Services
About My Clients
My clients are usually capable, self-aware people who have run out of road with each other. They can describe the problem well and still cannot stop it happening. Many are partners from different cultures, faiths, or countries, navigating expectations neither of them chose. Some arrive after years of trying, some after one thing that broke the floor. They want a therapist who will be direct, hold both sides without taking one, and treat the relationship as the client rather than pick a winner.
My Background and Approach
I hold a PhD in psychology with a concentration in social psychology, and my doctoral research examined cross-cultural relationships. My clinical training is a CACREP master’s in clinical mental health counseling. I am licensed in Massachusetts, North Carolina, Texas, Michigan, and South Carolina, registered as a telehealth provider in Florida, and a National Certified Counselor. Before counseling, I worked as a cultural advisor and diplomatic liaison, which taught me how two parties can each be reasonable and still not reach each other. My practice is exclusively telehealth and intentionally small. I integrate Gottman’s research on couples, emotion and attachment work, cognitive and dialectical skills, and Jungian depth psychology under my framework, Self-Reflective Relationship Therapy. The through-line is self-reflection: partners can change each other far less than they can change what they do at the moment the pattern starts. I practice in English and Persian (Farsi).
My Personal Beliefs and Interests
I believe most people in a struggling relationship are not failing at love. They are running an old strategy that once protected them and now costs them. That is worth naming plainly rather than softening. I do not think therapy should be comfortable the way a good conversation is comfortable. It should be honest, and honesty is sometimes uncomfortable before it is useful. I will tell you what I see, including when it is inconvenient. I do not believe a therapist should decide whether a relationship continues. That is yours. My work is to make the choice a real one, made with clear eyes rather than by exhaustion or default. I take culture seriously as clinical material, not as background color. What counts as loyalty, privacy, respect, or a good marriage is not universal, and couples often argue about the definition without knowing that is what they are doing. And I believe change is a skill, not an insight. Understanding the pattern is the beginning of the work, not the end of it.