Nicholas Ostapchuk

Nick Ostapchuk is a Doctoral Associate at Laksman Doell, who is currently finishing the final stage of his PhD in Clinical Psychology. He has completed all of the coursework and clinical training associated with his doctoral degree, and will be defending his dissertation prior to commencing registration with the College of Psychologists and Behaviour Analysts of Ontario. His area of specialization is in adult mental health, and he is a strong believer that all humans are the experts on themselves. Therefore, Nick works in tandem with his clients to explore their blind spots and to develop a set of therapeutic goals to meet his clients’ needs.

Making room for the universality of experiential pain, Nick’s practice centres around taking a trauma-informed approach. To achieve this, Nick works from a non-judgemental, warm, and compassionate perspective and strives to foster safety in the therapeutic environment by working to reduce the power dynamic between therapist and client. Nick is also acutely aware of how intersecting identities shape every client’s experience and therefore deeply inform the collaborative treatment plan.

Nick has experience providing therapy to individuals with a wide range of presenting concerns across a variety of treatment settings. These presenting concerns include anxiety, complex trauma, self-criticism, depression, substance use issues, emotional dysregulation, problematic sexual behaviours and thoughts, attachment injuries, psychosis, and severe mental illness. With his clients, Nick incorporates the development of healthy coping skills with nurturing a healthy balance between the needs of one’s self-critic and an amplified compassionate, tender self. Nick integrates techniques from many evidence-based therapeutic modalities, including Emotion Focused Therapy (EFT), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), psychodynamic therapy, mindfulness-based treatments, Motivational Interviewing (MI), Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT), Internal Family Systems (IFS) Therapy, and humanistic-experiential therapy.

Nick completed his Master’s degree in experimental psychology (forensic stream) at Carleton University in Ottawa. Nick is currently completing his Doctoral degree in clinical psychology at the University of Toronto, around the corner from Laksman Doell. Nick completed his predoctoral residency at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) and completed practica at St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton, CAMH, the OISE Psychology Clinic, and in a Toronto-based private-practice setting.

Nick is passionate about how critical it is for science and practice to inform each other. As such, Nick has been involved in psychological research since 2012. After obtaining his undergraduate degree from McGill University in Montreal, Nick held a research assistant position at a medium-security provincial correctional and treatment centre. Nick’s Master’s thesis explored lay attitudes about psychopathy and confusion with psychosis. For his doctoral dissertation, Nick is taking a mixed-methods approach in examining the prevention of domestic homicide. Nick has presented his research at both national and international psychology conferences.