The heart behind the practice
About Leanne
A Registered Psychotherapist dedicated to helping you heal the root, not just manage the symptoms.
Leanne Sawchuk
Registered Psychotherapist
Kitchener • Waterloo • Ontario
I'm Leanne Sawchuk, a Registered Psychotherapist in Kitchener, Ontario.
I work with high-functioning, anxious adults who look like they have it all together on the outside: successful careers, beautiful lives, all the right pieces in place. But underneath, there's exhaustion. A quiet unraveling. The feeling of holding everything so tightly that you've lost connection to yourself.
I also work with couples who can feel themselves drifting, and therapists who spend their days holding everyone else together while quietly unraveling on the inside.
My work isn't about helping you "manage."
Together, we turn toward the old wounds that still run the show, resolving them so you can move forward with clarity, presence, and a deep sense of freedom.
If you're tired of holding everything alone, and you're ready to speak the truths you've never said out loud, I'm here. Gently, steadily, and without judgment.
This is where you can finally stop performing and start returning to yourself.
Not the version of you that's been edited and perfected and made palatable.
The you beneath all of that. The one who's been waiting to be seen.
I don't just listen with my ears. I listen with my heart, soul, and eyes. I create a sacred space where people feel compelled to share all parts of themselves. I honor every experience, thought, and feeling while holding space for transformation, growth, and expansion.
I don't come to this work as an observer. I come as someone who has sat exactly where you're sitting. I've been through my own journey of healing, so I truly get it. I know what it feels like to stand at the edge of a cliff, torn between turning back to the familiar or leaping into the unknown. Fear and desire mixing together, wondering: do I stay small, or do I step into freedom?
Right here, right now, you are at that edge. The choice is yours.
I am here, gently holding out my hand. You can't quite see me yet, but a part of you knows I am here.
Together, we will gently uncover the root of what is causing you to show up in your life the way you do. We will hold space for what we find, understand it, and transform it. We will release what no longer serves you and reconnect you to the true essence of who you are, who you have always been.
Uncover. Understand. Rewrite.
That is what we will do.
Who I work with.
I intentionally keep my practice focused so I can go deep with the people I am best suited to support.
Why this work matters to me.
This work is not theoretical for me. It is personal.
I grew up becoming the person everyone could lean on. I was the parentified child, the one who felt responsible long before I ever felt safe. I was the reliable one, the intuitive one, the one who could read a room before I even knew how to read myself. I learned early to anticipate needs, soothe tension, and hold everything together, even when I was quietly falling apart inside.
My emotional sensitivity became a survival skill long before it ever felt like a strength. Eventually, I learned that I had been living in a perpetual state of freeze, flight, or fawn, which were responses rooted in trauma I had no memory of, but my body did.
That kind of vigilance comes with a cost.
For me, it became years of anxiety that lived in my body like a second heartbeat. It was always humming, always watching, always bracing for something unnamed. I tried to outrun it with perfectionism, control, and an eating disorder that slowly carved pieces of me away until there was almost nothing left.
I know what it’s like to appear polished, capable, “fine,” while internally feeling fractured and exhausted. I know what it’s like to smile while something inside you is quietly breaking.
After years of trying to hold myself together, I eventually found myself in and out of treatment centres, both inpatient and outpatient, searching for something that could actually reach me. And while those experiences barely kept me alive, they often focused on managing behaviours rather than understanding the wounds beneath them, so I would inevitably always relapse.
“It wasn’t until I found the kind of therapy that didn’t just manage symptoms but met me at the root, in the dark, in the quiet... that things truly began to shift.”
That experience changed the entire trajectory of my life. Not because it made me someone new, but because it allowed me to become someone truer.
There is so much more I could share about my story beyond this. The near-fatal snowmobiling accident that left my nervous system unravelled with complex trauma, the kind of loss that drops you to your knees, the grief that swallowed whole chapters of my life. Losing my dad to brain cancer, a heartbreak that carved itself into me in ways I’m still learning to understand. And now, I live with the quiet, ongoing ache of ambiguous loss as I navigate caring for a mom with dementia, which has felt like a slow disappearance that has no roadmap, no certainty, and no real closure.
My life experiences continue to shape and mold my work as a therapist and the way I show up in the therapy room.
