Doctoral Associate
Marina Charalampopoulou
M.A.
Young people and their families find something unexpected in Marina's sessions: a space where they actually feel heard. Perspectives that have felt overlooked suddenly have room. Families often leave that first appointment with more clarity and more hope than they arrived with.
I love basketball, though the shots I make are outnumbered by the ones I miss.
You don't have to have it figured out.
How Marina works
Marina works with children, adolescents, and families navigating anxiety, mood challenges, and the kind of emotional overwhelm that makes daily life feel harder than it should. She believes there is a need behind every emotion and a function behind every behaviour. Her work begins there, with genuine curiosity about what is actually driving what a young person is experiencing.
She is particularly drawn to teens who feel alienated and misunderstood, at home, at school, and among their peers. For young people who have learned to expect that adults will not quite get them, Marina's sessions tend to feel different.
Her training spans some of the most demanding outpatient settings in Ontario, including the Child, Youth, and Emerging Adult Program at CAMH and the Child and Youth Mental Health Program at Hamilton Health Sciences. That clinical depth shapes how she listens and what she notices.
Sessions with Marina are collaborative from the start. She and your child build the plan together, with goals that actually reflect what matters to them, not what a textbook says should matter.
Flexible, reflective, and always collaborative.
Clinical approach
Marina draws on CBT, ACT, DBT, and emotion-focused frameworks. What that means in practice is that she does not arrive with a fixed plan. She pays close attention to both what young people say and what they do not say, reading the room as much as the presenting concern. Treatment plans are built collaboratively and reflect where each young person actually is, not where a protocol says they should be.
She is particularly attuned to the therapeutic relationship itself, how it shifts, what it reveals, and how it becomes a vehicle for change. For teens who have felt unseen, that relationship often becomes the most important part of the work.
Every young person I work with has something worth understanding. We start there, and we build from that.
What Marina works with.
Areas of focus
Languages: English · Greek
Background and credentials.
Education and training
PhD, Clinical-Developmental Psychology
York University
In progress
MA, Clinical-Developmental Psychology
York University
BSc (Hons), Psychology
University of Toronto
Professional AssociationsOntario Psychological Association (OPA)
Canadian Psychological Association (CPA)
International Society for Autism Research (INSAR)
Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH)
Child, Youth, and Emerging Adult Program
Ron Joyce Children's Health Centre
Child and Youth Mental Health Program · Hamilton Health Sciences
York University Psychology Clinic
CertificationsEmotion-Focused Family Therapy (EFFT)
ADOS-2 Certification
get started