Looking for a male therapist

If you searched “near me”

This is not a local clinic and it would be a waste of your time to pretend otherwise. Every session is online. There is no office, no waiting room and no drive across town.

Which means proximity is not actually the question you need answered. The location fact that matters is which province you are physically in when the session happens, because that is what determines who may lawfully work with you. Sessions are available if you are in British Columbia, Ontario, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, or Newfoundland & Labrador.

For most men the online part turns out to be the reason it happens at all. An appointment you can take from your own house at 8pm, without booking half a day off or being seen walking into a building, is a substantially easier thing to actually attend than one that requires crossing a city.

Does it matter that the therapist is a man?

The honest answer is that the research on therapist gender and outcomes is mixed, and anyone who tells you confidently that men do better with men is overstating what is known. That claim will not be made here.

What is not really in dispute is that the working relationship matters — whether you find the person credible, whether you say the real thing or the tidied-up version of it, whether you come back. So the useful way to think about the preference is practical rather than clinical:

• if seeing a man is the difference between booking and not booking, that settles it
• if you have spent years being told what men are like and would rather work it out with one, that is a reasonable place to start
• if there is a specific reason — something you would find harder to say to a woman — you do not have to justify it to anyone

Equally, if you try it and the fit is wrong, that is information rather than failure, and being told so is genuinely useful. Nobody here is going to take it personally.

Mohamad Shabib

Mohamad is a Registered Psychotherapist (Qualifying) with the College of Registered Psychotherapists of Ontario (CRPO), and a Canadian Certified Counsellor. His clinical training includes EMDR, Internal Family Systems Levels 1 and 2, and the Gottman Method. Those are trainings he has completed; he does not hold EMDR or IFS certification, which are separate credentials, and this page will not imply he does.

He works in English and Arabic. Sessions run in the evenings and at weekends as well as during the day, which for a lot of men is the practical difference between therapy being possible and being theoretical.

You can read more on his full profile, or about the specific approaches on the EMDR and Internal Family Systems pages.

What men tend to bring

Not a diagnostic list, and nothing here is a diagnosis. Just the things that most often turn out to be the reason someone finally booked:

• anger that has started arriving faster than it used to
• trauma that is still shaping present-day reactions, including work-related trauma
• the flat, going-through-the-motions version of low mood that does not look like sadness
• relationship difficulty — disconnection, repeated arguments, or the silence after them
• the long-standing internal patterns that reasoning with yourself has not shifted
• transitions: separation, a career that stopped fitting, becoming a father, losing a parent

There is a broader page on therapy for men if you want more detail on how that work tends to run, and a separate one on anger management counselling.

When this is not the right fit

Worth knowing before you spend a consultation finding out. This is probably not the right place if:

• you need a formal diagnosis, a completion letter, or a court-mandated programme
• you need medication prescribed or reviewed — that is a physician or psychiatrist
• substance use has reached the point of needing medical detox or inpatient care
• you are looking for someone in a specific city to see face to face — every session here is online

If one of those is what you actually need, say so in the consultation — it is a shorter conversation and you can be pointed toward the right kind of service instead of starting something that will not help.

Private, with limits worth knowing

What you say in session is confidential. It is not absolutely confidential, and it is better to know where the edges are before you start than to find out later.

A regulated therapist in Canada is required to disclose in specific circumstances: where there is reason to believe a child needs protection; where a mandatory report about sexual abuse by a regulated health professional is required; where there is a serious and imminent risk of harm; and where a court order or subpoena compels it. These obligations exist regardless of who you see, and they will be gone through with you again at the first session so you can ask about them properly.

Outside those situations, what you bring stays in the room — including from your partner, your employer, and your family.

Questions worth asking