Informed & Attachment-Based Grief Counselling in Ontario Grief doesn’t follow a timeline. It doesn’t move in neat stages. And it doesn’t live only in thoughts or memories. For many people, grief shows up in the body—tightness in the chest, exhaustion, numbness, anxiety, or a feeling of being fundamentally changed. If you’re searching for grief therapy in Ottawa, you may already know that “talking it out” hasn’t been enough. At Felt Sense Psychotherapy, we offer grief c

Trauma-Informed Therapy in Ottawa, Ontario If you’ve ever searched “Do I need therapy?”, “Why do I feel overwhelmed all the time?”, or “Therapist near me”, you’re not alone. Many people come to therapy not because something is “wrong,” but because something feels off—in their body, relationships, or sense of self. At Felt Sense Psychotherapy in Ottawa, we specialize in helping individuals and couples reconnect with themselves through trauma-informed, attachment-based, and som

Attachment-Based & Trauma-Informed Therapy in Ottawa, Ontario Many people understand their relationship patterns intellectually. They know they’re anxious, avoidant, or stuck in push-pull dynamics. They can trace these patterns back to childhood or past relationships. And yet—when conflict happens, their body reacts before their insight can help. This is because attachment isn’t just psychological—it’s physiological. At Felt Sense Psychotherapy in Ottawa, we integrate attachm

Are you actually resilience or did you dissociate from your experience and push through? Resilience is often praised as the ability to “push through,” stay strong, and keep going no matter how much something hurts. For many people, resilience has come to mean overriding pain, minimizing emotional impact, and functioning at all costs. But that isn’t resilience. That’s survival. True resilience isn’t about how much you can endure without breaking. It’s about how well you can fe

One of the biggest misconceptions about emotional health is the idea that being “regulated” means being calm, even, or unbothered most of the time. It doesn’t. Emotional regulation isn’t the absence of emotion. It’s the ability to move through emotion without getting stuck, overwhelmed, or shut down—and to return to a baseline afterward. Emotions are not problems to solve. They are signals, action tendencies, and information. When we understand what each core emotion is for,

Many people walk into therapy carrying a quiet but crushing belief: “I’m a bad person.” Not because they abuse, exploit, or intentionally harm others—but because they’ve made mistakes. They’ve hurt people they cared about. They didn’t show up the way they wish they had. They reacted instead of responding. They crossed a boundary. They stayed too long. They left too fast. They engaged in deceit. And somewhere along the way, those moments stopped being things that happened and

At Felt Sense Psychotherapy (FSP), we believe that true healing begins in the body. While many therapy approaches focus primarily on thoughts and behaviours, felt sense psychotherapy emphasizes the importance of fully experiencing and processing emotions physically and emotionally. This emotion focused and somatic approach to therapy helps clients move beyond intellectual understanding to embody real, lasting change. What is Felt Sense Psychotherapy? Felt sense psychotherapy

When we think about autism, many people focus on social differences or sensory sensitivities—but there’s a layer that’s often overlooked: the strategies people develop to navigate a neurotypical world. Two common coping mechanisms are hyper-focusing on appearance and turning to substances. Both can be ways of managing stress, anxiety, and overwhelming environments. Hyper-Focusing on Appearance: Survival and Social Safety For many autistic individuals, social interactions can

There’s this subtle irony in our work: being a therapist can feel hardest when life is going well. When we’re happy, when we feel light, playful, even bubbly—it doesn’t always make our job easier. In fact, it can make it surprisingly exhausting. As therapists, a huge part of our role is containment. We hold space for our clients’ raw, messy, often overwhelming emotions. We witness grief, anger, fear, shame—and we do it while staying grounded ourselves. That’s challenging enou

Learning to heal is more than insight. Somatic therapy can help. There’s a painful tension in growth work—whether in therapy, self-development, or everyday life. You know better. You understand the patterns you fall into, the triggers that send you spiralling, the ways you hurt yourself or others. You have insight. Awareness. Clarity. And yet… you still do the thing. You snap when you don’t want to. You shut down when you know connection matters. You repeat a pattern you prom

Therapy is transformative, but cost can often feel like a barrier. At Felt Sense Psychotherapy (FSP), we’re committed to making mental health care accessible to everyone, which is why we offer affordable therapy sessions with our supervised student therapists. This means you can receive high-quality, professional support at a lower cost, while helping the next generation of therapists gain practical experience. Why Affordable Therapy Matters Many people delay seeking therapy

Self-sabotage is a term we often use with shame, frustration, or confusion. “Why do I keep doing this?” “Why do I ruin the things I actually want?” “What is wrong with me?” From an adaptive therapy perspective, the answer is: nothing is wrong with you. Your behaviour makes sense once we understand what it’s protecting. Self-sabotage is rarely sabotage. It is an *adaptive strategy* —a learned pattern your nervous system developed to keep you safe, regulated, or connected in en

The holidays have a way of stirring up everything we’ve tried to neatly pack away throughout our lives. For many people, spending time with family is comforting and nourishing. But for others, it means being around relatives who are emotionally immature, dismissive, or unwilling to take accountability for past hurts. And that can feel heavy. If you’re deciding to show up anyway—not because you want to, but because the fallout of not going feels even harder—you’re not alone. M

One of the most painful parts of surviving an assault is the question that follows: “Why didn’t I fight back?” or “Why didn’t I run?” Many survivors turn that question inward, layering shame and self-blame on top of an already unbearable experience. But the truth is that your body wasn’t failing you — it was protecting you. The Science Behind Freeze: When a person is threatened, the nervous system instantly scans for the safest and most effective way to survive. This happens

The Ache That Never Leaves There were no parents. Not really. Just people who should have been soft and weren’t. People who called it love but never looked long enough to see me. I grew up too fast not out of brilliance, but necessity. Someone had to keep things together, and no one else would. So I became the adult, the caretaker, the one who didn’t break. Now everyone tells me I’m so capable. So strong. They say it like it’s a compliment, but I hear it as a scar. They don’t