I’m Christina Opolko, and if you have made it this far, welcome.

I’m a social worker (OTSTCFQ, OCSWSSW), drama therapist and psychotherapist in Ontario, systemic psychotherapy intern in Quebec (completion date October 2026). I have two clinical masters degrees and nearly a decade of trauma-informed private practice experience. I am focusing the 2025-2026 year on seeing both individuals and couples.

I have a deep respect for the complexity of the nervous system and the stories our bodies carry. I have lived experience navigating trauma, identity shifts, and major life transitions.

I am a classically trained actor and singer. Prior to becoming a therapist, I practiced stepping into and connecting to different worldviews and characters in order to perform from a place of empathy and truth. That background continues to inform how I listen, attune, and work relationally. I am especially interested in how healing unfolds through the body, imagination, movement, and relationship. Therapy, to me, is not about fixing people, but about supporting agency, choice, and a sense of internal safety so that connection, truth and meaning can emerge. Therapy is also not about being right. As a person, I own my imperfections while remaining open to constructive feedback and I help people who have made mistakes understand, own and grow as well.

Although I have seen children in the past, I now work primarily with adults and couples experiencing difficulties that are situational, cumulative, and/or systemic. Situational issues include living through major loss, transition, stress, or life altering event. Sometimes, people come to me after things have accumulated (bad habits or reactions, relational patterns, burnout, complex trauma). Often, I see people because they keep bumping into unfair systems that make them feel judged, discriminated against, or simply barred from access.

In my work, I:

• Endeavour to understand you and the problems you face, and collaborate with you to co-construct pathways forward

• Offer individualized tools and resources that are tangible and helpful

• Provide you with theoretical concepts and current research if it is helpful

• Help you figure out how to help your nervous system especially when you feel activated or shutdown

• Guide you to notice how current behaviours make sense given earlier experiences

• Witness your story and help you find meaning moving forward

• Own my mis-steps and blind spots while remaining open to constructive feedback

• For couples: help you soften towards one another and reshape the way you interact, or have bigger conversations about underlying needs, feelings or difficult decisions

• Stay up-to-date with training standards and evidence-based approaches

• Seek regular supervision and hold myself to high ethical standards

Many of the people I work with are thoughtful, capable, and overwhelmed. They are often high-functioning on the outside while feeling stuck, exhausted, or disconnected internally. Therapy becomes a space where nothing needs to be managed, performed, or held together—a place to slow down and listen more closely.

My style is collaborative, warm, and direct. I value pacing, consent, and clarity, and I work carefully to ensure sessions feel stabilizing rather than overwhelming. Sessions may include learning about the nervous system, gentle somatic awareness cues, and practical tools that can be integrated into daily life. Humour, creativity, and relational repair are welcome.

I believe deeply in the body’s wisdom and in our capacity for healing when conditions are right. Having a lifechanging illness and becoming a parent profoundly reshaped my own relationship to embodiment and resilience, further strengthening my commitment to work that honours both vulnerability and strength.

Education:

McGill (Master of Social Work, 2020), specialty: Children and Families, primary internship setting: Hospital Social Work.

Concordia (Master of Creative Arts Therapies, 2016), Focus: Helping pediatric populations using somatic, play and creative tools (projective exercises using theatre and art).

Trainings:

2017: Developmental Transformations Level One (DvT institute), interest in both narrative exposure therapy and trauma-informed play with children and adults.

2017: Somatic Experiencing Level One (SEI Montreal)

2017-2018: Certification in Grief and Bereavement (Argyle Institute)

2022: 16hrs Hypnosis Training for Trauma and PTSD (PESI)

2021-2023: Dialectical Behavioural Therapy Certification course (Psychwire, incomplete)

2024-2025: Integrative Sex and Couples Certification Training with Tammy Nelson (PESI)

2024-2025: 16hrs Motivational Interviewing (PESI)

2025-2026: Dick Schwartz’s Internal Family Systems Therapy Master Class: IFS therapy in Action with complex trauma and PTSD (PESI)

2026 (current): Janina Fisher, Complex Trauma Certification Training Level I and II (PESI)

2026 (current): Complete IFS Therapy Immersion (PESI)

2026 (upcoming): EMDR certification (EMDR Centre of the Rockies)

2026 (upcoming): ADHD Clinical Services Provider Certification Course