Personality Disorders · Online in Six Provinces
Understanding yourself more deeply — not labelling yourself permanently
A personality disorder diagnosis can feel defining or even stigmatizing. It doesn't have to be. Therapy online across six provinces that helps you understand where your patterns came from — and build a life that isn't controlled by them.
If you need immediate support
If you or someone you know is in crisis or having thoughts of self-harm, please reach out right away — you don't have to wait for a therapy appointment.
- 988 Suicide Crisis Helpline — call or text 988 (24/7, Canada-wide)
- BC Crisis Line — 1-800-SUICIDE (1-800-784-2433), 24/7
- HealthLink BC — call 811 to speak with a registered nurse any time
- Emergency — call 911 if there is immediate danger
Patterns that might have brought you here:
Intense, unstable relationships that cycle between idealization and collapse
A fragile or unstable sense of self — who you are shifts depending on who you're with
Fear of abandonment that drives behaviour you later regret
Difficulty regulating emotions — reactions that feel disproportionate but real
Impulsive behaviours that feel out of character or cause lasting harm
Chronic feelings of emptiness or unreality
Patterns of distrust, suspicion, or withdrawal that damage relationships
Receiving feedback that your patterns affect others — and feeling confused or defensive about it
If any of these resonate, you are not alone — and you do not have to work it out by yourself.
Therapy can help you:
Understand how early experiences shaped your current patterns — without judgment
Develop greater emotional regulation and distress tolerance
Build more stable, satisfying relationships
Develop a more consistent, grounded sense of who you are
Reduce self-destructive behaviours and their consequences
Move from surviving your inner life to genuinely living it
Our therapeutic approach
We tailor every approach to what you actually need. No single method works for everyone — we draw from a range of evidence-based tools to find what fits you.
DBT
Dialectical Behaviour Therapy was developed specifically for BPD and is now used across personality disorder presentations. It builds core skills in mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotion regulation, and interpersonal effectiveness.
IFS
Internal Family Systems sees personality patterns not as defects but as protective parts that developed for good reasons. IFS works to understand and heal these parts — not eliminate them.
EMDR
Many personality presentations are rooted in early trauma. EMDR processes formative experiences that continue to drive current patterns, without requiring extensive verbal retelling.
Schema Therapy
Identifies the core schemas (deep-seated beliefs) that underlie personality patterns — and systematically challenges and updates them through a combination of cognitive, emotional, and relational work.
Psychoanalytic Exploration
Explores the deeper, often unconscious structures shaping how you relate to yourself and others — particularly useful for understanding attachment, defenses, and relational patterns.
Attachment-Based Work
Many personality patterns trace back to early attachment disruptions. Therapy creates a secure, consistent relational experience that can slowly update the internal working model.
A word on labels
A personality disorder diagnosis can be validating — it gives a name to patterns that have caused confusion and pain for years. It can also feel stigmatizing, especially because these diagnoses carry cultural baggage that isn't always fair. At TEO, we use diagnostic frameworks as tools for understanding — not permanent verdicts about who you are. People change. Patterns shift. The research on effective therapy for personality presentations, especially BPD, is genuinely encouraging. You are more than your diagnosis, and your patterns are more changeable than they might feel right now.
If you need immediate support
If you or someone you know is in crisis or having thoughts of self-harm, please reach out right away — you don't have to wait for a therapy appointment.
- 988 Suicide Crisis Helpline — call or text 988 (24/7, Canada-wide)
- BC Crisis Line — 1-800-SUICIDE (1-800-784-2433), 24/7
- HealthLink BC — call 811 to speak with a registered nurse any time
- Emergency — call 911 if there is immediate danger
Why the term itself is disputed
"Personality disorder" is a diagnostic category, not a description of character — though the wording invites that reading, setting "disorder" beside "personality" so it sounds like a verdict on the whole person rather than a name for a pattern. Clinicians disagree about the categories themselves: where one ends and the next begins, whether the boundaries hold across a life, whether traits belong in boxes at all. That argument is live, not settled.
The term is used as an insult as well — in arguments and online — where it stands in for "difficult". If that has happened to you, be wary of the word, not of therapy. We use it here as shorthand for patterns people bring to sessions, never as a character description and never to discount what you tell us.
