Maggie Clapperton Psychotherapy

01/21/2025

✨ It’s all about the small and sometimes subtle changes that stack up in your day to day… this is not an exhaustive list… whatever you’re noticing — be proud of your hard work. Therapy is courageous 💪

12/04/2024

✨ ALL of your emotions are valid
✨ ALL of your needs are valid
✨ YOU are worthy of having your needs met
✨ YOU are capable of asking for support
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11/14/2024

Which of these are you guilty of? 🧐

✨ If you struggle with high functioning anxiety, hyper-independence, and/or a flat mood, it’s likely you often minimize your experience.

✨ I see this all the time in my practice. It has become second nature to you to minimize or dismiss your personal experience, your personal truth.

✨ At some point, you likely learned that meeting others’ needs, others’ expectations, was the safest (and most successful) way to walk through the world, and you built a protective shield around your own experience.

✨ The only problem is, that shield can numb you out. It can wind you up. It can burn you out.

✨ This is a reminder that your experience matters. It is not silly, it is not “not bad enough”, and it is not ungrateful to hold both the good and the bad at once.

09/29/2023

Update: Beginning October 10th, 2023, I will be serving my clients in person in downtown Hamilton. I will still be serving clients virtually across Ontario, but local kids, teens, and adults can enjoy face to face therapy ☺️

Looking forward to this new chapter!

My new office is located at 57 John Street South, Hamilton, ON, L8N 2N9

04/04/2023

Setting boundaries is not as hard as living with the boundaries you’ve set .

04/01/2023

* Our Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) extends out from our brain and spinal cord, down our body, and governs all sorts of unconscious processes such as heart rate, airway, and digestion
* The branch of our ANS that is activated determines our “autonomic state”
* The autonomic state we are in impacts our feelings of mental and physical well-being at any given moment
* Mental wellness is really the capacity to move up and down this “autonomic ladder” fluidly throughout the day in a way that aligns with the context we find ourselves in
* Trauma and adverse experiences can impact our capacity to move up and down the ladder, and to match our autonomic state with the environmental context (Safety can feel dangerous and danger can feel safe)

03/27/2023

I’m a “why am I like this??” Type of girl. Which self-critical narrative are you? 🤔

03/24/2023

So many of my clients ask me “why do I logically know something, but I can’t seem to change it?”

03/22/2023

Is the reason “nice folks finish last” because all us nice people are ignoring our needs? 🤔

03/20/2023

We live in a mainly “top down” society… focused on the neck up, caught up in a swirl of thoughts and worries. A “bottom up” approach helps us remember we are more than just floating heads. In fact, everything we think and feel comes to us from “neuroception”, a fancy word for our mind’s assessment of the input we get from our five senses.

03/12/2023

Welcome! My name is Maggie Clapperton and I am a registered social worker and therapist accepting virtual clients (ages 4+) across Ontario:
www.therapywithmaggie.ca

A little about me:

❣️ I started my social work career in crisis counselling. My time as part of the Canadian Su***de Prevention Service was the most challenging and rewarding role I have experienced. It taught me the power of empathy and understanding in crucial moments, and continues to impact how I approach therapy to this day.

❣️ I then moved into children’s mental health. Having worked with kids in a coaching capacity for over a decade, this felt like a natural role for me. I soon learned that working with kids means working with families. I came to understand the power of family relationships on mental health, and how to help parents, not only with their loved one’s trauma, anxiety, depression, bullying, phobias, and more, but how to take care of themselves in the midst of their own worry, self blame, and grief.

❣️ Most recently, I work in primary care mental health. This means that I work out of local family doctors offices, seeing the patients of these practices. Here I have limited resources and time to support children, teens, adults, and seniors with just about every issue under the sun: anxiety, panic, depression, PTSD symptoms, abuse, role transitions, grief, personality disorders… you name it, I have probably guided someone through it. I love working with such diverse individuals and getting to know their needs. I truly appreciate their strength in reaching out for support and have the privilege of helping them understand that they don’t have to struggle alone.

❣️ Here I am today! I have decided to venture into private practice where I can utilize all of my education, training, and experience to support children, teens, and adults with their mental health. My current focus is working with folks struggling with anxiety and depression, but I know from experience that these symptoms are usually just the tip of the iceberg.

To get to the root of your anxiety or depression, or to learn how to support your child or teen, you can book a free consult with me through www.therapywithmaggie.ca

Maggie Clapperton Psychotherapy is a solo therapy practice serving clients in person & virtually