Naomi Ball Services
OCD, Anxiety & Self-Esteem Therapy in Toronto
I work with a wide range of concerns, and most of my clients come to me carrying more than one thing at once: anxiety tangled up with self-esteem, a life transition stirring up old family patterns, grief sitting alongside identity questions. Below is an honest look at the areas I work in and how I actually approach each one, not just a list of words. Click into whatever feels relevant, and know that we don't have to fit your experience into a tidy category before we start working together.
OCD Therapy in Toronto
OCD is often misunderstood, and many people who have it don't recognize it as OCD at first. If you're noticing patterns, compulsions, or intrusive thoughts that take up real time and mental energy, you're in the right place.
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OCD involves unwanted, intrusive thoughts (obsessions) that create significant distress, followed by behaviours or mental rituals (compulsions) aimed at relieving that distress or preventing something bad from happening. It often targets the things a person cares about most, being a good person, keeping loved ones safe, which is part of what makes it so distressing to live with. Many people who have it have never talked about it with anyone before, often assuming what they're experiencing is just "bad anxiety."
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I treat OCD using a structured, evidence-based approach built specifically for it (more on that in the Approaches section below). Treatment typically begins with understanding the severity and shape of what you're experiencing, then moves into building a plan together that's specific to your own thoughts and rituals, at a pace that respects where you're starting from.
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This work is for anyone noticing that what they've been calling "anxiety" might be something more specific, repetitive thoughts, rituals, or a sense that something bad will happen if a particular behaviour isn't completed. It's also for people who've tried therapy before but found it focused on general anxiety rather than their specific patterns.
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You'll notice you can sit with discomfort without needing to complete a ritual to feel okay again. The grip of the thought loosens over time, and the rituals take up less and less space in your day.
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OCD treatment is structured and goal-oriented, different from most of my other therapy work, because that's what actually works for OCD.
Anxiety Therapy in Toronto
Anxiety can look like constant overwhelm, racing thoughts, or a persistent sense that you're not doing enough, fast enough, well enough. It shows up differently depending on where you are in life, but it almost always involves a mind working overtime to protect you from something that may not actually be a threat.
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A pattern of excessive worry, overthinking, or physical tension that interferes with daily life, often tied to a sense of impending danger that isn't actually there.
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For students, anxiety often shows up as everything feeling unmanageable at once. For professionals, it's frequently layered with imposter feelings, difficulty advocating for yourself, or friction in workplace relationships. I meet you in the specific version of anxiety you're living, not a textbook definition of it.
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Students navigating academic pressure, professionals managing high-stakes careers, and anyone whose mind won't stop racing long enough to feel at ease.
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You notice the anxious thought arrive, and it doesn't automatically take over. You have language and tools to challenge it, reframe it, or simply let it pass.
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I draw on CBT to understand your patterns of thought, alongside self-compassion and mindfulness-based approaches, to help you build a different relationship with anxious thinking.
Self-Esteem Therapy in Toronto
Negative beliefs about yourself are usually old and deeply ingrained, which is why this work takes patience. It's less about convincing yourself you're worthy and more about slowly learning to relate to yourself differently.
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Self-esteem therapy is the ongoing work of understanding and shifting how you see and talk to yourself, especially after failure or disappointment. For many clients, this shows up as a persistent inner critic that's louder than it needs to be.
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We explore your actual strengths directly, helping you own things about yourself that may be hard to see clearly right now. A lot of this work is about learning, slowly and consistently, to treat yourself the way you'd treat a friend.
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People who look capable and accomplished from the outside but carry real self-doubt underneath, and anyone whose inner critic runs the show more than they'd like.
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Instead of berating yourself after a mistake, you're able to say, "This is human, and it's okay."
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This is slow, steady work. We're not aiming for instant confidence; we're building a kinder internal relationship over time.
Identity Therapy in Toronto
Identity work looks different depending on where you are in life, but it's almost always tied to becoming a different version of yourself, whether that's by choice or circumstance.
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Identity therapy explores who you are, who you're becoming, and how that intersects with family, culture, gender, relationships, or career. For younger clients, this often means figuring out who you want to become outside your family of origin, or working through gender identity or sexual orientation. For clients further along, it's often tied to major life-stage shifts.
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We take the time to understand what's actually shifting and why it feels destabilizing, whether that's a new career, a serious relationship, becoming a parent, or stepping back from a role you'd built your identity around.
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Anyone moving through a significant shift in how they see themselves, especially when that shift feels destabilizing rather than exciting.
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You feel more solid in who you are, even amid change, rather than scrambling to hold onto an old version of yourself.
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In my experience, the more a history of self-esteem struggles is present, the harder these transitions tend to be, which is part of why identity and self-esteem work are so often connected.
Family Conflict Therapy in Toronto
Most of this work happens with you alone, processing family relationships rather than being in a room with family members directly.
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This involves working through the impact of family relationships, past and present, on how you think, feel, and relate to others now. Common threads include old hurts from a parent who wasn't emotionally available, navigating a family member's mental health or substance use struggles, or friction between your family of origin and a partner's.
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This is almost always individual processing work, not family therapy. It's extremely rare for me to involve family members directly in session; this has mainly happened with university-aged clients, and only as a one-off where I'm clearly there as their advocate, not as a neutral family therapist.
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Anyone carrying old hurts from a parent who wasn't emotionally available, navigating a family member's struggles, or managing friction between two families with very different dynamics.
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You can name the pattern without getting pulled back into it every time, and you have more clarity on what you can and can't change in these relationships.
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This work is about your own relationship to the dynamic, not about changing the family members themselves.