Where a formal diagnosis comes from
We do not diagnose. A formal personality disorder diagnosis comes from a psychologist or a psychiatrist, and nothing said in a session here is a diagnostic finding. A family doctor or nurse practitioner is one route to that referral. You do not need a diagnosis — or a referral of any kind — to book with us.
So we will not tell you which category fits, and we will not work backwards from your history towards a label. What we work with is what you describe: the pattern, where it shows up, what it costs you. If a label matters for insurance or for disability paperwork, we will say plainly that it is not ours to give.
Medication is a separate question for a separate person. Prescriptions come from a physician or a nurse practitioner, and we have no part in that.
Emotion regulation, and who provides the DBT work
When feeling moves fast — level ground to full flood inside a sentence — the work is small and repetitive rather than revelatory. DBT-informed sessions are built on named skills: catching the early physical signs, cooling the body, holding a decision for a few minutes instead of acting on it, saying a hard thing without setting fire to the relationship. You practise between sessions, and that is where the effort sits.
Mohamad Shabib, MACP, CCC, has completed DBT training. He works with clients in all six provinces the practice serves. Alison Shaji, RCC (BCACC), has also completed DBT training, and works with clients in British Columbia. Rola Shbib is a Registered Social Worker (Ontario); her work is crisis intervention, suicide prevention and addictions, and she holds an honours degree in thanatology.
Those are training levels, not certifications.
Early attachment and trauma: a working model, not a verdict
One way of understanding these patterns is developmental: responses that made sense in an earlier environment — scanning for a shift in someone's mood, leaving first, going numb — kept running long after the environment changed. That is a working model, not a proven account of cause, and it does not fit everyone who arrives with these patterns. Some people can name the years it came from. Others cannot, and the pattern is no less real for that.
Where early experience is part of the picture, it changes what sessions look like. Trauma processing is one option. The working model behind EMDR is that revisiting a memory while attention is divided changes how that memory is held; the mechanism is contested, and we would rather say so than sell you a tidy story about the brain. Mohamad has completed Advanced EMDR training through EMDRIA and IFS Levels 1 and 2; Alison has completed EMDR training and works with psychoanalytic, inner-child and shadow material, and with EFFT. Pacing is part of the plan — going straight at the earliest material can leave a person flooded between appointments, so skills come first and we say why we are working in that order.
Common questions
Can you tell me whether I have borderline personality disorder?
No. We do not diagnose, and a session here produces no diagnostic finding. A formal diagnosis comes from a psychologist or a psychiatrist; a family doctor or nurse practitioner can point you towards a referral. You can still book with us without one.
Is this a full DBT programme?
No. A full programme adds a weekly skills group and between-session phone coaching, and we run neither. What we offer is individual therapy that draws on DBT skills — Mohamad and Alison have both completed DBT training. If the structured programme is what you want, say so at the consultation and we will tell you straight that we do not have it.
If I talk about self-harm urges, what happens to that information?
It stays between us, within four limits: risk of serious harm to you, risk of serious harm to another person, suspected abuse or neglect of a child, and a court order or subpoena for records. Describing an urge is not the same as being in danger. If we are unsure which we are hearing, we ask you directly rather than act around you.
Will my insurance cover it?
Where your plan is one we can bill directly with Mohamad or Alison — Pacific Blue Cross, CVAP and plans on the TELUS eClaims network among them — you pay only the balance. Otherwise you pay at the session and claim afterwards, and we send an insurance-ready receipt each time. No provincial health plan covers private counselling. Check which designations your plan names: Registered Clinical Counsellor, Registered Social Worker, Registered Psychotherapist. If it names Registered Psychotherapist, ask specifically whether the Qualifying category of Registered Psychotherapist is included, because the plan's wording is what decides it.
What do sessions cost, and when can they happen?
Individual sessions are $150 for 60 minutes and couples sessions $175; the first 15 to 20 minute consultation is free. Bookings run noon to 9pm Pacific, seven days a week — that is 3pm to midnight in Ontario and 4:30pm to 1:30am in Newfoundland and Labrador. Cancelling needs 24 hours notice; later cancellations and no-shows are charged in full. A few reduced-fee spots are held. Everything is online; there is no office to attend.
Ready to take the first step?
Book a free, no-pressure consultation. We'll talk, listen, and figure out together if we're the right fit. No commitment required.
Book Free ConsultationOr call us: (519) 760-5211