Type: Therapist, Therapy, Psychologist :
Sabah Shaikh Picture
🌐 Practices Online

Sabah Shaikh (They/Them)

Sabah (They/Them) is a mental health therapist from Goa who practices online.

Sabah is 28 years old, with at least 5 years of experience.

Populations & concerns:   Individual Therapy (For Everyone) LGBTQIA Support 🏳️‍🌈

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  • Practicing Since: 5 years
  • Appointments Via: Email, WhatsApp
  • Medium:
    • 🌐 Online
  • City: Goa
  • Qualifications:
    • Master's degree in Counselling Psychology
  • Additional Qualifications:
    • Queer Affirmative Counselling Practice
    • Transactional Analysis With Gestalt Work
    • Accredited Gestalt Therapy
    • Providing Trauma Informed Care
    • Animal Assisted Therapy
    • Psychological First Aid (Therapy in Times of Crisis)
    • Expressive Art Therapy, Dr. Sanjeev
    • PTSD Counselling and Management, Udemy
  • Languages Known: English, and Hindi (English might be their primary language for therapy)
  • Hourly Fee (₹): 2,000
  • Typical Session Duration: 45-60 Minutes.
  • Payments Via: Bank Transfer, UPI/Google Pay
  • Available On: Saturday, Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday
  • Notes: Marksheets verified. Degree yet to be received by TheMindClan.com.
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Get To Know Sabah:

  • Why did you choose to become a counsellor?
    Growing up, while the availability of quality mental help was scarce already, those catered specifically for minorities were little to none. This is when I understood that if I cannot find quality help, I should try to build it for myself and others. I always knew I wanted to help and offer my strengths as I understood myself and my path better. I quickly understood that being a counselling psychologist was the best way I could align my strengths to my motivation to help others to the best of my capacity. It was natural for me to be a therapist specifically helping those at a disadvantage due to their caste, gender, sexuality, and other aspects society made them feel lesser about.
  • What excites you about your work as a counsellor?
    To be able to create a safe space beyond societal restrictions set around minorities of caste, religion, sexual orientation, and gender norms, much like I wanted to look for growing up as a Queer Non-Binary Muslim. Essentially to help build the space that I (and those with a similar upbringing) could not have when we needed it growing up. There is a lot of power that clients assume a therapist can have, mostly because very few therapists know how to help a client to see that power to change and reform within themselves. As a therapist, I will never tire of helping clients see their true capacity and to help them reach a point where they can create a steady path for themselves regardless of what concerns may pull them down.
  • What do you hope for your clients to experience after their first session with you?
    Essentially, the feeling of comfort, safety, and security with the therapist and the therapy space. The comfort one would need to then smoothly build their safe space within the therapeutic relationship is invaluable and needs to start from day 1. While this is not a goal to be accomplished in just one session, I look forward to initiating it from the first session.
  • What would you wish to tell a client who is thinking about seeking counselling?

    Honestly, I would be very happy to know they are taking up one of the most challenging tasks of our lives, to truly begin taking care of ourselves. It is easy to rant to friends or do things that feel therapeutic, but it takes a lot to be able to sit with a professional and work on these concerns in therapy.

    The sessions we would have would be at the pace you are comfortable with. I will not probe unless you are comfortable delving into a topic. We will also have safe words in place to help you communicate some difficult feelings in an easier way. Your comfort will always be the priority.

  • Describe the relationship that you would wish to build with your client in counselling.
    I as a therapist expect to maintain a relationship that is mutually transparent. The client is always encouraged to be transparent with what they would not be ready to discuss yet (it will find its way back to our session s when they more capable of holding that discussion) and to pause to work through grounding techniques as and when they would need to between sessions. Alternatively, I am transparent about any therapeutic approaches we would be looking into and discuss what led us to try the particular approach out, together.
  • In your counselling work so far, what has been your greatest learning from your clients?
    Very simply put, the greatest learning has been in knowing that I will never know them as well as they know themselves. I can bring in my years of learning and practice to the therapy sessions but only they would know how to customize these into helping themselves better.
  • What are some of your strengths as a counsellor that you value and appreciate?

    1. Genuinely incapable of judging a client for what they admit to have done or are doing. There is always scope of recovery (if needed) and if they have shared it in a session there is also a need they see to alter the same.

    2. Queer affirmative, Kink positive, and trauma-informed as a therapist.

    3. I trust and respect the process enough to not rush a client into anything they would not already want to do for themselves.

    4. Self-aware enough to understand that I may be wrong with how I see the client’s concern and willing to discuss this with the client to alter my beliefs when needed.

  • What are some of the things you like to do in your free time?
    Spend quality time with my cats, Taking out time every other day to care for my plants, consciously creating bad art and proudly putting it up around my house, among other things that give me the space to enjoy being with myself.
  • What are the areas of concern you address in counselling? Do you work with specific populations?
    Under my company Mehfooz, I work with diverse populations but specialize more into concerns around minorities. Mehfooz is an Urdu word synonymous with safety, comfort, and dependability. It reflects my aim to create a safe space beyond societal restrictions set around minorities of caste, religion, sexual orientation, and gender norms. I aspire to expand upon the feeling and emotion that comes with feeling Mehfooz, regardless of the nature of the concern any client brings to our sessions.
  • What is the therapeutic approach you use? How would you describe it to someone who wants to consult you for therapy?
    My therapeutic approaches are eclectic i.e. will be customized to what the client’s concerns are. However, in my learnings post my Master’s degree, I have trained in more than 12 therapeutic modalities. My therapeutic interventions build around a trauma-informed and queer-affirmative lens.
  • How do you make your therapeutic practice a safe and affirmative space for queer and trans* folx?
    Along with trying to continually inform myself of how to be there for my clients better through literature, courses, workshops, etc. that focus on gender beyond the binary and essentially beyond the cis-gendered and heteronormative lens, I also work with every client who identifies anything but cis-het to understand what they would seek from the therapeutic relationship and then working on how to best provide that affirmative space to them. I also normalize the client correcting me when I may need to better express my thoughts about their identity or sexuality.
    • The Quote Sabah Resonates With

    "We are all ordinary. We are all boring. We are all shy. We are all bold. We are all heroes. We are all helpless. It just depends on the day." - Brad Meltzer

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