Hello! I’m Nina, a Licensed Clinical Therapist who has been working in trauma intervention for 17+ years. Before becoming a therapist, I worked as a rape crisis counselor, a trauma-healing self-defense instructor, and trauma-informed care consultant for non-profits. I approach therapy using multiple modalities. I believe in the mind-body connection and integrate mindfulness and body-based interventions where needed, including a focus on the physiology of stress and emotions. I use a wholistic approach to therapy, exploring all your identities, ambivalences, and values, and believe that understanding your upbringing and cultures are critical to how you cope and relate to the world and yourself in it. I specialize in working with trauma survivors, and specifically with people from the following communities: - adult children of multicultural, multiracial, and immigrant families - fellow South West Asian/North African and Middle Eastern-identified people - LGBTQIA+ - survivors of sexual abuse/assault - veterans - people seeking sex and intimacy support and exploration (including people practicing kink and non-monogamy).
What can clients expect to take away from sessions with you?
In our first session, I will offer you space to tell me exactly what challenges you're facing, what you're looking for in therapy and your previous experiences with therapy, and answer any questions you might have about me as a therapist. I will tailor a therapeutic plan specifically to your needs and share that plan with you as it develops. Because I believe that safety and comfort in the therapeutic relationship matters to your progress and healing, I always consider our first meeting as an opportunity for us to assess whether we feel like a good fit. We'll have a conversation about this at the end of the first session and consider whether to try working together. If in the end, we decide the vibe isn't right or you'd be better served by a therapist with a different skill set, I'm happy to help refer you elsewhere.
Explain to clients what areas you feel are your biggest strengths.
I deeply value and practice a relaxed therapy space - laughing, putting your feet up, and speaking in the ways that feel most natural and comfortable to you are encouraged! I aim to create a culturally sensitive space where you can bring the many parts of your identities. I offer sessions in English, Spanish, and Armenian, as well as Spanglish and Armenglish! As a queer person, I welcome other members of our beautiful community to my practice, and use a queer lens in many of my therapeutic approaches.
About Nina Romá Agvanian
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VirtualMy treatment methods
Trauma-Focused CBT
I have been using TF-CBT with teens with PTSD for over 4 years and see mindfulness and anxiety management as a necessary first step to childhood trauma exploration. Further, TF-CBT is the treatment method that most influences all the therapeutic treatment plans I create, since trauma is often the cause of expressions of distress, and our cognitions heavily impact our conception of self in the world.
Cognitive Processing (CPT)
I have used CPT with veterans and survivors of sexual assault for over 4 years, helping survivors narrate and work through overwhelming experiences of trauma, while recognizing and challenging thought patterns that create and exacerbate distress.
Compassion Focused
Compassion focused therapy has been foundational to all my therapeutic methods, beginning when I worked as a rape crisis counselor over 17 years ago. I aim to create a non-judgmental space that allows clients to look at shame with curiosity, soothe distressing feelings and narratives and work towards self-acceptance and safety.
Culturally Sensitive Therapy
As a third culture kid, I recognize the fear and confusion that comes with navigating complex and often unwelcoming cultural standards and expectations. I offer therapy in three languages and specifically work well with children of immigrants who grew up in a Western/American context.
Acceptance and commitment (ACT)
Sometimes our biggest distress comes from the things we can't change, and learning to accept and adapt can be an invaluable coping skill. I help clients build mindfulness tools and presence that allows for dealing with and soothing difficult emotions to foster compassion towards change.