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Sharah Mar-Kaminsky, MSW, RSW

Founder & Registered Social Worker at SMK Counselling

Welcome. I am Sharah Mar-Kaminsky, a Registered Social Worker and therapist based in Ottawa, Ontario. Through my private practice, SMK Counselling, I specialize in providing compassionate, trauma-informed therapy and mental health support. My clinical focus includes helping refugee claimants, newcomers, and individuals navigate complex life transitions, post-traumatic stress, and systemic challenges as they adjust to life in Canada.

With a Master of Social Work (MSW) and professional registration in Ontario (RSW), my goal is to offer a safe, culturally sensitive space where you feel heard, validated, and empowered. Whether you are looking for local counselling in Ottawa or virtual therapy sessions, I am here to support your unique healing journey.

Services

Individuals

Couples

I support individuals through a wide range of emotional and life challenges, offering a space where you can slow down, feel understood, and make sense of what you’re carrying. Our sessions focus on building insight, strengthening coping skills, and helping you move toward meaningful, sustainable change.

People come to me for support with depression, anxiety, trauma, addiction, life transitions, communication, parenting, separation and divorce, career stress, family dynamics, grief and loss, ADHD, and caregiving. Whatever you’re navigating, you don’t have to do it alone—I’m here to walk alongside you with warmth, clarity, and care.

I work with couples to strengthen connection, deepen understanding, and communicate with more ease and compassion. Whether you’re navigating ongoing challenges, preparing for a separation, or hoping to rebuild trust, our sessions offer a gentle, supportive space to explore your relationship with honesty and care. My focus is on helping both partners feel heard, respected, and equipped to move forward—whatever direction feels right for you.

Refugees

I offer specialized counselling for refugee claimants adjusting to life in Canada, with space to honour both the strength it takes to start over and the pain that often comes with that journey. Many people I support are navigating trauma, displacement, cultural transition, family separation, settlement stressors, and the challenge of finding their way in unfamiliar systems.

My approach is warm, trauma‑informed, and culturally sensitive—grounded in deep respect for your lived experience and the resilience you’ve already shown. You don’t have to carry these experiences alone; I’m here to walk alongside you with care and understanding.

Teachers

Teachers hold so much—emotionally, mentally, and relationally. They move through each day balancing the needs of students, families, colleagues, and institutions, often while carrying their own quiet struggles. Having lived experience as a teacher myself, I understand the rhythm of the classroom, the constant decision‑making, and the invisible emotional labour that rarely gets named. That background helps me meet educators with genuine warmth, respect, and a felt sense of “you don’t have to explain this to me.”

In therapy, I offer a restorative space where teachers can lay down what they’ve been holding: compassion fatigue, moral distress, the weight of caring deeply in systems that don’t always care back. It’s a place to exhale, to feel understood, and to reconnect with the parts of themselves that get overshadowed by the demands of the job.

My hope is to help teachers find steadiness, clarity, and a renewed sense of purpose—because those who nurture others deserve a space where they are nurtured too.

Healthcare Professionals

Healthcare professionals carry extraordinary emotional and physical demands—moving between crisis, care, and complexity with little time to pause. Therapy offers a confidential, stabilizing space where clinicians, nurses, paramedics, and other frontline staff can process the weight of their work without needing to explain the culture of healthcare from scratch.

Drawing on my own lived experience working in hospitals and frontline care, I understand the pace, the pressures, and the quiet moments that stay with you long after a shift ends. This background allows me to meet healthcare workers with a level of attunement and credibility that helps them feel seen rather than scrutinized.

Government Workers

Government workers often serve quietly behind the scenes—carrying public responsibility, policy demands, and the emotional weight of decisions that shape communities. I understand how this work can wear on you, especially when compassion meets bureaucracy or when the pace leaves little room to breathe.

In therapy, I offer a warm, steady space to help you process stress, navigate moral tension, rebuild resilience, and reconnect with your sense of purpose beyond deadlines and accountability. My aim is to support those who support others—helping you feel grounded, understood, and reminded that caring for yourself is part of caring for the public.

Veterans

Serving our country can be a deep source of pride, but it can also bring unique challenges—especially when it comes to navigating identity, relationships, mental health, and the transition back into civilian life. You don’t have to sort through those experiences on your own. I offer a supportive, grounded space to help you make sense of what you’ve been carrying and find steadiness again.

To make things easier, I can also reduce the administrative burden by billing VAC Medavie Blue Cross directly, so you can focus on your wellbeing rather than paperwork.

My warm and friendly approach incorporates a variety of therapeutic modalities which is personalized and as unique as the client and the present challenge.

I offer virtual sessions for maximum versatility and flexibility. In-person, I offer Walk and Talk Sessions (weather permitting) in a outdoor, natural, mutually agreed-upon setting in Ottawa such as a public park with paved walkways. In-person sessions are also offered at a private office located at Woodroffe & Carling.* (*Exact address to be provided upon booking. Cats on the premises. No scents/strong fragrances please).

Click below to book a session or a free consultation!

Use the QR code below to begin a WhatsApp chat with Sharah!

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Services

Individuals

Couples

Refugees

Teachers

Healthcare Professionals

Government Workers

Veterans

Send a message on WhatsApp, call, text or email to book an appointment:

613-402-8164 or sharah@smkcounselling.ca
Physicians and medical centres, please fax: 1-888-414-6959

Services

Individuals

Couples

Refugees

Teachers

Healthcare Professionals

Government Workers

Veterans

Send a message on WhatsApp, call, text or email to book an appointment:

613-402-8164 or sharah@smkcounselling.ca Physicians and medical centres, please fax: 1-888-414-6959

613-402-8164 or sharah@smkcounselling.ca
Physicians and medical centres, please fax: 1-888-414-6959