REGISTERED PSYCHOTHERAPIST, CRPO #12480

H1 I'm Holl Owen, a Registered Psychotherapist in Whitby, Ontario.

SUBHEAD They/them. Non-binary, and working with people who have spent a long time trying to work themselves out.

WHERE I STARTED

HOW I GOT HERE

I was going to work in film.

I applied to several university programs after high school and did not get into any of them. At the time it felt like a failure. It turned out to be the most useful thing that could have happened.

I took a gap year and spent most of it thinking about who I was and what kind of work would mean something. I had been dealing with my own mental health for years, and I had always been interested in why people think the way they do and how patterns get built. That combination pointed me toward an undergraduate degree in behavioural psychology, and from there to psychotherapy.

That year of not knowing is not far from the work I do now. A lot of what happens in my sessions is someone questioning the expectations they have been living by, and working out what a life that fits them would look like.

WHAT CHANGED

WHY I BUILT THIS PRACTICE

Somewhere you do not have to edit yourself.

I wanted to build the kind of space I think a lot of people are looking for and cannot easily find. Somewhere you do not have to minimize, mask, over-explain, or change parts of yourself in order to be understood.

Most of the people I work with have spent years feeling misunderstood, or ashamed of who they are. They learned to people-please, to second-guess themselves, to make themselves smaller, to live by everyone else's expectations.

I know that from the inside. I came out as non-binary at 27, I see a lot of myself in the neurodivergent experience, and I have my own history with mental health. I know what it is to spend years trying to understand yourself and then realize that living honestly might mean letting go of things you were certain about.

First responder culture is not abstract for me either. I grew up close to it and I live close to it now. I have watched what the work asks of the people doing it, and what it asks of the people who love them. That is a large part of why this practice exists and why I take that work seriously.

HOW I PRACTISE

MY APPROACH

Integrative, collaborative, and built around you.

I draw on several evidence-based therapies rather than applying one model to everybody. Most often that is Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and Dialectical Behaviour Therapy, through a trauma-aware and affirming lens.

In practice we build safety first, then understand the patterns, then work on the skills. What we are working toward is emotional flexibility, self-trust, and a clearer sense of what matters to you. It is collaborative throughout. You will not be handed a plan you had no part in making.

WHO I AM OUTSIDE THE ROOM

THE REST OF ME

I have a dog named Asta who I love unreasonably.

He turns up in sessions occasionally, and I always clarify that he is not a therapy dog. He is just a dog who likes to be involved.

Outside of work I lift, play video games, and spend as much time outdoors as I can, ideally once the weather turns. Fall and winter are mine. I do not do well in the heat. I am a committed foodie, obsessed with tea in nearly all its forms, and I will watch any documentary you put in front of me, true crime especially.