I'm a Registered Psychotherapist (Qualifying), Licence #19673, practising in Whitby, Ontario. I grew up in Bangladesh, spent more than 30 years in South Asia before immigrating to Canada, and I work with many South Asian clients.
I grew up in Bangladesh. I lived there for more than 30 years, which means I understand from the inside what it means to be shaped by a Bengali upbringing: the expectations carried by family, the particular way that grief and duty and love get tangled together, the things that simply don't exist as concepts in English. When I came to Canada, I came as a single mother. That's not a detail I mention to perform vulnerability. It's relevant because it means I know what it costs to rebuild a life in a country that doesn't already know who you are, while also being responsible for someone else's stability.
That lived experience sits alongside formal training. I completed my Master of Arts in Counselling Psychology at Yorkville University in 2025 and my Diploma in Behavioural Science at Seneca College in 2022. I'm a member of the Canadian Counselling and Psychotherapy Association, and I hold Registered Psychotherapist (Qualifying) status with the College of Registered Psychotherapists of Ontario, Licence #19673. The Qualifying designation means I'm in the supervised practice phase the College requires before full registration , it's a regulatory step, and it doesn't change what happens in the room between me and a client.
My training covers CBT, Emotionally Focused Therapy, Internal Family Systems, DBT, Psychodynamic approaches, Narrative therapy, Solution Focused work, and trauma-focused methods. I use whichever of these is most useful to the person I'm working with. Some clients need tools to manage what's happening right now. Others need to understand why certain patterns keep coming back. I don't apply a fixed framework to everyone, because people aren't interchangeable.
I work with individuals and couples on anxiety, depression, trauma, burnout, identity and life transitions, and the specific pressures that come with immigration and living between cultures. My sessions are in English, Bengali, or Hindi, in-person at my Whitby office or virtually across Canada. If you'd like to talk before booking, the first 15 minutes are free.
Read about my approach and fees →Sessions are 50 minutes. In-person sessions take place at 519 Dundas Street East in Whitby; virtual sessions are available by video or phone to clients anywhere in Canada. Before a first session, I offer a free 15-minute call where we talk briefly about what's brought you to therapy, I answer any questions you have about how I work, and we both get a sense of whether it's a good fit. There's no obligation after that call.
In early sessions, I spend time understanding what you're carrying and what you'd like to be different. We set a direction together. That might mean working with specific tools for managing anxiety or sleep, or it might mean going deeper into patterns that have followed you for years. I draw on CBT, Emotionally Focused Therapy, Internal Family Systems, DBT, Psychodynamic approaches, Narrative therapy, Solution Focused methods, and trauma-focused work, and I choose what's most relevant to you rather than running everyone through the same process.
For clients from Bengali or South Asian backgrounds, the work often involves things that don't map neatly onto Western therapeutic frameworks: family obligation, intergenerational patterns of silence, the particular weight of being the one who left. I know those things from my own life, which means we don't have to spend session time translating the cultural context before we can get to the actual work.
I'm Bengali. I grew up in Bangladesh and spent more than 30 years there before immigrating to Canada. That means I carry the cultural knowledge from the inside: the specific weight of family expectation in a Bangladeshi household, the way shame operates differently in Bengali culture than in Western therapeutic models, and the grief that comes with leaving a country that formed you. This isn't background I read about in a textbook. It's the context I brought with me to Canada, and it shapes how I understand what clients bring to sessions.
I offer sessions in English, Bengali, and Hindi. For many clients from Bangladesh or Bengali-speaking families, certain emotional experiences only exist with their full meaning in Bengali. Concepts around duty, belonging, and loss don't always survive translation. Some clients choose to work entirely in Bengali. Others move between both languages in a single session, using whichever one gets closer to what they're trying to say. I follow the client's lead on this, and I'd rather lose nothing in translation than keep everything tidy and lose the actual content of what we're working on.
I'm a Registered Psychotherapist (Qualifying) with the College of Registered Psychotherapists of Ontario, Licence #19673. The Qualifying designation means I'm completing the supervised practice hours the College requires before granting full registration. Every session I conduct is covered by this professional framework. My supervisor reviews my clinical work to ensure the standard of care stays high, which in practice means the work is more closely monitored than it would be for a fully registered therapist practising independently. You can verify my registration on the College's public register at any time.
