Lydia Yang
Lydia Yang
Senior Child/Youth Mental Health Specialist
Clinical Director
Ms. Yang has extensive experience in clinical psychotherapy and is passionate about providing evidence-based treatment for her clients that is tailored to meet each individual’s needs.
Background and Education
Ms. Lydia Yang is a Registered social worker and psychotherapist in Ontario Canada. She completed her education and clinical training from the University of Windsor, Mount Sinai Hospital, and University of Toronto. She is trained and experienced in a number of psychotherapy approaches including Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Exposure Therapy (ET), Family Therapy (FT), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT), Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), Emotion-Focused Therapy (EFT), Solution-Focused Therapy, Narrative Therapy, Meaning Therapy (MT) and Bibliotherapy.
Work Experience
In recent years, she has focused on treating children and adolescents who are suffering from emotional and behavioral disorders including anxiety, depression, perfectionism, procrastination, ADHD, OCD, eating disorder, social anxiety, emotional injuries, video game addiction, parent-child relational difficulties, couple and family relationships, academic stress, test anxiety, school avoidance, as well as parents who have been in conflict with the law while struggling with parenting challenges.
Throughout her years of frontline clinical experience, Ms. Yang has seen first-hand that many tragedies can be avoided and prevented if timely and effective intervention and emotional support are obtained. This has compelled Ms. Yang to start partnerships with schools and community agencies to conduct educational workshops and groups on emotion/ behavior regulation and parenting issues to raise awareness.
This is why she strongly promotes the concept of prevention over treatment. In order to develop a preventative practical strategy, Ms. Yang is currently conducting a community based participatory research on needs assessment for mental health and well being of international students.
Ms. Yang has been running court-mandated Anger/Stress Management and Emotion Regulation treatment programs since 2014. These programs are designed for clients in both federal and provincial jails, on probation and parole, and in the community, who are at risk of being in conflict with the law. She has conducted the research and developed the curriculums based on the best practice guidelines.
Contribution to Community
Ms. Yang is a dedicated public speaker. She has been conducting workshops at Agincourt Library since 2008 to provide community members with legal awareness, knowledge and an understanding of their legal rights. This helps them build the confidence and the skills they need to deal with the law and gain access to justice. She also runs workshops and groups on parenting, and emotion/stress management in the community. She was invited to run a workshop on Criminal Law Information Relevant to Violence against Women issues at The Supporting Survivors by Supporting Staff Conference organized by Women Abuse Council of Toronto. The evaluation report shows that this workshop was one of the best in terms of content, facilitation, innovation, and preparedness.
Current Research Projects
- Generational and Cultural Contexts of ADHD: Practical Interventions for Chinese Immigrant Families
-Doctor of Counselling and Psychotherapy, Applied Scholarly Project – ASP, In Progress
This ongoing project, as part of my Doctor of Counselling and Psychotherapy degree, explores the challenges faced by Chinese immigrant families dealing with ADHD. The focus is on cultural perspectives, the generational gap between immigrant parents and Canadian-born children, and the role of the school system. The aim is to develop culturally adapted interventions and training for clinicians to enhance their work with these communities. The findings will contribute to advancing culturally sensitive approaches to ADHD management and support within immigrant families.
Recently Completed Research Projects
The purpose of this systematic review was to summarize psychosocial factors related to
depressive symptoms of Asian American adolescents between the ages of 10 to 19 years old. A total of 81 studies were included.
This study aims to identify key barriers that potentially hinder international students’ participation in existing mental health services available for them and to explore what are the effective ways to approach international students who are suffering from mental health problems but not seeking help, to understand the current referral process/system using by parents and service providers working with international students, discover and highlight service gaps and develop strategies and to improve the mental health and wellbeing of international students in Canada.