Explore psychotherapy to support your child or adolescent.
Our Psychotherapy Services
At Riverwise, we offer psychotherapy through three distinct “tracks” designed to meet children, youth, adults, and families where they are. Each track has a clear purpose, whether the goal is emotional support, practical skill building, or structured treatment for specific mental health concerns, while remaining flexible and responsive to changing needs over time. Clients may move between tracks as their goals evolve, creating a thoughtful continuum of care rather than a one-size-fits-all approach. This structure helps ensure that individuals are matched with the right level and type of support from the start, promotes consistency and quality across our team, and allows us to provide clear, transparent guidance to clients and referral sources about what to expect from therapy at Riverwise.
Supportive Psychotherapy Track
This track is designed for children, youth, or adults looking for a safe and supportive space to process emotions, life transitions, or ongoing stressors. Sessions focus on helping clients better understand themselves, develop coping strategies, and build resilience.
Approach: Compassionate listening, emotion coaching, guided exploration, validation, psychoeducation and practical coping tools; Clinicians draw from various therapeutic modalities, including Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Motivational Interviewing, Emotion focused approaches, psychodynamic approaches, and others.
Typical Goals:
Reduce stress, worry, or emotional overwhelm
Support adjustment to changes (e.g., transitions, family stress, loss)
Strengthen self-awareness, insights, and self-acceptance
Who it’s for: Individuals (children, adolescents, adults) seeking counselling for general emotional support rather than structured treatment of a specific mental health concern. For children and adolescents, parents and caregivers may be involved in sessions as needed.
How many sessions are needed? This is flexible depending on the needs of the individual.
Goal Focused Psychotherapy Track
This track focuses on addressing specific goals to support success at home, school, community, or work. Sessions are practical and goal-focused, emphasizing active practice, feedback, and real-world application. For children and adolescents, parent involvement is encouraged to support skill building.
Approach: Coaching, modelling, behavioural strategies, and strength-based feedback. Clinicians draw from various modalities, including Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), solution focused approaches, emotion focused approaches, and others. Typically, goal focused approaches include measurement of change over time.
Typical Goals:
Build/strengthen executive functioning skills (organization, time management, planning)
Build/strengthen emotion regulation (e.g., learn how to handle worries/anxiety)
Build coping skills for a particular situation (e.g., preparing for a medical procedure, preparing to move to a new school)
Develop assertiveness or self-advocacy skills
Build understanding about a specific diagnosis
Who it’s for: Individuals (children, adolescents, adults) who would benefit from more structured, skill-based support.
How many sessions are needed? The number of sessions is structured and will depend on your goal.
Structured Treatment Track
This track offers structured, goal-oriented therapy for clients experiencing clinically significant symptoms or challenges such as specific phobias, anxiety, depression, obsessive-compulsive symptoms, or misophonia. Treatment is tailored to the client’s needs and grounded in evidence-based approaches. For children and adolescents, parent involvement is encouraged to support skill building.
Approach: Structured approaches may draw from various modalities, including CBT, ACT, ERP, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Exposure/Response Prevention (ERP), or other structured modalities. Typically structured treatment includes formal measurement of symptom reduction.
Typical Goals:
Reduce specific symptoms (e.g., phobias, anxiety, depression, or OCD)
Increase emotional regulation and distress tolerance
Build healthier thought patterns and behaviours
Who it’s for: Individuals (children, adolescents, and some adults) with identified emotional or mental health difficulties requiring structured treatment.
How many sessions are needed? The number of sessions is structured and will depend on the presenting concern.
What to Expect: Our Psychotherapy Process
Regardless of which psychotherapy track is the best fit for your situation, our process is designed to be thoughtful, transparent, and supportive from the start.
Step 1: Complete a Psychotherapy Intake Form
You will begin by completing a psychotherapy intake form, which helps us understand your concerns, goals, and current needs.
Step 2: Intake Review and Next Steps
Our clinical team carefully reviews all intake forms. We will contact you to discuss next steps. If we determine that our services are not the best fit, we will do our best to provide referrals to appropriate services within the community.
Step 3: Clinician Matching and Availability
If we have immediate availability, we will match you with a clinician whose experience and approach align with your needs. You will receive information about the clinician, their fees, and availability. If we do not have immediate availability, we will provide information about joining our waitlist.
Step 4: Initial Appointments, Goal Setting, and Treatment Planning
The first appointment(s) are an opportunity for you and your clinician to get to know one another, build rapport, and clarify goals. During this early phase, the clinician will spend time getting to know you or your child and will work collaboratively with you to develop clear goals and a treatment plan aligned with the selected therapy track.
For young children, initial appointments are typically parent-only.
For older children and adolescents, parents and youth may attend together, depending on the situation.
Step 5: Ongoing Therapy Sessions
Ongoing sessions focus on working toward the agreed-upon goals using the approach associated with the selected therapy track. The length of therapy, session frequency, and areas of focus will vary depending on individual needs and will be discussed collaboratively with you. Plans are reviewed regularly and adjusted as goals evolve or needs change.