Outpatient/community mental health services

Counselling and therapy can be helpful for dealing with a wide variety of issues (e.g. stress and coping, relationship problems) and mental health conditions (e.g. depression, anxiety, etc.)

ACT is a type of therapy that helps people by using  acceptance and mindfulness, along with commitment and behaviour-change strategies.

Animal-assisted and pet therapy are types of therapy that use animals trained to provide affection and comfort to people in a variety of places including hospitals, retirement or nursing homes, mental health facilities and schools.

Art therapy is a way of helping people through art, and is provided by accredited art therapists. Painting, drawing and sculpting are common ways that help people to express themselves and heal. Unlike traditional art, the focus is on the process of creating the artwork rather than the final product.

Attachment therapies focus on strengthening the attachment or relationships between a child and parent, or child and adult caregivers.

DDP is a therapy and parenting approach that uses what we know about attachment and trauma to help children and families with their relationships. When a child has experienced stresses such as trauma, this can lead the child to become disconnected from the important people in the child's life, and experience problems such as depression, anxiety and behaviour problems. DDP offers a powerful way to reconnect children to the people that are important, thus improving their relationships as well as problems with depression, anxiety and behaviours. 

Behavioural therapies uses different strategies to help a person learn life skills and more positive behaviours such as communication and social skills. Examples include therapies used in autism such as Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA) and Intensive Behavioural Intervention (IBI).

Coaching is the process whereby a coach teaches and directs another person via encouragement and advice. The coach provides an individual with feedback, insight and guidance on achieving their full potential in their business or personal life. Coaches usually first help by defining goals, and then supports the client in working out a strategy to reach those goals, and helps the client stay on track.

Compared to counselling, coaching generally has a narrower focus; focuses on performance rather than underlying root causes; tends to be shorter-term; does not seek to improve underlying psychological problems; focuses on improvement on function in already well-functioning individuals.

Coaching is generally more suitable for individuals who are well-functioning to begin with, whereas counselling/therapy would be recommended for individuals who are more distressed.

Cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) is a type of therapy for numerous conditions such as depression and anxiety. CBT helps individuals by looking at negative thoughts and behaviour patterns, and changing those into more helpful coping thoughts and behaviours. CBT can be delivered by any health professional who has had adequate training in CBT, such as psychologists, registered psychotherapists, social workers and physicians including psychiatrists. 

Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) is a comprehensive cognitive-behavioral treatment for complex, difficult-to-treat mental conditions, such as borderline personality disorder (BPD). DBT combines elements of cognitive behaviour therapy along with Eastern mindfulness practices.

Drama therapy (or the related term psychodrama) is a way of helping others by using drama or theater processes, and is given by an accredited drama therapist.

Drama gives participants an opportunity to tell their stories, set goals, solve problems, express feelings, resulting in behaviour change, skill-building and emotional growth.

EFT is a short term (8-20 sessions), structured approach to therapy formulated in the early 80's by Drs. Sue Johnson and Les Greenberg, shown effective for couples and families. EFT helps couples overcome negative patterns in communication by teaching them how to communicate underlying feelings and emotional needs.

Websites that provide online therapy, and which are automated and NOT delivered by an actual human being.

Examples include online CBT websites that teach CBT online. 

Because there are so many websites that provide internet delivered therapy, we are not able to list all the websites out there, but rather focus on websites which are publicly funded, freely available and supported by evidence.

Online therapy (aka e-counseling, distance therapy) is  therapy delivered by a real person over the internet. 

Traditionally therapy has been face-to-face, but especially since the pandemic of 2020, most providers offer remote and virtual services such as video chat (through Facetime, Skype, Zoom, MS Teams, etc.).

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is a treatment reported as being helpful in various conditions such as anxiety, and trauma (such as post-traumatic stress disorder).

A marriage, couple and family therapist specializes in helping concerns and problems in couple or family relationships. Marriage, couple and family therapy can be given by any professional that has sufficient training, which usually tends to be social workers, psychologists or psychiatrists.

Unlike traditional therapy where the therapist just meets with the individual, family counselling and therapy is where the therapist meets with the individual and one or more family members. The idea is that no matter what the difficulty is, others in the family are part of the solution and thus need to be involved in the therapy or treatment.

Group therapy is a form of counselling/therapy, in which one or more therapists work with a small group of patients or clients in a group. Therapeutic benefits of group therapy include the interactions amongst group members, and having shared experiences with similar individuals.

Hypnotherapy, which uses hypnosis to create a state of relaxation, which can thus be helpful in a variety of conditions, such as anxiety conditions (e.g. phobias).

Interpersonal Psychotherapy (IPT) is a type of therapy that focuses on a person's relationships and connections with other people. Regardless of how a problem such as depression started, the problem is often maintained by ongoing stresses in a person's relationships. Improving and strengthening a person's relationships can thus be helpful, no matter what the difficulty.

Medications may be helpful for certain mental health conditions. For some conditions, such as mild to moderate anxiety and depression, it is usually best to start with non-medication interventions such as lifestyle strategies and/or psychotherapy. However, if those interventions haven't worked, or if symptoms of anxiety or depression are moderate to severe, then medications could be helpful. For other conditions, such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, however,  medications play a much more important role in treatment. 

Therapies that include mindfulness, mindfulness meditation and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MCBT) and mindfulness based stress reduction (MBSR).

