Before you book
What to expect in online therapy
From the first click to the first session, with nothing left vague: who takes the call, how you are matched, what the room looks like, what it costs, and what happens if it is not working.
Free 15-minute consultation · No referral needed · Seven days a week
- RP (Qualifying), CRPO #14298
- CCC, CCPA #11249205
- RSW (Ontario), OCSWSSW #866715
- RCC, BCACC
- 6 provinces served
- Direct billing available
- Free 15-minute consultation
- Seven days a week
Every registration above can be checked on its public register — the links go straight there.
Starting therapy at TEO, at a glance. TEO Counselling is a virtual-only practice based in Nanaimo, British Columbia, working by video with adults and couples in British Columbia, Ontario, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Newfoundland & Labrador. Every enquiry starts the same way: a free 15-minute consultation with Mohamad Shabib, who founded the practice, and who then books you with the clinician who fits what you bring, your province and your language. Sessions are 60 minutes by video on Jane, $150 for individuals and $175 for couples, seven days a week from 12:00 pm to 9:00 pm Pacific — later local hours the further east you live. No provincial health plan covers counselling in private practice; coverage depends on the credentials your plan recognizes, direct billing is available with Mohamad and Alison for Pacific Blue Cross and TELUS eClaims plans, and an insurance-ready receipt follows every session. Cancellations need 24 hours’ notice. No referral is needed at any stage.
Why the first step is a 15-minute call, not a session
Booking a first therapy session is a strange thing to be asked to do. You are choosing a stranger, paying for an hour, and hoping the fit is right — before anyone has told you what the work would actually involve. The free consultation exists to take that risk out of the decision.
It is 15 minutes, by video or by phone, and it costs nothing. You do not need a referral, a diagnosis, or a tidy account of what is wrong. You describe what has been going on in whatever order it comes out, you ask what you need to ask, and you get a straight answer about whether this is the right kind of help — including if the honest answer is that it is not.
It is not a therapy session and it is not an assessment. Nothing in it produces a diagnosis. TEO does not provide psychological assessments and does not diagnose; if that is what you need, for a school, an employer, an insurer or a court, the consultation is where you will be pointed toward a psychologist instead.
The three steps, in order
Book a free 15-minute consultation
The call is with Mohamad Shabib, who founded the practice. He answers your questions, tells you what the work would involve, and there is nothing to pay and nothing to commit to.
Get matched to a clinician
On that call Mohamad matches you with the clinician who fits what you bring, your province and your language — himself, Rola Shbib, or Alison Shaji if you are in British Columbia. If you already know who you would rather work with, say so and it is arranged.
Your first 60-minute session
By video, at a time you pick — evenings and weekends included. Individual sessions are $150 and couples sessions $175, each 60 minutes, with an insurance-ready receipt afterwards.
$150 individual · $175 couples · 60 minutes · direct billing with Pacific Blue Cross and TELUS eClaims plans (Canada Life, Manulife); an insurance-ready receipt for every other plan. Fees & insurance · Direct billing
Why every booking link goes to the same person
There is one booking link on this site, not three, and it goes to Mohamad Shabib. That is deliberate. He founded the practice, he takes every first consultation himself, and the job of that call is to work out who should do the work — which may well be one of his colleagues rather than him.
Two things decide it. The first is what you are bringing: EMDR and Internal Family Systems work sits with Mohamad; Alison Shaji works with clients in British Columbia and brings CBT, DBT, EMDR and depth work; Rola Shbib brings crisis intervention, addictions, and grief and bereavement, with an honours degree in thanatology behind the grief work. The second is where you live, because registration differs by province and that is not something a client should have to work out alone.
Language is part of the match too. Sessions run in English and Arabic across all six provinces, and in Hindi or Malayalam for clients in British Columbia. If you already know whom you would rather work with, say so on the call and it is arranged.
Your first 60-minute session
The first full session is mostly history and direction: what brought you here, what has already been tried, and what you want to be different. You will be asked about the shape of the problem rather than made to narrate the worst of it. A common misunderstanding about trauma therapy in particular is that it opens with a full account of what happened. It does not have to.
