THERAPY FOR DATING, INTIMACY & romantic RELATIONSHIPS · In-person and Online
Dating can bring up complicated feelings.
Dating and intimate relationships can bring us into contact with some of our deepest longings, fears, desires, and uncertainties. Therapy can offer a place to understand how you relate to others, what keeps repeating, what you desire, and what kind of relationships actually feel meaningful to you.
Contact with the people we desire can bring different parts of us to the surface.
Dating can be exciting, playful, intimate, confusing, disappointing, and deeply vulnerable. Sometimes we find ourselves repeating patterns we understand intellectually but still cannot seem to change. You may experience:
- anxiety when you begin to like someone
- becoming preoccupied with whether someone will text, call, or choose you
- limerence or intense fixation on another person
- idealizing someone you do not know very well
- difficulty tolerating uncertainty or ambiguity in dating
Dating can activate old relational templates, but not everything we feel in relationships can be reduced to an attachment style. Desire, sexuality, history, culture, fantasy, timing, compatibility, and the particular relationship between two (or more) people all matter.
HOW THERAPY CAN HELP
What We Can Work on Together
- understanding patterns that repeat across relationships
- jealousy and insecurity
- understanding the difference between fantasy and the relationship that actually exists
- dating anxiety and fear of rejection
- recovering from ghosting, breakups, betrayal, or disappointment
- recognizing reciprocity and emotional availability
- fear of being single or alone
More choice.Less compulsion.
- feeling attracted to someone without losing yourself in them
- recognizing when fantasy has become more powerful than reality
- being able to experience rejection without interpreting it as a verdict on your worth
- recognizing reciprocity rather than continually pursuing unavailable connection
- communicating your desires, boundaries, and expectations more openly
- becoming more comfortable with intimacy and vulnerability
- feeling more comfortable being single without treating it as a failure
- experiencing intimacy as something that can include both connection and freedom
WHO THIS MAY BE A GOOD FIT FOR
YOU CAN BENEFIT FROM THERAPY IF:
- dating creates significant anxiety or emotional overwhelm
- you repeatedly become involved with emotionally unavailable partners/li>
- you struggle with rejection, ghosting, or dating-app burnout
- you struggle with sexual intimacy or desire
- you are dating after a breakup, divorce, loss, or long period of being single
Starting therapy
Choose a therapist and appointment time that works for you. You can meet in person in Toronto or virtually across Ontario.
Your first session is a chance to talk about what brings you to therapy, what you hope will feel different, and what support might be most helpful.
Begin at your own pace
Together, we’ll build a therapy process that feels collaborative, thoughtful, and responsive to your needs..
Therapy for Intimacy, Dating and Romantic Relationships with Ivana Psychotherapy
Our therapists work with people navigating dating, relationships, intimacy, sexuality, breakups, limerence, attachment patterns, and questions about commitment and relationship structure. We welcome clients across different sexualities, gender identities, and relationship structures, including people who are single, dating, partnered, monogamous, consensually non-monogamous, or polyamorous. Our approach is relational, trauma-informed, and curious rather than prescriptive. We do not assume there is one correct way to build a relationship or intimate life. Therapy can help you understand what you want, recognize the patterns that shape your relationships, and develop greater freedom in how you connect with others
“The quality of your life ultimately depends on the quality of your relationships… which are basically a reflection of your sense of decency, your ability to think of others, your generosity.”
— Esther Perel
Individual and Couples therapy in Toronto and online across Ontario
You are beautiful
Individual and Couples therapy Dating and Romantic Relationships In-Person and Online