Dr. Katherine Gardhouse, Ph.D., C.Psych

Meet Dr. Katherine Gardhouse

At the heart of Dr. Katherine Gardhouse’s work is a simple but profound belief: healing begins with connection — to ourselves, to others, and to the world around us. Katherine is a licensed clinical, counseling, and health psychologist who has dedicated her career to helping people reclaim their well-being after hardship. She is the founder of eFIT Institute and the Centre for Functional Integrative Therapy (CFIT), built from her vision to create a more human-centered, accessible, and holistic approach to mental health care. Alongside her work at eFIT, Katherine is a part time Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Neurosciences at McMaster University.

Her path to founding eFIT was born from a deep dissatisfaction with models of care that did not address the fullness of human experience. While Katherine honors the advances of the medical model, she also witnessed its limits — the way it often left the emotional, physical, and social realities of suffering unspoken. She envisioned something more: a space and community rooted in empathy, resilience, and a deep respect for the complexity of each person’s story.

Katherine earned her Ph.D. from the University of Toronto in the Department of Psychological Clinical Science and completed her pre- and post-doctoral residencies at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), specializing in complex trauma and borderline personality disorder. During her fellowship, she contributed to pioneering research on trauma-adaptions for Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT), studying how emotional healing can transform lives deeply marked by trauma. She also worked as a Staff Psychologist in the Eating Disorder Program at St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton where the interplay of physical and mental health could not be more apparent.

Her clinical work spans inpatient and outpatient hospital programs, community mental health centers, private practices, and research trials. Katherine’s therapeutic approach is integrative, drawing from Emotion Focused Therapy (EFT), Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT), Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), somatic practices, mindfulness, and compassion-focused techniques. She brings a trauma-informed lens to all her work, focusing on restoring emotional resilience.

Katherine believes therapy is not just about treating symptoms — it is about rediscovering one’s inner capacity, rewriting the narratives shaped by pain, and building a life aligned with one’s deepest values. She works collaboratively with all members in a culturally sensitive and inclusive environment, fostering hope even in the fact of long-standing challenges.

Above all, Katherine is passionate about providing a space where members and staff can come together to develop a lifelong relationship with themselves that increases one’s capacity to endure in the fact of hardship, to overcome the pains of the past, and to support one another to create a life you feel good about. She sees emotional health and physical health as inseparably linked and strives to empower people to prioritize their needs in both domains, equally and unapologetically.

Through eFIT, Katherine is bringing mental health care back to the heart of the community — where connection, empathy, and comprehensive care can help people not only heal, but flourish.