Shereen Ishag

Shereen Ishag holds a conviction that most people aren’t struggling because something is broken in them — they’re struggling because something hurt them, or because no one ever handed them the tools to find their way through it. That belief shapes everything about how she works. A Registered Psychotherapist (Qualifying) based in Burlington, Ontario, she founded Essence Psychotherapy and Counselling to offer something she felt was missing: a practice where clients are genuinely seen rather than clinically assessed, and where the work follows the person rather than a protocol.

She works with individuals, couples, families, and teens aged twelve and up, offering sessions virtually across Ontario in both English and Arabic. Her clients include professionals carrying quiet exhaustion beneath a polished surface, couples who have lost their footing with each other, new and expectant parents, and Arabic-speaking clients who have never had a therapist who shares their language and understands their cultural world — including families navigating the particular friction of teenagers whose social lives now run largely through a phone screen. Her integrative approach draws on Emotionally Focused Therapy, Internal Family Systems, Solution-Focused Therapy, and psychospiritual work, adapting to what each person actually needs.

Before training as a therapist, Shereen spent fifteen years in corporate management. That background gives her an uncommon fluency with high-achievers who have perfected the appearance of coping while carrying something much heavier underneath.