Multisystemic therapy (MST) is an intensive family- and community-based treatment program designed for children/youth who have serious behaviour problems, such as conduct disordered and antisocial behaviours.

Unlike many therapies which focus primarily on the child/youth (such as individual therapy), MST is 'multi-systemic' and focuses on various aspects of the person's life (such as home, school, community, and peer relations) to help the behaviour problems.

Music therapy is the use of music by an accredited music therapist to promote, maintain, and restore mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual health.

Neurofeedback is a way of dealing with various brain conditions (such as ADHD, depression, anxiety) by teaching the person to control and self-regulate their brain.

Neuropsychological assessments (aka neuropsychological testing) is a type of testing done by a psychologist, in order to learn how a problem with your brain is affecting your ability to concentrate, remember things, reason and solve problems. 

Neuropsychological testing is may be recommended for individuals that may have a brain condition such as stroke, dementia, brain tumor, epilepsy, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) or other conditions that may have affected the brain. 

Play therapy uses play to communicate with and help children. Play therapy is useful for children because they naturally express themselves for play, and because they may not be able to express themselves verbally (using their words) as would be required for other types of therapy such as "talk therapies." Play therapy can be delivered by any mental health professional that has received sufficient training in it.

In Canada, it is preferable (though not always possible) to have a professional who has official training approved by the Canadian Association for Child and Play Therapy.

Psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy is using a psychedelic drug (such as psilocybin aka magic mushrooms, LSD, or others) in a controlled, supervised environment, as part of therapy for conditions such as addictions, anxiety and PTSD.

When an individual has learning problems, it can be very helpful to have a psychoeducational assessment performed by a psychologist. 

Ways to find a psychologist include:

• Talk with the child's school regarding the possibility of seeing a psychologist that works with the schoolboard. This is paid for by the schoolboard, however there are often long waitlists. 
• Agencies (such as psychology training programs with a university) that can offer free, or low-cost testing. 
• Seeing a psychologist working in private practice, which is usually the quickest option.  In many cases, a family member's employee health plan may pay some of this expense.  

If you are having problems finding psychologists in this category, consider just looking directly under psychologists. 

Psychodynamic psychotherapy and psychoanalysis helps the individual develop insight and understanding into their past, which hopefully may then translate into positive changes in the present. Most psychiatrists (and many psychologists) have psychodynamic training. Psychoanalysis is a more involved treatment, classically involving up to a few visits per week, for many years, and is delivered by trained 'psychoanalysts', who tend to be psychiatrists.

Solution-focused therapy (SFT) focuses on empowering individuals to find solutions in their life by figuring out what a person's goals are, and supporting them to find ways to achieve those goals. Various types of professionals may have training in SFT, and may work in counselling agencies, or in private practice.

Supportive counselling/therapy uses a person's strengths and social supports to help them focus on coping with current, issues. The focus is on the present, as opposed to the past.

Most mental health professionals are trained in this approach.

Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is a treatment for brain conditions (such as depression) that uses magnetic fields to improve symptoms. It involves placing an electromagnetic coil against your scalp near the forehead. It is painless, non-invasive, and can be useful when other treatments have not helped or as an alternative to medication.

Day Treatment refers to an intensive type of outpatient services that is more intensive than standard outpatient services (e.g. seeing someone once every 1-2 weeks) but yet is not as intensive as an inpatient stay.

For children and youth, day treatment programs may occur at therapeutic school programs, or take place at hospitals. For adults, day treatment programs are commonly offered at hospitals.

Drop-in centres are a place to go during the daytime and/or evenings, providing companionship and activities to do.

Looking for an appointment the same day, or within a few days? Walk-in counselling clinics provide counseling services, without a need to book a long time in advance. They can be helpful for many issues such as family conflict, stress, grief, depression, anxiety, relationship issues, separation, divroce or abuse. Most of the time, no appointment is required, though some clinics may require you to call ahead the same day to book appointments for that day. 

Case management is where a case manager meets with the client (an individual or a family) in order to find out what services are needed. Then, the case manager helps arranges for those services and supports in the community. Service coordination refers to the fact that the different services are coordinated in an efficient way to best help the person.

Assertive Community Treatment is a client-centered, recovery-oriented mental health service delivered by multidisciplinary treatment teams, designed to provide comprehensive, community-based psychiatric treatment, rehabilitation, and support to persons with serious and persistent mental illness such as schizophrenia.

ACT Team programs are for people who have not benefitted from traditional outpatient programs. Because one of the main goals is to help keep people living in their homes in the community (rather than in hospital), ACT programs are usually reserved for people who have had excessive, prolonged stays in hospitals.

Self-help, mutual aid and support groups are non-profit, voluntary organizations which provide support to individuals who share a common experience.

As defined by the International Network of Mutual Help centres, self-help groups are non-profit; open to members of the general public who share a common experience; meet face-to-face on a regular, ongoing basis, and are open to new members; provide mutual support through discussion and sharing of information and experiences. Members use their individual strengths to support each other, and can use their collective strengths to promote social change; Run by and for group members. Although professional (health care) providers may participate at the request of the group, their role stays that of a consultant.

Community health and resource centres provide a variety of health services to local residents, which often includes mental health services. Services provided by each health centre vary, depending on local community needs. Contact your local community health centre to find out about any counselling, groups or other mental health programs they might have.

This section has Community Mental Health Services that do not specifically fit into any of the other more specialized categories.