Nirja Thakkar, MACP

Registered Psychotherapist

(Qualifying)
Location: Virtual
Schedule an Appointment with Nirja

Clinical Approach

  • Psychodynamic Therapy
  • Internal Family Systems (IFS)
  • Somatic Strategies
  • Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
  • Dialectal Behavioural Therapy (DBT)

Specialties

  • ADHD & Autism Spectrum (Neurodivergence-Affirming Care)
  • Eating Disorders
  • Shame, Perfectionism, & People-Pleasing
  • Hypervigilance & Anxiety
  • Complex Trauma (C-PTSD) & Attachment Styles
  • Relational & Familial Conflicts (Couples & Family Therapy)
  • Perinatal & Reproductive Mental Health

Our Registered Psychotherapists (Qualifying) are trained mental health professionals who have completed graduate-level clinical education and are registered with their regulatory body. They provide psychotherapy while completing additional requirements for full independent practice.

As part of this process, they engage in regular clinical supervision with an experienced, fully licensed clinician. Supervision offers ongoing guidance, consultation, and support to ensure high-quality, ethical care.

Make an appointment with Nirja

About Nirja

Background & Clinical Focus

Nirja Thakkar is a Registered Psychotherapist (Qualifying) in Ontario with a Master’s in Counselling Psychology and over 10 years of mental health experience across Canada and India. With over six  years supporting neurodivergent individuals, she specializes in ADHD, Autism, and executive functioning, informed by her background in Applied Behaviour Therapy and disability support.

Nirja understands that difficulties with getting started, staying focused, managing time, following through on tasks, or transitioning between activities can affect far more than productivity. You might spend hours thinking about what needs to get done without knowing how to begin, struggle to follow through despite genuinely wanting to, or find yourself putting everything into one task while other responsibilities pile up. Over time, these experiences can lead to perfectionism, chronic shame, self-criticism, burnout, and the belief that you are lazy or simply not trying hard enough.

These challenges can also show up in a person’s relationship with food. For some individuals, difficulties with planning meals, recognizing and responding to hunger cues, navigating food decisions, or shifting away from all-or-nothing patterns can make eating feel surprisingly complicated. What may appear to be a lack of discipline or consistency can sometimes be connected to executive functioning difficulties, emotional overwhelm, or years of trying to meet expectations that do not account for how their brain works. Nirja approaches these struggles with curiosity rather than judgment, recognizing that eating behaviours are shaped by a range of biological, emotional, psychological, and environmental factors.

Nirja works collaboratively with clients to understand what makes everyday tasks and routines difficult, explore the experiences and expectations that have shaped their relationship with themselves, and develop more compassionate and sustainable ways of navigating daily life. Her approach goes beyond managing symptoms to address the shame, relational patterns, and pressure that can develop around them.

Approach and Training

Nirja believes that genuine healing happens within safe, non-judgmental relationships. Her practice is trauma-informed, person-centered, and grounded in an anti-oppressive framework.

Crucially, she operates through a non-pathologizing, non-polarizing lens. Rather than viewing your symptoms or coping mechanisms as “bad” or “wrong”, she looks at how your unique lived experiences and attachment styles have shaped how you protect yourself and how well they have served you so far..

Her integrative therapeutic approach includes:

  • Psychodynamic & Attachment-Based Therapy: Exploring underlying relational patterns, attachment styles, and how early childhood dynamics influence present-day behaviors.
  • Internal Family Systems (IFS): Compassionately exploring different “parts” of the self (such as the inner critic, the perfectionist, or the people-pleaser) without judgment.
  • Somatic Strategies: Anchoring the therapeutic work in the body to help release stored trauma, calm hypervigilance, and regulate the nervous system.
  • ACT & DBT: Offering practical, evidence-based tools to navigate intense emotions, resolve conflicts, and live a values-aligned life.

Who She Works With

Nirja works with individuals (15+), couples, and families navigating:

  • ADHD, Autism & Executive Functioning: Difficulties with task initiation, follow-through, planning, organization, time management, prioritization, and transitions; cycles of procrastination and overworking; all-or-nothing productivity; and the frustration of knowing what needs to be done but struggling to put it into action. She also supports individuals exploring a possible diagnosis or adjusting to a late diagnosis, as well as those experiencing neurodivergent burnout.
  • Eating Behaviours, Body Image & Food-Related Distress: Struggles with food rules, inconsistent eating patterns, emotional eating, binge-restrict cycles, body image, and the shame that can surround eating. For some clients, these concerns intersect with ADHD and executive functioning difficulties, such as struggling to plan or prepare meals, making food decisions when overwhelmed, forgetting to eat, or finding it difficult to move away from all-or-nothing patterns. Nirja works collaboratively with clients to explore the emotional, relational, and practical factors shaping their relationship with food, without reducing these experiences to willpower or discipline.
  • Perfectionism, Shame & Emotional Well-Being: Chronic self-criticism, high-functioning anxiety, people-pleasing, difficulty resting, and feeling that you are never doing enough. Therapy offers space to understand these patterns and build a relationship with yourself that is less dependent on productivity, achievement, or external validation.
  • Relational & Familial Dynamics: Exploring recurring conflict patterns, attachment wounds, communication difficulties, and the impact of neurodivergence on relationships. Nirja supports couples and families in understanding one another’s needs and developing more secure, compassionate ways of relating.
  • Complex Trauma & Chronic Stress: Navigating childhood and systemic trauma, hypervigilance, emotional overwhelm, and coping strategies that may have developed to help you feel safe, accepted, or in control.
  • Perinatal & Reproductive Mental Health: Support through fertility challenges, pregnancy, postpartum depression and anxiety (PPD/PPA), PMDD, PCOS, and the transitions of parenthood, including the ways these experiences may intersect with ADHD, executive functioning, and emotional well-being.

Nirja offers culturally responsive and affirming care, with a commitment to creating space for LGBTQIA+, BIPOC, Indigenous communities, and individuals with disabilities. She provides therapy in English, Hindi, and Gujarati.

Professional Status

Nirja is a Registered Psychotherapist (Qualifying) in Ontario and practices under the supervision of an experienced, fully licensed clinician as part of her path toward independent practice.

She offers virtual therapy to clients in Ontario and Québec. (Please note that insurance coverage may vary for clients residing in Québec; clients are encouraged to confirm eligibility with their provider).

Schedule an Appointment with Nirja
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