About Ilana Goldsmith

Ilana is a Registered Social Worker with the Ontario College of Social Workers and Social Service Workers (OCSWSSW). She holds a Psychology undergraduate degree from the University of Guelph and a Master of Social Work from Wilfrid Laurier University.

What sets Ilana apart is how genuinely she shows up for her clients. She brings warmth, curiosity, and a real understanding of how hard it is to ask for help, partly because she has sat in the client’s chair herself. She blends different therapeutic approaches to help people understand the links between their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, and to see how past experiences continue to shape the present. Her goal is simple: help people heal, build resilience, and live in a way that feels true to who they are.

Outside of work, Ilana is a mom chasing after a toddler and a dog with equal enthusiasm (and equal exhaustion). She loves soccer (playing and watching), reading, unwinding with Netflix, and occasionally picking up the piano or guitar.

Post Secondary & Student Issues

Ilana spent five years as a Counsellor at Centennial College, offering brief, solution focused psychotherapy along with academic accommodation support. Over the past decade she has worked across various universities and colleges in Ontario, helping students navigate personal, professional, and academic pressures. She is passionate about helping students protect their mental health while figuring out what success actually looks like for them, not what anyone else expects it to look like.

Relationship Challenges

Whether it’s friction with a partner, family tension, or friendships that feel harder than they should, Ilana helps clients understand the patterns showing up in their relationships and where those patterns come from. She creates a space where people can be honest about what isn’t working and start building healthier, more secure connections.

Anxiety (Generalized anxiety, social anxiety and panic)

Ilana works with clients who feel overwhelmed, on edge, or stuck in their own heads. She supports those who find themselves ruminating long after a social interaction is over or who are struggling with feelings of panic that seem to come out of nowhere. She helps people understand what may be driving their anxiety, develop a new relationship with it and build practical tools to feel calmer and arrive back in the driver’s seat of their own life.

Perfectionism & People Pleasing

For clients who hold themselves to impossibly high standards, Ilana offers a compassionate space to explore where that pressure comes from and how to loosen its grip. She helps people separate their self worth from constant achievement so they can feel proud of who they are, not just what they produce.

Many of the people Ilana works with have spent years – or maybe their whole life – putting everyone else’s needs ahead of their own. They often struggle to say no, worry about disappointing others, or feel responsible for keeping the peace at the expense of their own well-being. Ilana helps clients understand where these patterns may come from, build healthier boundaries, and develop the confidence to express their own needs. Her goal is to help people create relationships that feel more balanced, authentic, and fulfilling.

Childhood and Complex Trauma

Ilana supports individuals who experienced trauma in childhood or adulthood, including neglect, parental substance use, abandonment, and emotional, physical, or sexual abuse. She also works with adults who have experienced or witnessed recent sexual violence, accidents, or sudden loss.

Trained in EMDR, Ilana helps clients work through symptoms like flashbacks, sleep difficulties, avoidance, relationship struggles, hypervigilance, and overwhelming shame or fear so they can move forward without being defined by what happened to them.

Parenting

Becoming a parent can bring up emotions no one warns you about. Ilana offers parents a judgment-free space to talk openly about the stress, guilt, and identity shifts that often come with any stage of parenthood. She helps parents understand what they need, find the right resources, and build realistic strategies for taking care of their mental health while adjusting to the new or ever-evolving demands of parenthood.

Email: ilana.goldsmith@mylifecounselling.ca
Phone: 1-800-828-9484 (ext. 132)