Dr. Arela Agako is a Clinical Psychologist registered with the College of Psychologists of Ontario. She works with individual clients and couples.

Dr. Agako completed her Ph.D. at McMaster University in Clinical Psychology. Her clinical and research training has primarily focused on the assessment and treatment of perinatal mental health and emotional difficulties. Throughout graduate school she has written various papers that have been published in peer-reviewed journals on perinatal mental health, specifically focusing on the role of emotions during this time.  Her research has focused on the effectiveness of various treatments including Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) and Dialectical Behavioural Therapy (DBT) on emotion regulation and anxiety during pregnancy and postpartum as well as developing new treatment protocols for perinatal emotion regulation.

In addition to the perinatal work, Dr. Agako also has experience in assessing and treating various mental health concerns including anxiety, depression, emotion dysregulation, insomnia, borderline personality disorder, psychosis, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Further, she also has experience with other concerns such as stress, burn-out, self-esteem, body image as well as interpersonal and relationship difficulties. She uses an integrative approach to treatment using modalities such as CBT, DBT, interpersonal psychotherapy, emotion focused therapy, acceptance-based and mindfulness approaches to best fit the needs of the client. She has a warm and compassionate approach while also motivating clients to make changes required for them to meet their goals.

Dr. Agako also provides couples therapy. She has training in various approaches pertaining to couples therapy including Gottman training, Emotion Focused Therapy, DBT and trauma-informed approaches. She has a special interest in high-conflict relationship difficulties, teaching couples various tools to deescalate conflict and increase validation, compassion, and connection between one another. 

Dr. Agako has received training at multiple clinics within St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton including Women’s Health Concerns Clinic, Mood Disorders Clinic, Youth Concerns Clinic, Sleep Medicine Clinic, and the Borderline Personality Disorder Service. She also completed her pre-doctoral residency in Northern Ontario where she continued to focus on learning different perinatal mental health treatment approaches in addition to more generalist training. She completed her Supervised Practice training at The Well Parents Centre and The Ontario DBT Centre.

Dr. Agako offers treatment via phone and video sessions. She offers treatment in English and Albanian.