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Most people who reach out for therapy are carrying something they haven’t been able to set down on their own. They’re not broken. They’re not weak. They’re overwhelmed, and overwhelmed people don’t think clearly, no matter how capable they actually are.
That’s where I come in.
The shift from overwhelmed to clear thinking makes all the difference in the world, especially in the years from adolescence into adulthood.
What I love most about this work is watching someone recognize their own capacity to think in new ways, resulting in real improvements in daily life. To focus on what’s actually within their control. To stop spending energy on what isn’t. That shift, from anxiety and fear running the show to the person themselves driving forward based on their own values and goals, is genuinely
available to anyone willing to do the work.
Therapy is a second career for me, and that’s given my clinical training a foundation most therapists don’t have.
I spent twenty years working directly with youth and young adults in leadership development and community building, mentoring, running active programs, walking alongside young people through some of the most formative and difficult years of their lives. That work taught me things no clinical training can fully replicate: how to build trust with someone who doesn’t trust easily, how to meet people where they are rather than where you’d like them to be, and how to hold space for someone’s struggle without trying to fix it prematurely.
I brought all of that with me when I made the transition into psychotherapy. I completed an MDiv in Counselling at Tyndale, a graduate program with a strong focus on human development, ethics, and the meaning people make of their experience, and I’ve since earned the designation of Registered Psychotherapist (RP) from the College of Registered Psychotherapists of Ontario. I didn’t arrive at therapy from a textbook. I arrived from two decades of real-world experience with real people in hard circumstances.
I started my clinical career in addiction and trauma treatment, working with adults across a wide range of struggles, including first responders navigating some of the most acute stress a person can face. That range matters. It means I’ve built the same fundamentals, trust, presence, real change, with people carrying very different kinds of weight. Today my focus is youth, young adults, and adults navigating trauma, anxiety, ADHD, and the ordinary but relentless pressure of life.
The shift from overwhelmed to clear thinking makes all the difference in the world, especially in the years from adolescence into adulthood.
What I love most about this work is watching someone recognize their own capacity to think in new ways, resulting in real improvements in daily life. To focus on what’s actually within their control. To stop spending energy on what isn’t. That shift, from anxiety and fear running the show to the person themselves driving forward based on their own values and goals, is genuinely available to anyone willing to do the work.
Dave te Sligte’s Psychology Today profile and CRPO Registration (CRPO Registration number 008944)
