When it comes to accessing mental healthcare in Canada, therapists say prohibitive costs create a “two-tier system.”

Therapy can be transformational, says therapist Roxanne Francis. Take one of her former patients, a woman we’ll call Nina. When she started therapy, she was at a low point in her life. As a child, she had experienced severe trauma and as an adult, it was impacting her ability to parent her own children. Child protective services had become involved, and there was the chance that she might lose custody.

“At the point that she came to me, she said, ‘I don’t even know why I’m here,’” Francis says. “We put in a safety plan to ensure that she called me the next morning, because she didn’t really see herself living through the night.”

But Nina did call, and Francis was able to

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