Lisa Zemanovich, Clinical Therapist at The Clinic on Dupont

05/19/2025

How the different attachment styles play out in romantic relationships.

05/17/2025

The four different attachment styles: what they entail, how they develop and how they manifest in adulthood.

05/16/2025

Some strategies around effective communication

08/10/2021

We are all shaped through our different lived experiences. Majority of our thought patterns and behavioural tendencies are below our conscious awareness. In fact 95% of our functioning lives within our unconscious processes. When we experience attachment injuries and traumas in childhood, the trauma can be held in our bodies on a somatic level. Furthermore, the traumatic experiences can shape our behaviours, through our inner child and different archetypes we develop. As children we are completely depended on our caregivers. Certain behaviours that promote attachment to them will get reinforced and serve a function, which from an evolutionary perspective will ultimately promote our survival. These learned automatic behaviours often get carried out with us into adulthood. For example, being the savior/rescuer, the over-achiever or the caregiver/people pleaser. Understanding these behavioural tendencies and the way it shapes our core beliefs through self-exploration and self-compassion is the first step to promote change. When we bring the unconscious to our conscious awareness we begin to gain more control over our thoughts and behaviours. We can then explore whether these behaviours that once served us a function is still serving us a function and shift dysfunctional patterns by interrupting through our conscious awareness. ✨

10/01/2020

As a way to cope with uncertainty and stress- spread kindness ✨. Helping others can lead to a sense of immediate reinforcement, which can help to mitigate stress and anxiety. There’s is never too much of that to go around. 💕

04/27/2020

It’s so important during times like this to know that we are doing enough and to offer ourselves compassion. It’s important to reflect on what our expectations are and adjust them accordingly given the current context. If we are used to being productive for 8 hours but now we’re finding that it’s difficult to get through even half a day- that is ok! Know that there are so many different variables at play. If you are doing telework while also having to do childcare, it makes sense that you can’t possibly produce the same amount of work. Additionally given that the current situation is naturally anxiety provoking- this in turn can consume a lot of energy out of us, leaving less energy to be productive elsewhere. Remember this and remember to meet yourself where you are at. If that means having 4 productive hours of work instead of 8- so be it, that is ok. Know that you are doing enough 💕✨ Post-it inspired by 👏🏻

04/16/2020

Exploring toxic positivity and the importance of being in touch with our emotions.

04/16/2020

It is important to explore the functionality of our thoughts and emotions. If we are overly optimistic, this could lead to denial or avoidance. It is more functional to notice our thoughts and emotions and name them while offering ourselves compassion. We are all ingrained with a host of different emotions, each one telling us something different. For example, if we notice the feeling of grief, we likely are feeling the sense of loss of something that was important to us. If we are feeling anger, we probably feel a sense of injustice. If we feel anxious, there might be a threat or potential threat in our environment. Noticing our emotions and understanding why we are feeling what we are feeling, enables ourselves to give that emotion compassion. By giving ourselves compassion and permission to feel what we are feeling, helps to make that emotion move through our bodies us faster. In turns this leads us to have more control over our emotions.
̇d19 @ Toronto, Ontario

04/16/2020

Collectively many people in our society are currently experiencing the emotion of grief during COVID-19. Grief is a natural emotion to experience whenever we lose someone or something, which had meaning to us. Currently, many individuals are experiencing the loss of normalcy they once knew. People are experiencing the loss of events such as their graduations, their wedding or the loss of being able to see family and friends. When going through grief, we often go through 5 different stages.

1)Denial: the first stage is denial. Many of us might have initially thought that because we are young and healthy, COVID-19 wouldn’t have much of affect on us. Perhaps we thought that since it originated in China, we were safe here in Canada.

2)Anger: As the NBA/NHL, gatherings, restaurants and malls started shutting down; many people felt anger at the fact that they could no longer do the things that they enjoyed. Others perhaps might have felt anger towards the government for not stepping in sooner.

3)Bargaining: The next stage is bargaining. Many people might have thought that if they quarantined for 2 weeks, it would be okay, thinking that subsequently things would return back to normal.

4)Sadness: As things started to roll out, the anticipation that this would end in 2 weeks got further pushed away and the increase of uncertainty arose, leading to sense of hopelessness and the thought of “when this would end?”

5)Acceptance: The last phase is acceptance. This is where we begin to acknowledge that this might be the new normal. We then could start to think of ways of coping with this new normal.

It’s important to acknowledge and name our feelings. By recognizing what we are feeling and offering our emotions compassion, this in turn enables us to have more control over our emotion. In turn, this enables the emotion to move through us at a faster rate.

Photo credit to @ holisticallygrace
̇d19

04/14/2020

Check out my new article on the functionality of our anxiety during COVID-19 and practical strategies on how to manage this emotion.

A dose of anxiety in the current context can serve a function to help us mitigate the chances of contracting COVID-19. Visit our blog to learn more.

03/22/2020

If anyone knows a friend/family member who is in need of support/psychotherapy during this stressful time, I have moved my practice virtually to online video sessions. For more information you can email me at "lisa.zemanovich@theclinicondupont.com"

09/24/2019

Check out my new article on confabulation, which are narratives we create in our minds to help fill in the gaps to a negative situation by explaining “why” something is the way it is. New to our clinics blog!

Have you ever gone out with someone and did not hear back from them the next day? Perhaps you think you talked too much or said something to upset them.