Brian Baumal, Registered Psychotherapist — Toronto

I hate when therapists ask, “How do you feel about that?” 

If I do it, it is because I have run through numerous alternatives and deduced that to be the best one. If I do it too often, tell me to put $10 in a jar and I’ll donate all proceeds to children’s mental health at the end of the year*.

I do not come into a session having a pre-programmed “style”, though I have been described as:

• Incisively intellectual and logical, but I have shed tears in session before. In other words, my intellectual bent does not get in the way of me being a vulnerable, authentic human being with you, if that is beneficial for your growth. However, as proof of this intellectual bent, I was imitated on the radio once. While the imitation made me sound suavely intellectual, I thought “Do I really sound that aloof?”
• At the same time, I leave a huge amount of room for emotion and feeling. My intellectual bent gives me confidence to know that when we get into these difficult areas, that we have arrived here with a purpose!
• I will never force a laugh, but my very depressed patients tell me that laughter is very good for the soul.

It has taken me a long time and lots of work to get to this point. In all sincerity, I love my profession and I am constantly learning.

Oh, and if you want to gauge a therapist’s competence, ask them to provide you with their training and conference schedule for the last year. On average, I attend one form of training, conference, upgrading and supervision at a minimum of once a month.

I am not a fan of when therapists provide an alphabet-soup of modalities or qualifications after their names (e.g. “CBT, CBT-E, DBT, GST, MB-DBT, HST, EMDR, ACT, IFS”… Yes, GST and HST are Canadian taxes, not forms of therapy). For most people, these letters don’t mean much to them.

My training is in Gestalt therapy.

What that means for you is that I hope I will listen well to you. It means that you are sitting across from a human being who believes that therapy involves examining your humanity and combining it with mine in session for your benefit.

I hope to really get you both thinking and feeling in our sessions. I will often use guided visualizations because they are excellent ways of understanding our unconscious and some of the root causes of issues with food and body that people want to understand.

I really give a darn about the relationship between us as that is often the lifeblood of healing that occurs in therapy. All this helps form the depth psychology that will allow us to get to the root causes of your issues with food in a tender, yet exciting journey with someone who has “been there and done that” with his own eating disorders and weight management.

As your first point of contact, Brian will guide your free discovery call to explore your story and begin mapping out your therapy journey.