Notice and unhook
We practice catching a thought as a thought, rather than a fact you have to obey. That small bit of distance often loosens its pull.
Treatments · Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
Make room for the hard stuff, and move toward what matters.
In-person, evidence-informed Acceptance and Commitment Therapy in Mississauga and online across Ontario for adults. One approach we may draw from, focused on values, acceptance, and committed action.
- Fee
- $160 to $180 · 50-minute individual session
- Free consultation
- 15 minutes, no charge
- Format
- In-person in Mississauga, or secure online video via Jane
- Approach
- Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), values-based
- Clinician
- Katelyn Matias (RP, CRPO #10340)
- Receipts
- Provided for extended-health reimbursement · HST-exempt
About ACT at Anchor & Bloom.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy at Anchor & Bloom is in-person psychotherapy in Mississauga and online across Ontario for adults. It is one framework we may draw from, offered by Katelyn Matias, RP, CRPO #10340, who is trained in ACT and integrates it with attachment-based and trauma-informed care.
The work is collaborative and paced. ACT does not ask you to think positively or talk yourself out of how you feel. It helps you change how you carry difficult thoughts and emotions, so they take up less of your energy and steer fewer of your choices.
What this is and is not
Plain definition.
ACT is an evidence-informed therapy that pairs two skills. The first is acceptance, learning to make room for difficult thoughts and feelings instead of fighting or avoiding them. The second is commitment, clarifying what you actually value and taking steps toward it, even when the discomfort comes along for the ride. Developed by Steven Hayes and colleagues, it sits within the broader cognitive-behavioural family.
It is not about resigning yourself to a hard situation, and it is not positive thinking. It does not promise that difficult feelings will disappear. It is a way of loosening their grip so that worry, fear, or self-criticism stop running the show, and your life gets organized around what matters to you instead.
How therapy helps
Less about controlling thoughts, more about living alongside them.
Drawing on ACT, the work often helps you:
- Loosen the grip of anxious, critical, or repetitive thoughts
- Make room for difficult emotions without being run by them
- Get clear on the values that actually matter to you
- Take meaningful action even when discomfort is present
- Step out of avoidance patterns that have narrowed your life
- Build psychological flexibility, the capacity to adapt rather than rigidly react
Make room, not war
Instead of fighting an emotion, we work on letting it be present while you keep doing what matters. The energy spent suppressing it becomes available for your life.
Move toward values
We clarify what you want your life to stand for, then take small, concrete steps in that direction, with the hard feelings allowed to come along.
Learn more
Want the full picture?
Everything below is optional. Open any section to go deeper on how ACT works at Anchor & Bloom, who it fits, and what tends to change over time.
The six processes
What ACT actually works on.
ACT is usually described through six interlocking processes. You will rarely hear these names in session, but they shape how the work moves. Together they build what the model calls psychological flexibility, the ability to stay present and act on your values even when difficult thoughts and feelings are around.
Acceptance
Making room for difficult internal experiences, urges, feelings, sensations, rather than spending your energy trying to control or eliminate them.
Cognitive defusion
Learning to notice thoughts as thoughts, with some distance, instead of being fused to them as literal truth you have to act on.
Present-moment contact
Coming back to what is actually here now, rather than living inside the rehearsed future or the replayed past. Often supported with simple mindfulness practices.
Self-as-context
Noticing the part of you that observes your experience. You are the one having the thoughts and feelings, not the thoughts and feelings themselves.
Values
Getting clear on what genuinely matters to you, the kind of person you want to be, the directions you want your life to move in.
Committed action
Taking concrete, values-guided steps and returning to them when life knocks you off course. Small and repeatable beats grand and fragile.
In the room
What an ACT-informed session looks like.
If you have done talk therapy before, an ACT-informed session will feel familiar. We talk. You bring what is on your mind. What shifts is where the attention goes. Rather than only analyzing why a thought is there, we get curious about how you are relating to it, and whether that relationship is helping you live the way you want.
You might be invited to try a short exercise, naming a thought as a thought, picturing your worry as something you can hold rather than something you are, or noticing what shows up in the body as you talk. These are not tricks. They are ways of practicing the stance ACT is built around.
A lot of the work is values clarification. We slow down and look at what actually matters to you underneath the noise, in relationships, work, health, creativity, community. Often anxiety and avoidance have quietly organized life around what you are afraid of, rather than what you care about. Naming the values gives the work a direction.
From there we work in small, concrete commitments. Not a grand overhaul, but the next honest step, taken with the discomfort allowed to ride along. The aim is not to feel good first and then act. It is to act in line with your values, and let the feelings be what they are.
Where ACT often fits
Concerns ACT is commonly drawn on for.
Anxiety and chronic worry
When the fight to control anxious thoughts has become its own full-time job. ACT shifts the work from winning that fight to living well alongside the worry. See also our anxiety therapy page.
Depression and low mood
When life has narrowed and motivation has gone quiet, values-based action can re-open a sense of direction without waiting to feel ready first. See also depression therapy.
Stress and burnout
When you are running on depletion and old strategies are not working, ACT helps clarify what is worth your finite energy. See also stress & burnout therapy.
Avoidance and being stuck
For the pattern where avoiding discomfort has quietly shrunk your world. ACT works directly with avoidance, and with the values that make moving worth it.
Difficult or intrusive thoughts
For looping, sticky, or distressing thoughts, defusion skills can reduce their grip without needing to prove them wrong. See also OCD therapy.
