Dr. Zoë Laksman is a Registered Clinical and Health Psychologist and Clinical Director at Laksman Doell Psychology. She works with exceptional individuals who care deeply about creating meaningful impact in their world and with the people they value most, helping them develop comprehensive strategies for sustained fulfillment while navigating complex challenges and emerging with renewed clarity and purpose. Her practice encompasses stress and anxiety management (including panic attacks, social anxiety, chronic worry, perfectionism, imposter syndrome, burnout, and obsessive-compulsive disorder), depression, relationship dynamics, and personal optimization. She also works with individuals at the intersection of psychological well-being and physical health, provides grief counselling, and offers couples therapy.
Dr. Laksman takes an active and compassionate treatment approach, which is both personalized and evidence-based, to empower her clients to identify and achieve their most meaningful goals, increase their self-awareness, and leverage their natural strengths to navigate obstacles. Through this process, her clients make profound and lasting life changes. She helps thoughtful individuals and couples gain a deeper understanding of themselves and how their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors impact their professional effectiveness and personal relationships. Dr. Laksman’s work is grounded in the themes of resilience and growth, believing that people have an innate capacity to overcome challenges and create meaningful change in their lives. Dr. Laksman believes in working with remarkable individuals to help them get out of their own way and create new opportunities, seeing strength in adversity. She holds an incredible belief that healing and growth are possible, even when circumstances appear challenging, and she helps clients see in difficult moments that growth is possible. She understands that thoughts and feelings directly impact physical health and overall well-being. She knows that healing isn’t just about addressing symptoms but about nurturing the whole person. Most importantly, she believes no one else’s predictions should define their story. Her primary theoretical orientation is cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), although she integrates complementary methodologies and techniques to offer an individualized approach tailored to each client or couple.
Dr. Laksman works with couples, providing a safe and supportive environment where partners can strengthen their connection, improve communication patterns, and work through relationship challenges together. Her couples work focuses on helping partners understand each other more deeply while building the skills needed for lasting intimacy and mutual support. She provides compassionate support to those facing chronic health conditions, cancer diagnoses, adjustment to illness, and health behavior change, as well as the family members and loved ones who support them. A core focus is nurturing resilience during life’s most challenging moments, gently empowering both clients and their support systems to find strength, discover hope, and maintain a sense of control and meaning throughout their health journey. Understanding that health challenges affect entire families, she provides warm support for caregivers facing unique pressures, including exhaustion, relationship changes, and the difficulty of watching a loved one struggle.
Dr. Laksman earned both her Master’s and Doctoral degrees in Clinical Psychology at Adler University in Chicago, Illinois, complemented by clinical training at the York University Counselling and Development Centre. She pursued additional training at the CBT Unit and Anxiety Disorders Clinics at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Canada’s premier mental health and addiction teaching hospital. Her professional journey included serving as a Staff Psychologist at Cleveland Clinic Canada, a groundbreaking integrative healthcare facility in Toronto, where she contributed to specialty programs in executive health, stress and anxiety management, women’s health, cardiac prevention, and weight and lifestyle management. Following thirteen years of dedicated work in private practice with adults in individual and couples counselling, Dr. Laksman co-founded Laksman Doell Psychology.
Dr. Laksman provides comprehensive assessment and therapy services to individuals and couples while also supervising psychologists during their supervised practice year with the College of Psychologists and Behaviour Analysts of Ontario and offering peer consultation to colleagues. She extends her expertise beyond the clinic through on-site services, presentations, and professional workshops focused on emotional health and stress management at the Boston Consulting Group’s Toronto office, one of the world’s leading global consulting firms. She is a preferred psychology provider for the National Hockey League Players’ Association, serving both individual players and couples.
Dr. Laksman maintains her registration with the College of Psychologists and Behaviour Analysts of Ontario and holds memberships in the Canadian Association of Cognitive and Behavioural Therapies and the Ontario Psychological Association. She is also listed with the Canadian Register of Health Service Providers in Psychology, reflecting her commitment to the highest standards of professional practice.