I focus on helping partners step back and examine how the relationship is functioning. I draw mainly from person-centered, solution-focused, mindfulness, and psychodynamic approaches that help couples explore and seek to address immediate challenges while working towards long-term growth and healing.
Virtual Couples Counselling in Ontario
✔ Person-Centered Approach
✔ Evenings and Weekend Hours
✔ Receipts Provided for Insurance Claims
Couples can enter therapy feeling
deeply misunderstood by each other.
The following illustrative vignette may sound familiar to you:
Each partner believes they are unheard and misunderstood by the other, with most conversations leading nowhere. One partner may want to talk, while the other pulls away. Balancing work, family responsibilities, and the demands of daily life leaves little time to slow down and understand each others’ needs.
Whether your relationship is under strain or simply needs better communication, couples counselling may help you move forward together.
Bastion Therapy offers a steady refuge for reflection, clarity, and a more grounded relationship with each other.
Hi, I am Matthew, a Registered Psychotherapist and your co-traveller within sessions. In couples counselling, I guide the conversation as a host, moderator, and translator, creating space for both partners to speak and be understood.
I focus on creating an empathetic space where both partners can feel heard. Through that process, we identify the goals and challenges that matter to the relationship and begin working toward them in a thoughtful and constructive way.
My approach to couples therapy
I support couples working through:
Communication challenges and recurring conflict
Past experiences, stress, or life changes can make conversations escalate into arguments. We break down these challenges and explore how to communicate constructively.
Trust, betrayal, and infidelity
A space for you to safely explore the turn of events in your lives and relationship, not to judge, but instead to understand them. Together we explore their impact and the potential for rebuilding trust and the friendship underlying the relationship.
Relationship equity and fairness
Couples explore how to work as equitable partners across emotional, labour, finances, and shared responsibilities, including, for example, towards children and aging parents.
Life transitions and changing responsibilities
Career shifts, illness, or caregiving can place pressure on the relationship. Together, we create a space where you can openly express and explore reconnecting as partners.
Pre-separation clarity and relationship direction
If you have decided to separate and want to do so respectfully, therapy can help guide that process from a psychotherapeutic perspective. My background in family law offers me a particular lens, although I am not currently working as a lawyer.
I also work with couples navigating non-monogamy and other evolving relationship agreements, concerns and opportunities.
I’m glad you’ve made it this far.
It may be that many people assume couples counselling is the last step before a relationship ends. In practice, couples can explore counselling at any stage of the relationship and for a variety of concerns and opportunities.
Welcome to Bastion Therapy. I am Matthew Pitts, a Registered Psychotherapist based in Toronto, Ontario. I work with individuals and couples, and I offer virtual therapy across Canada.
Before becoming a psychotherapist, I spent over four years working in family law as a lawyer and also previously worked in finance as a buy-side Analyst. My work in family law gave me a particular view on couples and relational conflict, and it helps inform my focus on managing conflict thoughtfully.
As a husband and father, I also understand the responsibilities and expectations that shape long-term partnerships. I approach couples counselling with patience, empathy, curiosity and respect for both partners.
If you feel ready, I invite you to book a free 30-minute consultation so we can explore whether working together feels like the right fit.
Frequently Asked Questions
How does couples counselling work at Bastion Therapy?
We usually begin with a free consultation of up to 30 minutes where both partners attend and where we briefly discuss relationship challenges and whether working together feels like the right fit. If you decide to move forward, each partner then attends a 50-minute individual session, followed usually by weekly or bi-weekly couples sessions that are 80 minutes long.
Is couples therapy meant to be limited or long term?
It depends on what your needs are as a couple and what you are both comfortable with. You may seek couples therapy for a relatively short period, exploring a specific matter, for example. Couples therapy can also become a longer-term psychotherapeutic resource. The choice to begin, pause or end couples therapy always lies with you. I often like to say that therapy is a collaborative process, but perhaps even more importantly, it is a consensual one.
Can we start couples counselling and later continue with individual therapy?
Some couples begin therapy together and later decide that individual sessions would also be helpful for one or both partners. In that case, couples counselling can continue parallel to individual sessions held with other professionals. This means that the couple would have a therapist, and each partner seeking individual therapy would have their own individual therapist.
Do you offer couples therapy online / virtually?
Yes. Couples therapy can and does take place virtually or online using videocalls, for example.
Are evenings or weekends offered for couples therapy?
Evenings and some weekend spots are made available for sessions.
Do partners need to be in the same room or use the same device for the session?
They may choose to, but it is not necessary. Each partner can log in to the session on their own device, from their own location, which can make sessions more convenient and accommodating.
I offer virtual sessions Monday through Friday, including evenings. Saturday and Sunday evenings are also available.