Ontological Counselling

Ontology is the philosophical study of being. Ontological counselling is the therapeutic study of who you are — beneath what you do, what you think, and what you have been performing — and how to live closer to that.

The word ontological sits in our clinic's name for a reason. It is the modality that most fully captures what makes Baraka distinctive among counselling clinics on the North Shore.

Most contemporary therapy works at the level of behaviour, thought, or emotion — what you are doing, what you are thinking, what you are feeling. These levels matter, and we work with them. But beneath them is a deeper level: the level of being itself. Who are you? What is your life for? What is the shape of the self you have constructed, and is it the shape of the self you actually are?

This is the territory of ontological counselling, and it is what many of our clients — especially those drawn to depth and meaning — come to Baraka for. Available in English and Farsi, in person at our Ambleside office and online across British Columbia.

What ontological counselling actually does

Ontological work asks a different set of questions than symptom-focused therapy. Not only "what is wrong and how do we fix it?" but also:

• Who are you, really? Beneath the roles, the achievements, the family expectations, the cultural script — who are you when none of that is performing?
• What kind of being have you been being? What identity have you constructed, what costs has it carried, and is it still the right one for you?
• What is your life asking of you now? The crisis that brought you to therapy may not be a problem to solve. It may be an invitation to become someone you have not yet been.