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ELOISE BALLOU, MD


Psychiatrist/Psychotherapist
for Musicians & Artists


 

Sessions focused on the creative process

"The object isn't to make art,
it's to be in that wonderful state
which makes art inevitable."​

- Robert Henri
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Helping you make what only you can make

​​​I'm a psychiatrist and psychotherapist in Toronto. After years working with musicians and other creative professionals in a traditional practice, I got specifically interested in one thing:

 

Helping people make what they're actually trying to make. What only they can make, because it's a reflection of who they are, at the deepest level.

 

But being seen is both what you want and what you fear. Luckily, we already have a way to navigate this ambivalence, and it comes from psychotherapy.​​​​​​ The psychological barriers to creativity can be addressed using the same tools developed in traditional psychotherapy, but aimed at the creative process itself.

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I've come to believe that art is the true self made tangible, visible and public. That's why art moves us, and why it's so hard to make. It's why we know immediately when it's true or when it's just a performance of truth, a facade. 

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​"An artist is someone driven by the tension between the need to communicate and the need to hide."
— D.W. Winnicott

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My work sits in that tension: helping people risk being seen, so what they make can be true.

 Clinical Experience

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Appearances

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