Dr. Kayla Hamel, PhD, C.Psych.
Psychologist
Dr. Kayla Hamel completed her PhD in Clinical Developmental Psychology at York University. Her clinical training has included placements in community mental health, hospitals, and private practice.
Across these settings, she acquired five years of experience working with diverse children, youth, and young adults with a range of presenting concerns.
Dr. Hamel is passionate about using psychological services to creatively support young people with complex needs. To that end, she currently holds a postdoctoral fellowship with the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) where she is involved in a new randomized control study as a researcher and therapist.
Her work at CAMH provides integrative, wraparound services to homeless youth transitioning to stable housing.
At Toronto Psychology Centre, Dr. Hamel’s areas of practice include the following: treatment for Anxiety Disorders, Mood Disorders, Personality Disorders, Substance Use Disorders, Trauma-Related Disorders, nightmares, relationship difficulties, self-criticism and perfectionism, and emotion regulation difficulties. She offers therapy for children, adolescents, and adults. Her aim is to flexibly adapt evidence-based treatments that meet the specific needs of each person. Specifically, she draws from Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Dialectical Behavioural Therapy (DBT) skills, Emotion-Focused Therapy (EFT), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and Compassion-Focused Therapy (CFT).
Dr. Hamel takes an integrative approach to clinical work by relying on a biopsychosocial framework to understand her clients and adopting diverse clinical techniques to meet their needs. She seeks to understand how surrounding social systems (family, relationships, school, community, culture, etc.) as well as individual-level systems (biology, health, eating/sleeping habits, coping style, etc.) contribute to client difficulties, emphasizing the effect of early attachment relationships on relational patterns and well-being.
Dr. Hamel strives to be an empathetic, genuine therapist who holds unconditional positive regard for her clients. She is aware that a strong therapeutic alliance is necessary in order for clients to feel comfortable opening up about upsetting or challenging experiences in therapy, and therefore she puts great emphasis on building a working relationship with clients from the first moment they meet. This allows for us to explore and process distressing emotions more deeply.
Dr. Hamel also places high value on identifying and acknowledging every client’s unique source of strength and resilience. She collaborates with her clients to build this understanding on an ongoing basis during treatment, with the aim of helping them to gain new insights and new understandings, and to support them in finding helpful ways of approaching previously distressing situations. In working with children, she attempts to help them build skills to regulate their behaviour and emotions, as well as strengthening their attachment relationships by working directly with caregivers and supporting their capacity and confidence in meeting their child’s emotional needs.
Dr. Hamel completed her residency at the CAMH. She worked with the Youth Addictions and Concurrent Disorders Service where she provided individual and group therapy to young people navigating complex mental health concerns and/or substance use issues, drawing from a variety of therapeutic modalities. She also worked with the Youth Justice Assessment Clinic completing court-ordered assessments for young offenders who often experienced significant cognitive and socioemotional difficulties, in addition to major life challenges like trauma and other adversities. She also received previous clinical training at East Metro Youth Services, Aisling Discoveries, the Focus on Youth Psychosis Prevention (FYPP) program at CAMH, and Kindercare Psychology.
Academically, Dr. Hamel’s research interests lie in the areas of positive psychology, resilience, and social justice. These interests were largely shaped through her work in the humanitarian field: first, while working with a non-governmental organization (NGO) supporting victims of the internal conflict in Colombia, and later working with Chavaladas, a grassroots NGO in Nicaragua supporting children living, or at-risk of living, on the street. Her doctoral research was a community-participatory action research project, undertaken in Nicaragua in collaboration with Chavaladas, where she developed a grounded theory of resilience specific to children and youth in street situations. In line with her clinical interests, Dr. Hamel’s research seeks to understand and empower personal, cultural and community wide strengths.
Dr. Hamel belongs to the Ontario Psychological Association and the Association for Contextual Behavioural Science – Ontario Chapter.