There is no health without mental health.

Mental and emotional wellness are essential for living a happy, fulfilling and productive life.

Mental wellness includes positive self-regard, fulfilling social relationships, meaningful work, productivity, goal achievement, good physical health, and proactive stress management.

Mental health conditions, like depression and anxiety, are not brain-based phenomena. They are a result of multiple factors, including the health of our bodies and brains, our home and work environment, our mindset, personal beliefs and experiences, and our social relationships, among others.  

Therefore truly addressing mental health concerns involves taking whole-body, person-centred view. 

How I Approach Mental Health Conditions: 

Case taking: I am interested in gaining an in-depth understanding of how you are as a person. We spend over 60 minutes together at each appointment to form a therapeutic relationship and make sure we both have a thorough understanding of all the pieces that influence your health. 

Diagnoses are valuable they remind us that it’s not because there is something wrong with us. They make us feel less alone. In addition to knowing what is going on with you, I talk with you to understand how the diagnosis occurs in your life.

Uncovering Root Causes: I look at mental health conditions as symptoms, rather than disease. Together we try to understand what biological, psychological, social and environmental factors may be influencing your mood and mental functioning. 

Digestion: The digestive system is often at the seat of mental health conditions. We look at the health of your microbiome, and rule out any gut infections, inflammatory gut conditions, like leaky gut, and food sensitivities. 

Nutrition: Ensuring that the proper building blocks are in place for optimal mental and emotional health.

Counselling: I have additional training in Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy, Cognitive Behaviour Therapy, Narrative Therapy, and Motivational Interviewing. 

Stress and Hypothalamic Pituitary Adrenal (HPA) Axis: We talk about stress, burnout and how cortisol, the stress hormone may be contributing to your symptoms. 

Hormones: Our hormones have the ability to profoundly impact our mood. From our blood sugar, to our stress hormones, to the hormones that impact our fertility and mentstrual cycles, I look and test for signs of hormonal imbalance.  

Amino acids and Nutritional Supplementation: To help balance neurotransmitters in the brain. 

Mitochondrial Health: Our mitochondria are the energy-generators of our cells. Impaired mitochondrial function in the brain may contribute to mental health symptoms, and chronic inflammation. 

Herbal Therapies: Herbs are particularly helpful for improving hormonal, mitochondrial, and neurotransmitter balance, for lowering inflammation, improving stress resilience, and healing the digestive system. 

Research: Mental health research is an exciting field. I stay on top of current and emerging therapeutic tools, like heat therapy, mindfulness and self-compassion. 

Conditions Treated: 

ADD | ADHD | Addictions | Anxiety| Body Image | Bipolar Disorder | Depression | Eating Disorders | OCD| Panic Disorder | PMS | PMDD | PTSD | Self-Criticism | Self-Esteem| Stress Management | Children and Youth

Meet Dr. Talia, ND

Ready to Book?

Click the button below to set up your first appointment. 

Download your free copy of The Mood Diet

Join The Good Mood Project: a Facebook mental health community

Mental Health Articles

Is Wu Wei the Modern-Day Stress Solution?

Is Wu Wei the Modern-Day Stress Solution?

When a successful person is asked to share the secrets of his or her success, the unanimous response is that success requires "effort" and "hard work". Other popular euphemisms are that success demands "sweat, blood and tears" or "1% inspiration, 99% perspiration". In...

30 Years, 30 Insights

30 Years, 30 Insights

Today, I'm 30, working on my career as a self-employed health professional and a small business owner and living on my own. I've moved through a lot of states, emotions and life experiences this year, which has been appropriate for closing the chapter on my 20's and...

Will That Be Form or Function Today?

Will That Be Form or Function Today?

I've come to see my migraines as an internal measuring device for wellness, or rather, lack of wellness—kind of like a very painful meat thermometer. From time to time I get bouts of low energy compelling me to spend more time doing low-key activities. However, quick...

A Tale of Two Failures

Premature Ovarian Failure no longer bears that name. It's not a failure anymore, but an insufficiency. POF becomes POI: Premature Ovarian Insufficiency, as insufficiency is apparently a softer term than "failure". For me, it's another telling example of how our...

Stories of Street Medicine

Stories of Street Medicine

I was recently told that a benefactor would contact me about the work I've been doing for the Evergreen Yonge Street Mission in Toronto—I provide naturopathic services to street-involved youth twice a month in the drop-in health clinic. There is a natural health...

DIY Rosemary Wine Tincture

DIY Rosemary Wine Tincture

As a student of naturopathic medicine, I didn't quite get herbs. They were natural, sure, but why would I prescribe them in lieu of homeopathy, dietary changes or nutritional supplements? I didn't get it. I liked herbs; I understood the idea of synergy—the fact that...

Naturopathic Narrative Therapy

Naturopathic Narrative Therapy

As a child, I was obsessed with stories. I wrote and digested stories from various genres and mediums. I created characters, illustrating them, giving them clothes and names and friends and lives. I threw them into narratives: long stories, short stories, hypothetical...

Uncertainty, Guaranteed

In most service industries, there are certain guarantees. If you go to a restaurant, your soup is guaranteed. At the GAP, you will get a pair of chinos, guaranteed. In lots of instances, you get what you are paying for and in most cases, you get to see if before you...

How to Reinvent Your Life in 20 Steps

How to Reinvent Your Life in 20 Steps

According to James Altucher, author and entrepreneur, it is possible to reinvent yourself in 5 years. In his book, The Power of No, he tells us how to reinvent our lives by first saying a big, fat No to all the things that don't serve us—toxic friendships and...

The Estrogen Metabolism Diet

The Estrogen Metabolism Diet

Estrogen is the dominant female hormone. It is actually a group of hormones, called the estrogens, that are responsible for the development of female secondary sex characteristics: the development of breast tissue and the proliferation of the uterine lining. Estrogen...

Body Braids and Ecstatic Dancing

Body Braids and Ecstatic Dancing

When you go through an upsetting breakup with your boyfriend, the thing to do, apparently, is attend an Ecstatic Dancing workshop. The friend who invited me didn't say much about it, except that it was, "a place to dance without being hit on." Apparently the practice...

Pin It on Pinterest