(she/her)
My name is pronounced ahn-KEE-tha. I’m a queer, 1.5 generation Indian American cis woman who has spent many years actively engaged with my own inner work, partly out of necessity, and partly because it genuinely enlivens me. While our struggles are unique, I believe my lived experience along with over 15 years of clinical experience helps me accompany my clients with humility, steadiness, and deep care.
In our first session, I meet you with a brief orientation to my practice and how I work. I may ask you your pronouns, and about any accessibility needs you have. Once we’re settled in, I’ll invite you to share about what brings you to therapy, what your past experiences have been with mental health care, and what you’re hoping for now. We’ll allow the session to unfold organically, and plan on collaborating on a treatment plan in the next few sessions. Before we close, I’ll check in with you about how the session was for you, answer any questions you may have, and close by confirming our next session’s date and time.
I bring steadiness and self-regulation cultivated over many years of clinical and personal practice. This helps me stay grounded and closely connected to you, to myself, and to what is happening between us. Drawing from mindfulness and somatic approaches, I help bring attention to what lies beneath the surface, allowing deeper layers of experience to emerge. I am curious and gentle with your experience, attuning to your pacing and incorporating feedback as we go. I create space for the full spectrum of your emotions, including grief, frustration, unresolved hurt, and topics that may feel taboo or difficult to name. The therapeutic relationship becomes part of the work. When tension or rupture arises, we slow down, name what feels true, and gently examine assumptions. I remain engaged when things feel difficult, trusting the repair process and the growth it makes possible. Over time, my clients grow a relational capacity that translates beyond the therapy room.
Clients in my practice tend to be introspective with vivid inner lives. They’re looking for a space where their complexity is welcome. Many are highly sensitive and want help navigating everyday life while creating more sustainable inner and outer conditions. I often work with BIPOC, queer, and trans clients whose histories are shaped by intergenerational trauma, assimilation and performance pressure, and nervous system wear and tear. What my clients share is a desire for more secure relationships, with themselves and with others.
Other specialties
I identify as
Compassion Focused
Meeting you with compassion is foundational to my role. This means I offer reflections that might reframe a more judgmental or critical view, especially toward yourself. I fundamentally believe we are all doing our best, and bringing a compassionate context to our challenges can be a practice in self-love and love for others.
Culturally Sensitive Therapy
I believe cultural sensitivity is necessary to building trust and safety in any relationship, and therapy is no exception. I humble myself to learn about you, your cultural identities, and how they shape and influence your life. And I offer what feels true and authentic from my lived experiences as well. I hope to contribute to therapeutic environment in which you have a chance to relax into your multiple identities and feel known within them and beyond.
Psychodynamic
My post-graduate work was in a private practice setting for two and a half years training in an intensive relational psychodynamic program. Psychodynamics point to what is under the surface, acknowledging that our thoughts, feelings, and beliefs are formed not within a vacuum, but influenced by the relationships we had and have. This modality sees the therapeutic relationship as the primary vehicle for change, and honors depth, connection, and attending to the relationship as sacred.
Mindfulness-Based Therapy
I have eight years of training in vipassana, or insight, meditation in the Buddhist Theravada tradition. I have completed a Buddhist Psychology training program which integrates Western psychological concepts with Eastern spirituality. My mindfulness practice strengthens my ability to remain present with what is arising in session and invite in heightened awareness of bodily sensations, emotions, and thoughts. This in turn allows for deeper understanding of oneself and creates pathways for self-soothing, self-care, and insight.