About Larry Borins
Most people don’t arrive here because life suddenly falls apart.
They arrive because something has been quietly wearing them down — and they can no longer ignore how heavy it has become.
“The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.”— Carl Rogers
Background & training.
Larry Borins, MSW RSW, is a Registered Social Worker and Psychotherapist with over 20 years of experience working with individuals, couples, and men. He received his Master’s degree from the Wurzweiler School of Social Work at Yeshiva University, specializing in mental health.
Over the course of his career, Larry has worked in outpatient hospital settings, community mental health agencies, and private practice — supporting people navigating anxiety, depression, relationship challenges, emotional stress, and patterns that keep repeating even when they’ve tried to change them.
He has facilitated MBCT groups at the North York Family Health Team and at Mind Health Toronto, and is affiliated with ICEEFT, the International Centre for Excellence in Emotionally Focused Therapy.
Clinical Training
Advanced training in Emotionally Focused Therapy with Sue Johnson. Relational Life Therapy with Terrence Real. Advanced MBCT training with Zindel Segal and Dr. Patricia Rockman. Mindfulness teachers retreat with Jon Kabat-Zinn (MBSR).
Modalities
EFT · IFS · RLT · MBCT · CBT
Affiliations
ICEEFT — International Centre for Excellence in Emotionally Focused Therapy. Ontario College of Social Workers and Social Service Workers. College of Registered Psychotherapists of Ontario (CRPO).
What the work is actually about.
Many of the people I work with are functioning well on the outside — managing careers, relationships, children, responsibilities, and the expectations placed on them — while internally struggling with anxiety, emotional exhaustion, disconnection, or patterns they can’t seem to break.
Sometimes what’s driving your experience runs deeper — shaped by earlier life experiences that influenced how you learned to cope, connect, and protect yourself. Patterns that once made sense, but are no longer serving you.
Part of therapy may involve finding relief from anxiety, depression, stress, or relationship conflict. But over time, many people also begin to understand the deeper emotional patterns underneath what they’ve been struggling with.
This is the work I find most meaningful — honest, unhurried exploration that helps you recognize the younger parts of yourself that learned to cope the best way they could, and begin responding from a more grounded, compassionate place within yourself.
This isn’t about becoming someone different. It’s about coming back to who you already are.
Outside the office.
I’m a husband and father of three hockey-loving daughters. That experience — the noise, the love, the rupture and repair that happens in every family — informs how I work with couples and fathers more than any textbook ever could.
Most days that means early mornings at the rink, reading three different moods at the dinner table, and trying to stay patient when I’m running on no sleep. I’m not writing this from the other side of it, having it all figured out — I’m still learning how to be present instead of just physically there, still catching myself repeating patterns I swore I wouldn’t. I’m in it, the same way you are.
Most people who reach out aren’t completely sure they’re ready.
They just know that what they’ve been doing isn’t working anymore. That’s enough to begin.
On generational patterns
“Family dysfunction rolls down from generation to generation, like a fire in the woods, taking down everything in its path until one person in one generation has the courage to turn and face the flames. That person brings peace to their ancestors and spares the children that follow.”— Terry Real, family therapist, author of I Don’t Want to Talk About It
That person could be you.