About – Ayssa Scipio

About Me

BIPOC Anxiety, Boundaries, and Sex Therapist - Toronto

Hey! I’m so glad you’ve stumbled across this page, let me tell you a bit about myself.

I am a huge advocate for self-care, but we all know that actually doing that for ourselves can be a challenge. I am no stranger to this.

Growing up as a little girl surrounded by strong Black women, it was hard to accept that reaching out for help was a necessity of life. It takes a village is a well-known phrase but for some reason I didn’t think it applied to me, especially when it came to mental health. I finally decided to make the big decision to reach out and work with a therapist when life catapulted at me like a NFL line backer, and left me feeling at my lowest. It can happen to us all – it just looks really different for each of us.

In the end, reaching out for help made me stronger. It provided me with perspective beyond the one-road tunnel vision I had. I developed a new relationship with myself and got really good at not only identifying my needs, but responding to them in healthy ways that had some really nice ripple effects in other parts of my life.

I can confidently say that though things got better, self-work never really truly ends. Every day I make the conscious decision to check myself – check my thoughts, check my responses to others, and check that I’m actually applying the skills from my toolkit. It’s a liberating feeling – having a toolkit. Yours is building too!

On a lighter note – it must be mentioned that hobbies were key in this journey of thriving while surviving. Traveling, cooking, loved ones, and water sports like surfing and paddle boarding have a home in my heart. This adventurous and open-minded side of self has most definitely made it’s way into my practice.

Ayssa's Experience

I hold a Master of Social Work degree from the University of Toronto, Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work, and a BA in Psychology received from Toronto Metropolitan University (previously known as Ryerson University). I started within the social services and social work field back in 2010, honing in on one-to-one therapy services in 2016. Around this time period, I also worked with the Toronto Distress Centre on the nation's suicide hotline providing both support and emergency intervention services and later continued to work with Toronto Rape Crisis Centre for a brief period. In 2017 I began my ongoing tenure with the Canadian Mental Health Association as a Youth Mental Health Worker. I currently have the pleasure of teaching in Seneca College's Immigrants and Refugee and Social Service Worker programs. Much of my additional clinical experience comes from my experience in hospitals and clinics across the GTA.

Our Work Together Will Be

Authentic
Collaborative
Skill-Building
Self-Reclaiming

Person-Centred
Pleasure-Centred
Trauma-Informed
Explorative

My Approach

You are more than just a ball of symptoms, you are a person – a whole, entire person. This alone is one of the most important pieces to remember in our work together. My approach to therapy prioritizes you as an individual being. As such, it is important for me to understand things like, who are you today? What parts of your present-day self do you see as part of your future-day self? What new parts might be added or even rediscovered to bring you feeling of joy and blissful balance? And if you’re reading this feeling unsure or that you don’t have the answers – that’s okay! You never need to have all the answers. Creating this roadmap of your journey is something we will do together! We will break down your end goal into small, manageable pieces and celebrate all the milestones along the way.

Therapy is not a one-size-fits all solution and for this reason it is important for me to pull upon a number of different therapeutic modalities in my approach to treatment. A modality simply refers to a set strategies that have been trialed and tested to lead to changes in thoughts, moods, feelings, and behaviours. Some core modalities I lean upon during counselling include include Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT), Emotion-Focussed Therapy (EFT), Attachment theory, Narrative therapy, and complex-trauma therapy. When pulling upon these interventions in treatment, I tend to explain what we’re doing and why we’re doing it so that neither of us feel left behind or ill-informed in the process

Aside from all the technical pieces involved in our sessions, it is extremely important to me that we approach everything through a trauma-informed, culture-informed, anti-oppressive, LGBTQ2SI+ affirming framework. At every stage in our work together, you will be in control. While I may encourage you to take your mind to more challenging places, I will never push beyond the limits you set. You will never have to repeat an experience you’re not ready to revisit, your boundaries will always be respected. Together, we will work to create a safe space where you can trust that what you choose to share will be valued. While at times therapy may feel more challenging than you expected, we will ensure that you have both the skills and the knowledge to self-regulate and overcome these obstacles to get closer to your goals.

Education and Training

I understand the curiosity and need to know that the person you’re working with has done their training. See below for a quick snapshot of some of my completed credential. Have questions? Lets chat!