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Keli Bellaire (she/her pronouns)

"Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare"
                   - Audre Lorde

Keli
Bellaire

Registered Psychotherapist

Welcome!  Thank you for your interest in my practice.

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I work with individual youth & adults, ages 12+ who are hurting and want a change in their life.  By exploring what brought you to therapy – such as the transition to motherhood, early life experiences, past or recent traumas, current life stressors, burnout, overwhelming emotions, relationship struggles, feeling stuck or unsatisfied with life – we will work towards building a deeper understanding of yourself and where your pain comes from.

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My goal is to work with you to lessen your suffering.  I will support you in moving towards well-being, whatever that looks and feels like for you.

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The values at the core of my work are:  integrity, compassion, justice, and critical hope

I believe you are the expert in your own experience and needs.  As your therapist I will stand with you as you do the hard work of healing; to be with you in solidarity, in support, and with genuine acceptance.

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I am located in Toronto, Ontario.  I have in person availability in Toronto and can work online with clients from anywhere in the province.

About Keli

DavidLoewenstein_Kites.jpg

Image by D. Loewenstein 2021

I am a warm, caring, and passionate person.  I identify as white, queer, cis-female and am a mama of 2 young kids.  I grew up in a small town and now live & practice in Toronto.

 

I have been involved in social justice activism and worked in the non-profit community sector for over 20 years as a frontline youth worker, peer educator, program coordinator, and counselor.  I worked in the fields of gender-based violence, youth rights, popular education, housing, sexual health, Indigenous solidarity, migrant rights, and transformative justice.

 

Through my past work I learned about the healing power of sharing our stories; about humility, and how much more I will always have to learn; about the courage it takes to try to change one’s life and the resiliency people can show in the face of injustice. 

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I come to this work as a therapist with a commitment to personal & collective healing.  I believe that when we heal the world heals:  as Grace Lee Boggs said “we must transform ourselves to transform the world”. 

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Our mental health is deeply impacted by the world we live in, and so often our struggles of anxiety, depression, hopelessness, and powerlessness are symptoms of living in a sick world.  In order to be well, we also need the world to change.

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As such, I stand in solidarity with people who are working towards a more just world – this includes anti-colonial struggles, movements for queer and Trans rights, disability justice, Indigenous sovereignty & Land Back, migrant rights, black liberation, and environmental justice.  I am against the genocide in Gaza, and I call for an end to the Israeli occupation.  I stand for a free Palestine and the right to return. ​

"How would I live if I knew I was exactly what was needed to heal the world?"
               - Rachel Naomi Remen
Services

Professional Qualifications

Designation & Education

  • Registered Psychotherapist, College of Registered Psychotherapists of Ontario

    • practicing since 2020

  • Canadian Certified - Perinatal Mental Health (Canadian Perinatal Mental Health Trainings)

  • Member of the Canadian Association of Psychodynamic Therapists (CAPT)

  • Diploma in Psychotherapy from a 5-year psychodynamic psychotherapy training program (OPC)​

 

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Trainings

  • Flash Technique for Perinatal Populations (Canadian Perinatal Mental Health Trainings, CPMHT)

  • Transforming Trauma with Emotionally Focused Individual Therapy (PESI)

  • IFS (Internal Family Systems) for Perinatal Populations (CPMHT)

  • Memory Reconsolidation:  Translating Neuroscience into Art (Academy of Therapy Wisdom)

  • The Neurobiology of Feeling Safe: Working with Boundaries, (Academy of Therapy Wisdom)

  • Master Program on the Treatment of Trauma (NICABM)

  • Trauma of Racism (NICABM)

  • Trauma-Informed Stabilization Treatment: Healing the Fragmented Self, (Academy of Therapy Wisdom)

  • Foundations of Perinatal Mental Health, (CPMHT)

  • Advanced Counseling and Therapy Skills, (CPMHT)

  • Neurobiology With Heart (Academy of Therapy Wisdom)

What I'm Reading

  • The Wisdom of Your Body

  • What Happened To You?  Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing

  • No Bad Parts:  Healing Trauma & Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model

  • Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle

  • When Survivors Give Birth:  Understanding and Healing Effects of Early Sexual Abuse on Childbearing Women

  • Mother Brain:  How Neuroscience is Rewriting the Story of Parenthood

  • It's OK That You're Not OK:  Meeting Grief and Loss in a Culture That  Doesn't Understand

  • My Grandmother's Hands:  Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies

© 2022 by Keli Bellaire, Powered and secured by Wix

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I acknowledge with respect and gratitude that I am an uninvited settler on the land in which I live and work:  the territory of the Anishinaabe, Mississauga and Haudenosaunee peoples. I acknowledge the current treaty holders, the Mississaugas of the New Credit First Nation. This territory is subject of the Dish With One Spoon Wampum Belt Covenant, an agreement to peaceably share and care for the Great Lakes region.  As a settler, I am committed to following the calls for action from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.  I acknowledge the harms done, past & present, by Western psychotherapies in colonizing minds and pathologizing Indigenous knowledge and wisdom.  The field of psychotherapy has been shaped by colonialism, racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia and ableism.  I am committed to the ongoing practice of decolonizing my therapy practice, my mind, and my heart.

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