About Dr. Samuel
I’m Sam Ezzatilord. I’ve spent most of my working life sitting with people in the worst weeks of their lives — and one of the things I’ve learned is that what actually helps is rarely complicated.
How I got here
I started out as a public health officer in southern Iran in 1999. My first project was setting up the first harm-reduction program in a deeply conservative region, and then a confidential sexual health service for women and adolescents living with the consequences of honor-based violence. I learned early that the most important clinical work often happens outside the clinic.
For nine years after that I worked in Veterans’ care in Tehran, with men who had survived chemical warfare. Most carried disabling injuries to their lungs, their skin, and their minds. What I learned in those rooms is that you cannot treat a wounded person in isolation from their family. The trauma reaches everyone they love, and unless you treat the household, the veteran’s recovery doesn’t last. That insight has shaped every clinic I’ve worked in since.
Then came twelve years with the Red Crescent in refugee camps across Kurdistan and Golestan. The people I sat with had lost homes, countries, languages, and sometimes whole families. They taught me that healing has to fit the person — not the other way around. I began weaving Sufi devotional practice, traditional music, and family ceremony into the standard psychiatric care, because the standard care alone wasn’t reaching them.
In 2022 I came to Vancouver and joined TWC Addiction Rehabilitation, working with people whose addiction had cost them almost everything. I introduced SMART Recovery as an alternative for clients who couldn’t find a home in 12-step programming, and I learned from Indigenous colleagues to integrate smudging, drumming, and ceremony into the work. The Mi’kmaq concept of Two-Eyed Seeing — looking with one eye through traditional knowledge and one through evidence-based practice — has shaped how I work ever since.
Since 2024 I’ve been a Mental Health & Substance Use Clinician at Fraser Health Authority in Burnaby. Most weeks I’m in conversation with eight psychiatrists about cases that are difficult, complex, and don’t have one right answer. I also have a private practice — that’s what you’ve found here.
What that means for you
I won’t be shocked by what you bring me. I’ve sat with chemical warfare veterans, refugee families, people in active addiction, people whose suffering had no language even they could give it. Whatever you’re carrying, I’ve probably been close to it before.
I understand what it costs to seek help, especially if you come from a community where therapy isn’t a word people say out loud. As an Iranian-Canadian clinician working in both English and Farsi, I’ve sat with that hesitation many, many times.
I take family seriously. If your pain involves the people you love, we will talk about them too.
I think trauma lives in the body, not just the story. That’s why I offer neurofeedback alongside therapy — sometimes the nervous system needs its own kind of help.
I work with what’s evidence-based, but I don’t pretend the evidence covers everything. There are practices from older traditions — Indigenous, Sufi, family-systemic — that I bring in when they serve the person in front of me.
Credentials
Doctorate in Health Sciences, verified in Canada and the USA (LMCC & FSMB)
Post-doctoral Master’s in Counselling Psychology
Currently working at Fraser Health Authority as a senior Mental Health & Substance Use Clinician, and as a doctor at the International Federation of Red Cross / Red Crescent Societies
Languages
English · فارسی · Kurdish
What I work with
Trauma and PTSD, anxiety, depression, substance use and recovery, cultural identity and immigration, family and intergenerational trauma, couples and family dynamics, neurofeedback for focus, sleep, and emotional regulation.