Self-criticism and shame
When a harsh inner voice drives the bus, ACT helps you unhook from it and act on what you value rather than what shame demands.
A typical course
What sessions look like.
- First session. A conversation about what is happening now, what you would like therapy to help with, and how we work. You ask questions; we share our approach.
- Following sessions. A mix of talking, noticing how you relate to thoughts and feelings, clarifying values, and trying small committed steps between sessions.
- Approaches blended. ACT is one framework Katelyn may draw from. It is often integrated with attachment-based, CBT, EFT, and trauma-informed work, shaped to your needs.
- Frequency. Weekly for the first several weeks is common. Many clients move to biweekly as patterns settle. Some need less, some need more.
- Format. In-person sessions in Mississauga by appointment, or online video through Jane, a PHIPA-compliant Canadian platform.
- Length. 50 to 60 minutes.
Signals of change
Common changes clients may notice as therapy progresses.
Progress in ACT is rarely the disappearance of hard feelings. It looks more like the hard feelings taking up less room, and your values taking up more. Some of the shifts clients tend to describe:
- A difficult thought arrives, and you notice it instead of obeying it.
- You do the thing you were avoiding, with the anxiety still present, and it does not run you.
- Decisions start to come from what you value rather than what you fear.
- You spend less energy fighting your own internal weather.
- The harsh inner voice still speaks, but it has less authority over your choices.
- Life feels a little wider, less organized around avoiding discomfort.
ACT does not aim to empty your mind of difficult content. The aim is a different relationship with it, and more room to live the way you want to.
Fit matters
Who this fits, and who it doesn’t.
This often fits
- Adults who feel stuck fighting anxious or critical thoughts
- People whose lives have narrowed around avoidance
- Stress and burnout where energy needs to go toward what matters
- Low mood where values-based action can restore direction
- Clients who want practical skills paired with deeper meaning work
- Anyone who has found pure thought-challenging approaches frustrating
Not the right primary fit for
- Acute crisis. If you are in immediate risk to yourself or someone else, please contact a crisis line first. In Canada, call or text 988. We are not a crisis service and cannot respond between sessions.
- Active suicidal ideation requiring stabilization or psychiatric care
- Conditions that require medication management or psychiatric assessment as the main intervention
If you are unsure whether ACT is the right next step, the free 15-minute consultation is a good place to ask.
Who offers this
The clinician you would work with.
Katelyn Matias, RP
Registered Psychotherapist, CRPO #10340 · Yorkville University MA Counselling Psychology
Founder of Anchor & Bloom. Katelyn is trained in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and integrates it with attachment-based, trauma-informed, and emotionally focused work. She works with adults 18+, women navigating fertility, postpartum, and parenthood, and couples, online across Ontario and in person in Mississauga by appointment.
About KatelynCommon questions about ACT.
What is Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)?
ACT is an evidence-informed approach that helps you change your relationship with difficult thoughts and feelings rather than fight to remove them. The work pairs acceptance skills, learning to make room for hard internal experiences, with commitment skills, taking action in line with what matters to you. It is one approach we may draw from, chosen when it fits your needs.
How is ACT different from CBT?
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy often works to challenge and reshape unhelpful thoughts. ACT takes a different angle. Instead of arguing with a thought, it helps you notice it, hold it more lightly, and act on your values anyway. Many clients find the two complement each other, and we sometimes blend them.
What does "acceptance" mean here? Does it mean giving up?
No. Acceptance in ACT is not resignation or approval. It means letting an emotion or thought be present without spending all your energy suppressing it, so that energy is free for the things you care about. The aim is more room to live, not surrender.
What kinds of concerns does ACT help with?
ACT is commonly drawn on for anxiety, depression, stress and burnout, chronic worry, and difficulty taking action when avoidance has narrowed life. It is not a fit for acute crisis or conditions that require psychiatric care as the primary intervention.
Does ACT work online?
Yes. ACT translates well to secure video sessions. The skills are conversation-based and practiced in your own life between sessions, which often makes online work feel natural. Katelyn offers online sessions across Ontario and in-person sessions in Mississauga by appointment.
How much do sessions cost?
Individual sessions are $160 to $180. Most extended health benefit plans through Canadian employers cover Registered Psychotherapist services. Confirm with your insurer before booking. Psychotherapy is exempt from GST/HST as of June 2024.
For plan-by-plan coverage details, direct billing notes, and how to submit a claim, see Fees & Insurance.
Further reading
Trusted clinical resources.
The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health publishes accessible information on anxiety, depression, and common treatment approaches.
For an introduction to Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and the broader field, the work of Steven Hayes is widely cited.
For information on the regulation of psychotherapists in Ontario, see the College of Registered Psychotherapists of Ontario.
Related services
What often pairs with ACT.
Anxiety therapy
For chronic worry and panic. ACT skills apply directly to loosening the grip of anxious thoughts.
Depression therapy
Values-based action can re-open direction when motivation has gone quiet.
Stress & burnout therapy
For depletion that needs your finite energy pointed toward what matters most.
OCD therapy
Defusion skills can reduce the grip of intrusive, looping thoughts.
Internal Family Systems (IFS)
A parts-based framework Katelyn also draws on, often alongside ACT.
About Katelyn Matias, RP
CRPO #10340. The clinician you would work with for ACT sessions.
Start with a free conversation.
A 15-minute consultation to ask questions and decide if the fit feels right.
Online therapy across Ontario
Sessions are virtual province-wide, with local support for:
Toronto · Mississauga · Oakville · Burlington · Hamilton