Relationship Issues Therapy in Toronto
I don't provide couples therapy, and I want to be upfront about that so you know exactly what to expect.
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This involves working through relationship patterns, communication, and boundaries as they show up in your individual therapy, your own role, patterns, and agency within a relationship.
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If you're looking for support specifically around your relationship as a couple, I'll point you toward a trusted colleague who specializes in that work. If your partner isn't willing or able to join that process, I'm glad to support you individually in the meantime. For clients already working with me, relationship concerns come up naturally as part of our broader work, communication patterns, boundary-setting, understanding where you have agency to make change.
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Clients who are wanting to understand their own patterns in relationships and build healthier communication and boundaries.
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You notice healthier communication and boundary-setting becoming more natural, even outside of session.
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I've also supported clients navigating betrayal trauma who needed individual support alongside separate couples work.
Life Transitions Therapy in Toronto
Transitions take many shapes, and what they have in common is the way they destabilize things you thought were settled.
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This covers support through major life changes, finishing school, moving cities, further education, marriage, career shifts, breakups, or loss. Transitions can feel disorienting even when they're positive or chosen.
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My approach is supportive and holistic. When your life is changing dramatically, having a consistent space with someone who already knows and understands you can make a real difference in how you move through it.
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Anyone navigating a significant life shift, whether chosen or unexpected.
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The transition starts to feel navigable rather than overwhelming, even while it's still unfolding.
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This work often overlaps with identity and self-esteem work, since big transitions tend to surface old patterns.
Grief Therapy in Toronto
Grief isn't only about losing a person, and there's no right or wrong way to move through it.
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Grief therapy involves processing loss in all its forms, a person, an experience you never had, a future you'd imagined, or a part of your identity.
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I help you plan concretely for what's ahead (attending a funeral, navigating a difficult anniversary, knowing what to say to people) while also normalizing that grief doesn't follow a tidy, linear path. I don't subscribe to the idea of fixed "stages" of grief, that framework, however well-intentioned, can leave people feeling like they're grieving wrong.
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Anyone grieving the loss of a person, a relationship, an experience (infertility, miscarriage, the parent you needed but didn't have), or a professional identity.
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You find ways to keep living your life alongside the grief, rather than feeling stuck or like you're doing it wrong.
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Social support, support groups, friends, and others with shared experience often complement this work well.
Trauma Therapy in Toronto
I want to be upfront about this one. If you're dealing with acute or destabilizing trauma, I'll likely refer you to a trusted colleague trained in EMDR.
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Trauma therapy works through the lasting impact of difficult or harmful past experiences on how you function today. This can include developmental or complex trauma, often rooted in childhood experiences, or more acute, singular traumatic events.
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I have real depth working with developmental and complex trauma, built through years of supporting clients navigating therapy for the first time. My approach centers on safety, trust, and nervous-system regulation (more on the thinkers who inform this work in the Approaches section below). For acute or more destabilizing trauma, I'll be honest if a referral to a trauma specialist makes more sense for you.
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Clients with longer-term, complex trauma histories looking for steady, relational support, not clients in acute crisis or needing intensive trauma-specific treatment.
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You feel more regulated and less reactive, with a growing sense of safety in your own body and life.
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I'll always be honest about whether I'm the right fit or whether a referral makes more sense for you.
BFRB Therapy (Hair Pulling & Skin Picking) in Toronto
BFRBs, like compulsive hair pulling or skin picking, are considered a close cousin of OCD.
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BFRBs (Body-Focused Repetitive Behaviours) are repetitive behaviours, like hair pulling or skin picking, that can feel difficult to control, classified alongside OCD-related disorders.
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I'm trained in two evidence-based approaches for treating BFRBs (detailed in the Approaches section below). I want to be transparent that I'm not currently accepting new BFRB clients, though I continue supporting long-term clients I've worked with in this area in an ongoing capacity.
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This information is for anyone wondering whether what they're experiencing, compulsive hair pulling, skin picking, or similar behaviours, might be a BFRB. I'm not currently accepting new BFRB clients, but understanding what you're dealing with can still be a useful first step, and I'm glad to point you toward a specialist who can help.
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Increased awareness of triggers and patterns, even when the behaviour itself remains difficult to fully resolve.
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These behaviours are genuinely difficult to treat, and I believe in being honest about that rather than overpromising.
Therapeutic Approaches
I draw on a range of evidence-based approaches, blending them based on what's actually useful for you rather than applying one framework to everyone. The exception is OCD, which requires a specific, structured protocol in order to be treated effectively.
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Understanding the patterns of thought that keep you stuck and learning to relate to those thoughts differently.
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Healing old relational hurts and working through unprocessed emotional pain.
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The structured, evidence-based approach used specifically for OCD treatment. A typical course runs 12 to 20 sessions: we begin with assessment, move into education about how the OCD cycle functions, then build a plan for exposures specific to your thoughts and rituals, including cognitive defusion skills (from ACT) to help you relate to thoughts as thoughts, not facts.
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Skills like cognitive defusion, learning that a thought is not automatically a fact.
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Building a kinder, steadier relationship with yourself.
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Drawing on the work of thinkers like Gabor Maté and Peter Levine for complex and developmental trauma, with a focus on safety and nervous-system regulation.
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Used specifically for treating BFRBs, focused on building awareness of triggers and patterns.
Not Sure Where to Start?
You don't need to have the right words or the perfect category for what you're going through; most people don't when they first reach out. If something above resonated, even a little, that's enough of a reason to talk. Book a free 30-minute video consultation, and we'll figure out the rest together.