about me
My name is Alison Taylor, and I am a registered psychotherapist (qualifying).
I offer an embodied, whole-person approach to psychotherapy that invites an expanded awareness of yourself in your relationships and in the world.
I bring empathy, collaboration, and body sensitivity to our work together. I often draw on metaphor and imagery to offer new perspective and deeper understanding of familiar challenges.
In addition to in-person and virtual therapy sessions, I also offer Being with Nature: Outdoor Therapy sessions. Click here for more info.
I believe that you are the expert about your life and your experiences. I see myself as a collaborative team mate whose role is not to tell or direct you, but to listen and resonate. I respect where you are at. It is not my role to fix or cure you, but rather to help illuminate and unravel what might be out of your awareness, so that you can gain a clearer understanding how and why you have learned to move through the world in your unique and magnificent way.
Therapy involves a safe and healthy challenge that allows change to be possible. We will work together to approach and meet your edge of growth in a supportive and stimulating environment.
Together we can explore patterns in your thoughts, feelings, and behaviours, and get to the heart of how and why you make meaning of your experiences the way you do. We all cultivate particular patterns of responding to the world for a good reason. You may find that some of these patterns are no longer serving you as they once did. As we work to build awareness of these patterns, you may find that you gain more awareness and acceptance, and that expansion feels possible in a new way.
To recuperate and recharge, I love baking, connecting with nature, snuggling with cats, and playing tabletop boardgames. I recently started learning to play the ukulele and am enjoying being a beginner again.
Wild Geese
by Mary Oliver
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting–
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
I am a registered psychotherapist (qualifying) with the College of Registered Psychotherapists of Ontario (CRPO). I am a member of the Canadian Association of Psychodynamic Therapy (CAPT). I adhere to the code of ethics set out by these institutions. You can find them here and here, respectively.
I am a graduate of the 5-year therapist training program at the Gestalt Institute of Toronto. My formal training also includes music and arts education, performance, and somatic education, including the Alexander Technique and Wholeness in Motion.
I am committed to ongoing professional development so that I can stay current with advancements in the Gestalt approach, as well as related fields. As of spring 2024 I am currently enrolled in the Developmental Somatic Psychotherapy program with Ruella Frank at the Centre for Somatic Studies.
My practice focuses on individual therapy for adults (age 18+).