Our Method 

because you don't want to just analyze your life, 

you want to grow and change it!

We help people by building new conditions for growth.  We create new tools for developmental learning, using all of the resources we have together.

                                                            

Room For Growth employs a building method, a constructive process.  Psychotherapies based on the disease model understand emotional difficulty as a foreign object –– like a virus –– and they try to eradicate or extract the diseased object from a mind. In contrast, at Room For Growth we function as builders of social contexts where people can grow their life. By re-initiating growth, by building new possibilities, by growing life, joy and abundance, Room For Growth helps people.

The fundamental discovery we utilize is that people learn by helping each other do new things. Understanding and analyzing are over-rated as mechanisms for change. Understanding,  ironically, has little to do with practical changes or changes in practice. Many of us have experienced being able to 'understand'  without being able to change.   

Many people feel that current conditions in life hinder growth and happiness, and much learning is abstract and not growthful. We at Room for Growth facilitate growing new skills, emotions, relationships and life-conditions by building inclusive social tools for growth, in therapy, in families, workplaces, relationships and communities, at any age or stage of life.

Toronto’s Room For Growth Counseling is in the tradition of social & clinical development pioneered by The East Side Institute for Group and Short-Term Psychotherapy in New York City  (Learn about the East Side Institute). It is practiced throughout the U.S., Europe and for four years now in Toronto. We are part of the development community (Learn about our Community), and we help people from the full color spectrum, with diverse backgrounds and challenges.

At  Room For Growth we create our 'cure' together, by talking and creating a safe place to be who we are becoming. We build inclusive, anti-oppressive environments to maximize individual, group, and community growth. 

We help create the conditions for people to be who they are becoming. It is exciting, profound, and controversial. Most of all, and perhaps most importantly, it is revolutionary. We help people make profound, revolutionary changes in their life, in their communities and in the world.

Regarding fees and timelines : Room For Growth offers income-sensitive fees to make growth affordable to the widest range of patients. We offer short-term services in individual, couples, and family contexts, as well as longer-term development groups.  New individual patients receive a free initial consultation of 90 minutes in order to let patient and therapist meet without initial commitment. Individual patients have no contracts to sign, and therapy can be stopped anytime by unilateral decision of the patient. 

Employers hiring Room For Growth for employee development sign contracts for contracted services.

Regarding psychotropic drugs : Although psychotropic drugs make many patients feel better (and we have nothing against feeling good!) they are sometimes used instead of addressing problematic areas of underdevelopment. The best use of psychotropic drugs is as a ‘growth facilitator’ in conjunction with counselling. Room For Growth neither diagnoses nor prescribes, but we work with and refer to a wide range of psychiatric, medical and other practitioners in order to build networks of care for our patients. We have working relationships with practitioners at the Center for Addiction and Mental Health, hospitals, clinics and community-based agencies.

          Back to Room For Growth      Learn about the East Side Institute

                                                                Room For Growth offers:

               *Growth Groups      *Individual Counselling      *Couples and Marital Counselling   

          *Short-Term Counseling      *Community Groups      *Working Groups       *Workshops 

                                                             in Downtown Toronto Annex  416-532-4769