Nothing is dug into before you are ready, and structured trauma work does not begin until there is enough stability and enough trust in the room to make it worth doing. You set the pace, you can stop, and you can say that a question is too much today. That is information, not resistance.
From there the rhythm is yours. Some people come weekly for a few months and stop; others come fortnightly for longer. There is no package to sign and no minimum number of sessions, and how the work is going is reviewed with you as it goes rather than assumed.
The video room, practically
Sessions run on Jane, the Canadian practice-management platform TEO uses for booking and records, with Zoom or Google Meet as a backup. You receive a link by email; there is nothing to install and no account to create beyond the booking itself.
What you need at your end is a room where you can close a door, a device you can prop on something solid, and a connection that will hold for the hour. Headphones help more than people expect — they keep the session yours and they matter for EMDR, where tones through headphones are one of the three ways the left-right stimulus is set up.
If privacy at home is hard to come by, raise it on the consultation call rather than working around it alone: a car in a quiet car park, a room borrowed at a set hour, and a plan for who might walk in are all ordinary parts of this conversation. A fallback for a dropped connection — usually a phone call to the number on file — is agreed before anything demanding is started.
There is no office and no waiting room anywhere. For a lot of people the practical difference is the point: no drive home after a heavy session, and no explaining an afternoon away from work. Hours run seven days a week, 12:00 pm to 9:00 pm Pacific, which lands later the further east you live — 3:00 pm to midnight in Ontario, 4:30 pm to 1:30 am in Newfoundland. The honest limit is that there are no mornings anywhere.
Fees, receipts and direct billing
Individual therapy is $150 per 60-minute session and couples counselling is $175. The consultation is free. There is no intake fee, no assessment fee and no package to buy up front.
No provincial health plan in Canada covers counselling or psychotherapy in private practice. What may cover it is an extended health plan through work or school, and coverage depends on the credentials your plan recognizes — check for CCC, RCC, RSW or Registered Psychotherapist (Qualifying). Read the plan’s own wording rather than its summary page, because plans list provider categories separately and reimburse them differently.
Where your plan is one we can bill, you pay only the part it does not cover. Otherwise you pay at the time of the session and receive an insurance-ready receipt, which is the document extended health plans ask for. The full picture is on fees and insurance and on direct billing.
Book a free 15-minute consultation$150 individual · $175 couples · 60 minutes · direct billing with Pacific Blue Cross and TELUS eClaims plans (Canada Life, Manulife); an insurance-ready receipt for every other plan. Fees & insurance · Direct billing
Cancelling or moving a session
Cancellations need twenty-four hours’ notice. Inside that window, and for a session nobody attends, the full fee is charged. The hour is held for you and cannot be filled at short notice, which is the reason for the rule — and it is better stated here than met on an invoice.
Confidentiality, and where it stops
What you say in session stays between you and your clinician, within four limits set by law rather than by us:
- · A serious and imminent risk of harm to you or to someone else.
- · A child in need of protection.
- · A court order or a subpoena for the file.
- · A mandatory report of the sexual abuse of a patient by a regulated health professional.
Your clinician walks through those limits in the first session, before anything sensitive is discussed, so you know exactly where the line sits before you decide what to say. How your information is stored and handled outside the session — and what happens to the record if you stop — is set out in the privacy policy.
One practical note about the contact form on this site: it arrives as ordinary email rather than through a clinical system, so keep the detail light at that stage. The detail belongs in the session.
If you need someone before your appointment
Therapy here is booked ahead of time and is not a crisis service. These are free and staffed around the clock:
- · 9-8-8 Suicide Crisis Helpline: call or text 9-8-8 (Canada, 24/7)
- · Kids Help Phone (for young people): 1-800-668-6868, or text CONNECT to 686868
- · Hope for Wellness Help Line: 1-855-242-3310 (24/7)
If you are in immediate danger, please call 911.
