The short answer would be, I did not know who else to be.

The longer answer would be, I grew up as an undiagnosed highly verbose and curious adhd + autistic kid, who felt immensely, who was too blunt to her own fault, and would have a lot of questions for everyone. I felt misunderstood everywhere I went. For a long time, I thought this is how everyone feels, all the time. I grew up and I realized, “not everyone, Lakshman.”

I have always had a deep innate calling to understand others and hold what feels misunderstood and discarded. I have found my heart and bones reach out for those who have been pushed to the margins. After all, disability and trauma are not nouns. They are living words, verbs. These are experiences – disabling and traumatizing.

I have arrived in my therapist practice as a wounded healer. I firmly believe in the power of love, care and being vulnerable as the antidote to all the hate, disparity and difference in the known human-world. We are all inherently unique, different and diverging from one another, however our need to be seen is shared. I chose to become a counsellor to see the human in front of me, ebbing and flowing, slowly and gently arriving at a life of meaning, authenticity, safety and connection.

The continuous privilege of witnessing human lives in their full spectrum of colour, never ceases to amaze me. At my core, I am a curious artist, excited and marvelled at the opportunity to just see life from someone’s perspective. It is my honour that people come to me to show me their core parts and allow me to witness it for them.

This work humbles me everyday. I get to learn something new and find creative ways of becoming a kinder, softer and more rested human being. My clients make me a better practitioner.

It is of course a hard job too, the emotional labour can get very draining from time to time. There is always more to read, learn and process. Yet, I find myself almost charged (no matter how drained I have been) to meet folks who trust me with care, comfort, compassion and confrontation. Holding and containing clients keeps me grounded in my values of feminism, social justice, and anti-oppression practices. It is thoroughly enriching to have a career that allows me to be value-driven, autonomous and sit with the discomfort/ pleasures of the human condition.

My hope is that through the first session itself the client is able to experience a sense of open curiosity from my end. I hope they feel seen and heard. As a therapist, I want to be able to offer an understanding, safe, non-judgemental and inviting space for the serviceusers. However, safety and the experience of being understood looks different for everyone and in my practice, I like to co-create safety rather than promise it as a given.

1. We did not come on this planet to make it alone.
2. Reach out.
3. We all need other humans to witness us and help us understand ourselves.
4. Therapy is not a quick fix.
5. Therapist is not an expert on the human experience.
6. Therapy is not a personalized self-help book.

Therapy is relational work. Therapy is an opportunity to experience a safe, non-judgmental, caring, present, and attuned relationship with another adult within the ethical boundaries of the therapeutic relationship.

My first and foremost priority in building a relationship with my clients is always to get to know them and see their life through their lived sensory experience. I spend quite a bit of time gauging what feels comfortable and find ways of co-building safety. I like to spend some time experimenting and finding ways of expressing that feel intuitive and safe, for example, art, talking, picture books. I try to gauge with the client what will help them open up, and what are their hopes from the space. The therapeutic relationship is an ongoing process within which all the work (recognizing patterns, change, healing, growth, etc.) happens. I see the therapeutic relationship as the foundational container of all holding, witnessing, connection and change.

Our body communicates to us through emotions and sensations. No matter who we are, each one of us speaks this language even if we don’t have words to express it. Anger is the body’s way of telling you what it doesn’t want and grief is a friend that sits with us when nobody else does. It is a reminder of absence of what we wished we had and what all we lost, and sometimes, it is a reminder of what we will never have. We are all grieving something or someone. We need to learn to listen to our body. Else, the body will find a way to make its voice heard. We need to rest, laugh, cry, celebrate and mourn more. Over and over again.

Honesty, pattern recognition, capacity to care, empathize and be angry, humour, intentional presence, being a messy human myself

-cook -play guitar -read -learn about new things -laugh -travel

Therapy with me is a space for exploration and collaboration towards bringing together your vision of life and center what is valuable to you. I use talk based and body based approach in sessions. I also use art, writing and picture books for expression of your version of your life and exploration of what matters to you.

I actively work towards an anti-oppressive approach in my work (anti-caste, social and disability justice, queer affirmative, neurodivergence informed).

Theoretically speaking, I use a mix of Internal Family Systems, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, Narrative Therapy, Existential Therapy and Person centered therapy. My practice is trauma sensitive.

-by not assuming that I get it -being curious -holding space for unique life stressors and affirming that being queer and trans in an openly trans/queerphobic world is dysregulating, disabling and unfair -consuming literature created by queer folks -leaning into my own queerness and having a queer supervisor -centering lived experience over and above any media representation