Learning to navigate the ship that we called ‘life’ is perhaps filled with those very universal and at times contradictory emotions – moments of confusion and clarity, helplessness and hopefulness, anger and simultaneous mental relief. In an effort to sail independently, we simultaneously long for closeness, a sense of belonging. There might be times where we feel well equipped to navigate such circumstances and times when we may not completely understand what is getting in the way of reaching our final destination.

          Therapy is an opportunity to provide clarity to better understand yourself, personal values, as well as short and long term goals.  My treatment approach is integrative, meaning I use principles from different theories as it’s relevant to your ways of being.  We will collaborate to create a safe space for you navigate your stressors, fears, and thoughts from a culturally sensitive perspective.

          While some clients may present to therapy with specific goals in mind, others may need a space to allow their thoughts to unfold to clarify what it is they would like to focus on in therapy. Either way, my philosophy in therapy is to empower you to become the best version of yourself!

About me.

      Hello, I’m Dr. Shah! The road to pursuing a career in psychology has been quite an adventure filled with various turns and pit stops all well worth the final destination. Raised South Asian in a broadly Westernized cultural environment, I have always been fascinated by cross-cultural beliefs about health. In other words, how our personal and shared cultural beliefs impact the decisions we choose to make about our health or what we consider ‘healthy behaviors’ at various life stages.

     Given this interest, I initially pursued public health and biomedical science degrees. With exposure to the mind-body connection from different scientific perspectives, grew a fascination to further understand the psychology of our brain and what environmental, physiological, and biological factors contribute to our ways of being.

     Since the COVID-19 pandemic, as each of us continues to be confronted with learning and re-learning how to cope with various forms of loss and fear of the unknown, it is especially important to understand what healthy coping looks like across various cultural groups.

Philosophy.