Ashley Bernardi, MSW, RSW
Registered Social Worker/Psychotherapist
Specialization: Anxiety, Depression, BPD, Eating Disorders, Parenting Adolescents, Youth Criminal Justice, Family Conflict, Anger Management, Emotional Disturbance, Coping Skills
Population: Adults, Adolescents aged 13-18, Young Adults 19-25, Families
Types of Therapy: CBT, DBT, Narrative Therapy, ACT, SFBT, Strengths-Based, Attachment-based, Family Systems, Relational, Eclectic
We live in anxious times, often resulting from the many pressures and questions related to success, failure, finding meaning in our lives and feeling connected to ourselves and others. It is no surprise that at one time or another, we question our capacity for coping well through life’s stressors.
Whether you are going through anxiety, depression, stress, interpersonal conflict, complicated family dynamics, or trauma, I have learned that feeling better begins with building our strengths and resilience. As your partner in this effort, I bring many tried-and-true tools, strategies and resources to help you overcome the obstacles that life throws your way.
I have both professional and lived experience with respect to mental health and navigating complicated life situations and relationships. In developing the ability to manage and understand our thoughts and feelings, we can become empowered to shift the trajectory of our lives toward healthy relationships with ourselves and others.
Our challenges do not define who we are, we define who we are. It is my goal to create a safe and therapeutic environment for you to explore your inner dialogue and discover who you want to be. I specialize in working with families, adolescents, and young adults from diverse backgrounds and help them to build cohesion in the family unit and within themselves.
If you have reached a point in your life where you recognize the need to heal, cope, or overcome personal or relational challenges, I can help. I sincerely welcome the opportunity to see if I would be a good fit for you. I offer a free 15-minute introductory phone consultation.
Experience:
Ashley is a registered Social Worker/Therapist (MSW) and a University of Windsor graduate with a Master’s degree specializing in mental health. Over the past 12 years, she has worked at a Children’s Hospital in adolescent medicine and psychiatry providing 1:1 counselling and family counselling to adolescents and their families in crisis or experiencing significant mental health challenges, a Youth Center providing counselling and crisis intervention for high risk youth in secure treatment and custody/detention, and a youth corrections facility focused on supporting at-risk/high-risk adolescents and their families through challenges with anxiety, depression, suicidality, interpersonal and family conflict, trauma, and conflict with the law.
More than just my work:
· I am passionate about music because it can take me away to anywhere I want to be.
· “You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.”
― Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
