Razgar Qaderpour,  Ph.D.
Registered Psychotherapist
Couple & Family Specialist | Individual Psychotherapist | Trauma-Informed Therapy 

Offers Services in English, Farsi, Kurdish

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Sometimes you know exactly what is wrong in your relationship. Other times, you only know that something between you no longer feels the way it used to.

You may find yourselves having the same argument again and again, even when it begins over different things. One of you wants to talk and resolve it; the other withdraws, becomes quiet, or needs space. The more one reaches, the more the other pulls away. Eventually, you are no longer talking about what started the conflict, you are back in a pattern you both recognize and neither of you seems able to change.

Or perhaps there is less conflict now, but also less connection. You manage work, children, responsibilities, and everyday life, yet there is less warmth, intimacy, or meaningful conversation. You may still care deeply about each other and feel surprisingly alone in the relationship.

For some couples, trust has been damaged by infidelity, secrecy, dishonesty, or another significant betrayal. For others, the difficulty involves intimacy, parenting, extended family, cultural differences, changing roles, or a major life transition. And sometimes the question is more fundamental: Can we repair this relationship, or do we need to decide whether it should continue?

This is where much of my work with couples and families begins.

How I Work with Couples and Families

I am interested not only in what you are arguing about, but in what happens between you when things become difficult.
Relationships often develop recurring cycles. Hurt may come out as anger. Fear may appear as defensiveness. One person's attempt to get closer may feel like pressure to the other; the other's attempt to create space may feel like rejection. Over time, both people can become so focused on protecting themselves that neither can easily see what is happening between them.

My role is to help slow these interactions down so we can understand what is happening underneath them and begin changing the pattern itself.

I tend to be active and engaged in sessions. I may interrupt an escalating exchange, ask direct questions, draw attention to a pattern as it unfolds in the room, or help someone put into words an experience that has previously come out as anger, criticism, defensiveness, silence, or withdrawal.

I do not approach couple therapy as a search for who is right and who is wrong. At the same time, understanding a relational pattern does not mean assuming that responsibility is always equal. When trust has been broken or someone's choices have caused harm, individual accountability matters. We can understand the relationship while still being clear about personal responsibility.

This is particularly important when working with infidelity or other significant breaches of trust. Therapy is not about rushing toward forgiveness or persuading a couple to stay together. Sometimes the work is about rebuilding trust. Sometimes it is about determining whether there is enough left to rebuild.

My work with families similarly focuses on the patterns that develop between people, around parenting, boundaries, changing roles, intergenerational expectations, or persistent conflict.

Culture and migration can also be important parts of this work. Relationships are shaped by what we have learned about partnership, family, parenting, gender, intimacy, independence, loyalty, and responsibility. Migration can bring some of these expectations into sharper conflict as partners, parents, and children adapt differently to a new environment.
Having lived and worked across different cultural contexts has made this dimension of relationships particularly important in my clinical thinking. I do not begin with an assumption about what your relationship or family should look like. I want to understand the particular world in which it developed and what each person brings into it.

My approach is relational, attachment-informed, systemic, and integrative. Emotionally Focused Therapy and family systems thinking are important foundations of my work, alongside evidence-informed approaches to attachment, emotional and behavioural regulation, conflict, communication, and relational functioning.

I use theory to help me understand the people sitting in front of me, not to make the people sitting in front of me fit a theory.

Professional Background

Couple and family therapy is not simply one area of my practice. It has been the central focus of my academic and clinical training.

Both my master's and doctoral education were specifically in Couple and Family Therapy, with academic and clinical training centred on couples, families, marital relationships, and relational functioning. My doctoral research involved developing and evaluating a culturally responsive, couple-focused therapeutic model.

I have worked with couples and families across clinical, hospital, community, and academic settings and have taught couple and family therapy at the university level.

You do not need to come to therapy already knowing whether your relationship can be repaired. You and your partner do not even need to agree completely about what the problem is.

Often, you won't.

We can begin there.

I am a Registered Psychotherapist with the College of Registered Psychotherapists of Ontario and provide psychotherapy in English, Kurdish, and Farsi.

I currently practice at Calm Nexus Psychotherapy Centre, providing in-person psychotherapy in Ontario and virtual psychotherapy to clients in Ontario, Quebec, and other Canadian jurisdictions where permitted.

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Razgar's Approach

Razgar integrates a wide range of evidence-based modalities, including:

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• Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT)

• Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), including Couples (EFCT) and Families (EFFT)

• Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)

• Narrative Therapy

• Solution-Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT)

• Integrative Behavioral Couple Therapy (IBCT)

• Gottman Method Couples Therapy

• Structural Family Therapy (SFT)

• Bowen Family Systems Therapy

• Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT)

• Positive Parenting Program (Triple P)

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