In Ontario, a psychologist holds a doctoral degree and is regulated by the College of Psychologists of Ontario. They can conduct psychological assessment and diagnosis, which therapists and counsellors typically cannot. A Registered Psychotherapist is regulated by the College of Registered Psychotherapists of Ontario and is trained specifically in the practice of psychotherapy. The title "counsellor" is not a protected term in Ontario, which means anyone can use it regardless of training. When choosing who to work with, look for a regulated title, a licence number you can verify, and specific qualifications rather than the word "counsellor" alone.
It means you don't have to spend session time explaining context before you can talk about the actual thing. A therapist who grew up in a Bengali household in Bangladesh already understands what family expectation means in that specific cultural frame, how intergenerational silence operates, and why certain things are not said rather than said. That shared background isn't a replacement for clinical training. It means the cultural translation work doesn't land on you as the client. You can spend the session working on what you came to work on, rather than educating your therapist about the world you came from.
For many people, emotional processing is more precise in the language they grew up with. There are Bengali words for states of being, relational dynamics, and cultural obligations that don't have clean English equivalents. When you're working in your second language, you're doing two things at once: translating the emotion into words and then translating those words into a language that doesn't quite fit. Working in Bengali means one of those steps disappears. That said, some clients find a second language creates useful distance. What matters is choosing what works best for you, not what feels most correct in theory.
The most reliable way is a brief consultation call before your first paid session. Pay attention to whether you feel understood rather than processed, and whether the therapist is direct about how they work rather than vague. Ask specific questions: What modalities do you use? What does a first session look like? How do you typically measure whether the work is helping? A good fit doesn't mean you feel comfortable immediately. Some useful therapeutic work is uncomfortable. The right fit means you trust that the person across from you understands your context, takes your situation seriously, and has the training to work with what you're bringing.
Supervised practice is a College of Registered Psychotherapists of Ontario requirement for therapists at the Qualifying stage. It means the therapist's clinical work is regularly reviewed by an approved, more experienced supervisor. In practice, supervised practice often provides more rigorous oversight than independent practice. The supervisor acts as a check on clinical decision-making, approach, and ethical conduct. The client benefits from both the therapist's direct training and the supervisor's additional perspective on the work. It's worth asking any therapist you're considering whether they work under supervision, because it's a mark of accountability rather than a limitation.
A therapist with lived immigrant experience understands that immigration is not a single event followed by adjustment. It's a sustained condition of being between two places, neither fully belonging to the country you left nor fully absorbed into the one you arrived in. I immigrated from Bangladesh to Canada as a single mother, which means I navigated that condition while also managing a child's stability without a support network already in place. When a client brings the specific grief of leaving, the ambivalence of success in a new country, or the quiet cost of being the one who made it, I understand what they're describing from the inside rather than from a theoretical framework.
My office is at 519 Dundas Street East, Whitby, ON L1N 2H3. I see clients in person from across the Durham Region. Virtual sessions are available by video or phone to clients anywhere in Ontario and across Canada. If you're outside the Durham Region, a virtual session works just as well.
"Finding a therapist who speaks Bengali and actually understands what that means culturally is harder than it sounds. I spent years putting this off because I didn't think I'd find someone who got it. Within a few sessions I was covering things I hadn't been able to talk about in English. I recommend Syeda to anyone in the Bengali community who's been sitting on this."
"I'd tried two other therapists before this. Syeda is the first one where I felt like we were actually getting somewhere rather than just talking around things. Three months in, I sleep better than I have in years. The online sessions worked out much better than I expected."
"I came in thinking I needed to talk about my relationship. What we actually worked on turned out to be older than that. Six weeks in, things had already shifted. Syeda doesn't rush you but she also doesn't let you go in circles. I hadn't expected to feel any different this quickly."
I hold a Master of Arts in Counselling Psychology from Yorkville University, completed in 2025, and a Diploma in Behavioural Science from Seneca College, completed in 2022. I'm a member of the Canadian Counselling and Psychotherapy Association, and I hold Registered Psychotherapist (Qualifying) status with Licence #19673. My graduate training covered a wide range of evidence-based modalities including CBT, Emotionally Focused Therapy, Internal Family Systems, DBT, and trauma-focused approaches, all of which I draw on directly in practice. The MA programme at Yorkville included both theoretical grounding and practicum work, so the training was applied from the start rather than purely academic.