So now, when I sit with my clients, I bring both my clinical training and the lived understanding of what it means to feel shattered on the inside while holding it together on the outside. I know the courage it takes to let someone see the parts you’ve spent years protecting. I know the risk. I know the ache. And I know the relief when someone finally meets you there without flinching.
My work is guided by a deeply held belief that you are not broken.
You are responding to a life that asked too much of you too soon, too often, or all at once. The parts of you that feel chaotic, numb, guarded, or “too much” were born from places that deserve compassion, not shame.
Together, we learn how to turn toward those parts with curiosity instead of fear, so they can soften, release their grip, and make space for something more alive, more honest, and more free.
My Approach
Therapy is not about fixing you.
It's about helping you return to yourself.
Most people come to me after years of holding everything together. On the outside, life looks fine. But inside, there's exhaustion, disconnection, or pain that won't go away.
My approach is designed to meet you in that interior space - moving beyond the surface to where real healing happens. This is relational, somatic, trauma-informed therapy that addresses not just what you're experiencing, but why it keeps showing up.
Pause & Listen
We move slowly. We stop rushing to solutions and listen to what your body and your story are telling us.
Relational foundation:
Your nervous system needs to feel safe before anything can shift. We build trust first.
Safety First
We work from the nervous system up. When your body feels safe, the rest of you can shift.
Somatic Experiencing:
Trauma, anxiety, and grief live in your body. We address them there - not just in your thoughts.
Explore Story
We examine the patterns you've lived by. We make room to question them and discover what's underneath.
Trauma-informed depth:
We explore how early relationships and experiences shaped who you became - and who you're becoming.
All Parts
Anxiety, grief, trauma, messiness - every part of you has a valid place in this room.
Holistic integration:
Nothing gets left behind. We work with all of it - mind, body, emotions, relationships.
Lasting Change
Transformation that happens from the inside out, creating shifts that sustain over time.
Root-level healing:
Not symptom management. Not coping strategies. Actual change in how you relate to yourself, others, and the world.
The Outcome
You don't have to hold it all together here.
You just have to show up as you are.
Training, credentials,
experience.
I know it is important to feel confident in your therapist's training as well as their presence. Here is a snapshot of my professional background.
"I've invested thousands of hours in specialized training because surface-level therapy isn't enough. My clients deserve expertise in trauma, relationships, and nervous system healing - not just a generic approach."
Registered
Psychotherapist
Ontario License
#004167
What Sets This Practice Apart
While traditional talk therapy is valuable, deep healing often requires more than just conversation. I have specialized in this specific combination of modalities to help you shift patterns at the root:
- Full Somatic Experiencing training (Levels 1, 2, & 3)Body-based trauma healing that works at the nervous system level.
- Gottman Method CertificationResearch-backed couples therapy, not just generic relationship counseling.
- Trauma Specialization (CTIP)3 years of advanced trauma training, not a weekend workshop.
- 12+ Years ExperienceExclusively in private practice focusing on relational psychotherapy.
Core Specializations
Somatic Experiencing (Levels 1, 2, & 3)
Somatic Experiencing Training Institute (2019)
A 3-year advanced training in nervous system healing - one of the most effective body-based approaches for trauma, anxiety, and PTSD.
Gottman Method Couples Therapy (Level 1 & 2)
The Gottman Institute (2021)
Evidence-based couples therapy backed by 40+ years of research - the gold standard in relationship work.
Certified Trauma Informed Practitioner (CTIP)
Attachment & Trauma Treatment Healing Centre (2016-2019)
Specialized 3-year certification in trauma treatment and attachment healing.
Foundation & Ongoing Learning
- Diploma in Relational PsychotherapyToronto Institute for Relational Psychotherapy (2014)
- BA, Double Major in Psychology & Fine ArtsYork University (2002)
- Clinical Supervision TrainingCompleted 2022-2023
- Group Psychotherapy TrainingCompleted 2024
Clinical Focus
Individual Psychotherapy
For adults with anxiety, trauma, eating and body image concerns, addictions, and relationship struggles.
Couples Therapy
Trauma informed couples therapy grounded in Gottman Method work.
Group Programs
Focused on anxiety, grief and abandonment, such as: Freedom from Anxiety, Anxiety Unraveled, Grief Untethered, Healing the Abandonment Wound, Psychotherapy Process Groups.
For Therapists
Clinical supervision and retreats focusing on trauma, somatic work, and Safe and Effective Use of Self (SEUS).