More crisis lines and free programs, province by province, are on the resources page, and the free printable tools are open to anyone with no email address asked for.
Common questions before a first session
What happens in the free 15-minute consultation?
It is a conversation, not an assessment, and it costs nothing. You describe what has been going on in whatever detail you want to, and you ask whatever you need to ask — what the work would involve, how often you would meet, what it costs, and what happens if it is not helping. Nothing in it produces a diagnosis, and nobody asks you to commit at the end of it. The call is with Mohamad Shabib, who founded the practice; he takes every consultation himself and then books you with the clinician who fits.
Who will I actually see?
That is decided on the consultation call rather than guessed at beforehand. Two things decide it: what you are bringing, and where you live. Mohamad Shabib works with clients in all six provinces, in English or Arabic, and carries the EMDR, Internal Family Systems and Gottman Method training. Alison Shaji works with clients in British Columbia, in English, Hindi or Malayalam. Rola Shbib works with clients in all six provinces, in English, with grief and bereavement, crisis support and addictions. If you already know who you would rather work with, say so and it is arranged.
How long is a session and what does it cost?
Sessions are 60 minutes. Individual therapy is $150 per session and couples counselling is $175 per session. There is no intake fee, no assessment fee and no package to buy up front. You pay per session through Jane by Interac e-Transfer or credit card, and an insurance-ready receipt follows immediately afterwards. A small number of reduced-fee spots are held — if cost is the thing standing in the way, say so on the consultation call.
What platform are sessions on?
Sessions run by video on Jane, the Canadian practice-management platform TEO also uses for booking and records, with Zoom or Google Meet as a backup. You get a link by email; there is nothing to install. What you need at your end is a private room, a device, and a connection that holds for the hour. A fallback — usually a phone call — is agreed before anything demanding is started, so a dropped connection has a plan rather than a scramble.
Do I need a referral?
No. You can book the free 15-minute consultation yourself, and no referral is needed for any session after it. You do not need a diagnosis either, and it is fine to be unsure whether what you are dealing with counts.
Is online therapy covered by insurance?
Not by any provincial health plan — MSP, OHIP, Alberta Health Care and their counterparts do not cover counselling or psychotherapy in private practice, online or in person. What may cover it is an extended health plan through work or school. Coverage depends on the credentials your plan recognizes — check for CCC, RCC, RSW or Registered Psychotherapist (Qualifying). Direct billing is available with Mohamad and Alison for Pacific Blue Cross and plans on the TELUS eClaims network such as Canada Life and Manulife; where your plan is not one we can bill, you pay for the session and submit the insurance-ready receipt yourself.
What is the cancellation policy?
Cancellations need twenty-four hours’ notice. Inside that window, and for a session nobody attends, the full fee is charged. It is a real rule rather than a soft one, because the hour is held for you and cannot be filled at short notice — and it is better to know it now than to meet it on an invoice.
Is what I say confidential?
What you say in session is kept confidential, within four limits set by law rather than by us: a serious and imminent risk of harm to you or to someone else; a child in need of protection; a court order or subpoena; and the mandatory report of sexual abuse of a patient by a regulated health professional. Your clinician walks through those limits in the first session, before anything sensitive is discussed, so you know where the line sits before you decide what to say. How your information is handled outside session is set out in the privacy policy.
What if online therapy is not the right fit for me?
Then you will be told so. Video suits some people and some situations and not others, and the consultation exists partly to find that out. If what you need is in-person care, a prescriber, a higher level of care, or a service local to you, that is said plainly at the consultation or whenever it becomes clear — not after you have paid for a course of sessions.
More is answered on the full FAQ, and the province pages set out local hours and coverage: British Columbia, Ontario, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Newfoundland & Labrador.
Book a free 15-minute consultation
A short conversation with Mohamad to see whether this is the right fit — no pressure, no commitment, and a straight answer if something else would serve you better.
Book Free ConsultationOr call (519) 760-5211
Page information last updated September 2026.