Registered Psychotherapist (Qualifying) is a protected title regulated by the College of Registered Psychotherapists of Ontario. It means I've met the academic and clinical requirements for registration and I'm currently completing the supervised practice hours the College requires before full registration. Every therapist at the Qualifying stage practises under an approved clinical supervisor, which means my work is reviewed regularly by an experienced professional. This isn't a limitation on what I can offer clients. My supervisor oversees clinical quality, which in practical terms means the work is more closely monitored than independent practice. My Licence number is #19673 and you can verify this on the College's public register.
I offer sessions in English, Bengali, and Hindi. For many clients who grew up in Bangladesh or in Bengali-speaking households, being able to work in their first language changes what's possible in a session. There are feelings, family dynamics, and cultural concepts that don't translate cleanly into English, and working in Bengali means we don't lose anything in that translation. Some clients prefer to move between languages within a single session, switching to whichever language gets closest to what they're trying to express. I follow your lead on this completely. For clients whose first language is Hindi, sessions fully in Hindi are also available.
I offer both. In-person sessions take place at 519 Dundas Street East, Whitby, ON L1N 2H3. Virtual sessions are available by video or phone to anyone in Ontario and across Canada. Many clients in the Durham Region, including Whitby, Oshawa, Ajax, and Pickering, choose in-person, while clients in the GTA, other parts of Ontario, or elsewhere in Canada work with me virtually. The therapeutic work is equally effective in either format, and the transition between the two is straightforward if your circumstances change. We can discuss which format suits your situation best during the free 15-minute consultation before your first session.
Yes, in a real and specific sense. I grew up in Bangladesh and spent more than 30 years in South Asia before immigrating to Canada. I made that move as a single mother, which means I navigated immigration while being solely responsible for a child's stability and wellbeing at the same time. I have direct personal experience of the grief of leaving a country you know completely, the particular exhaustion of building a new life from scratch, and the identity questions that come from living between two very different cultural frameworks. I don't centre my personal history in sessions, but it does mean I understand certain experiences from the inside rather than from training materials alone, and that changes the quality of recognition a client feels.
Sessions are 50 minutes. I draw on CBT, Emotionally Focused Therapy, Internal Family Systems, DBT, Psychodynamic approaches, Narrative therapy, Solution Focused work, and trauma-focused methods. I choose what's most useful for the person in front of me rather than applying the same framework to everyone. In the first session, I spend time understanding what's brought you to therapy, what you've already tried, and what you'd want to be different. We set a direction together from there. Some clients want practical tools for managing anxiety, sleep disruption, or stress at work. Others want to understand patterns that keep repeating across relationships or decades. I follow your lead on the pace and the depth of the work, and I'll tell you honestly if I think a different approach or a different kind of support might serve you better than what I can offer.
Individual and couples sessions are $150 per hour. I also offer a sliding scale rate of $135 per hour for clients who need it. The 15-minute consultation before your first session is free, and there's no obligation to book after that call. I accept cash, cheque, Visa, Mastercard, and PayPal. I don't bill insurance providers directly, but I provide receipts after each session that you can submit to your benefits plan. Many extended health plans include coverage for sessions with a Registered Psychotherapist, so it's worth checking your specific plan for that designation before assuming it isn't covered.
The first step is the free 15-minute consultation, which you can book through the consultation page on this site. That call is a chance for us to talk briefly about what's brought you to therapy and for you to get a sense of how I work before committing to a full session. It's also the right time to ask anything you want to know about my approach, the logistics, or what to expect. If it feels like the right fit on both sides, we'll book your first full session from there. My hours are Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday from 3 to 9pm, and Wednesday from 12 to 5pm. Sessions are in-person in Whitby or virtual anywhere in Canada.
If you'd like to talk before deciding, book a free consultation. We'll spend 15 minutes discussing what's brought you to therapy, how I work, and whether this is the right fit. No paperwork, no commitment, no pressure to continue.