ABOUT ME/BIO

I am a firm believer that in therapy what a client requires is not necessarily a brilliant mind that speaks but a patient heart that listens. This principle navigates my sessions on the foundations of compassion, empathy, commitment, mindfulness, and sensitivity that provide my clients the confidence and permission to explore their self, overcome hurdles and learn ways to become self-sufficient, achieve their full potential, and become a better version of their self “. Hello , I am Sailaja I am a Counseling Psychologist, with over 25 years of clinical experience in the field of Mental Health, Counseling, training, teaching, and supervision. I am CDA licensed and currently work as a Psychologist at Openminds Psychiatry Counseling and Neuroscience Centre in Dubai. I am honored to have graduated as the first Psychologist with a Post Masters Degree specializing in Multicultural Counseling from the world-renowned and prestigious Johns Hopkins University in the United States and following on served as a Faculty Associate in the Graduate School of Counseling at Johns Hopkins for 7 years. I am an American of Indian origin, born in Malaysia, and spent my childhood there before moving to India where I spent most of my formative years ( schooling and Undergraduate education) in Chennai, India. I have worked in Public and Private settings as a Psychologist in the US, India, UAE, Singapore, and Malaysia. In Dubai, I have served as a Counseling Psychologist for over 12years. I provide Individual, Couple, and Family therapy on various mental health and life issues to a diverse range of multicultural clients. I am also a referral provider for several corporate and workplace institutions in the UAE for their EAP programs. In addition, due to my passion to serve the underprivileged, I continue to provide ProBono therapeutic services to Indian citizens who cannot afford psychological services under the PBSK program at the Indian Consulate for the past 12years. In Singapore, I served as a Counseling Psychologist in a reputed Psychological Clinic in Orchard Road for over 3 years. I provided individual, couple, and family therapy to a very diverse range of multicultural clients. I also served as a Faculty Associate in the Department of Counseling at James Cook University, Singapore. In the United States, I served as the Program Manager for Refugee Mental Health Program and successfully managed several National/State level projects on community mental health and refugee mental health. I have special expertise in the area of Refugee Mental Health and have conducted several training/workshops for mental health and refugee service providers across the United States. I have contributed to publications on Refugee mental health and a cross-cultural health care booklet for healthcare providers working with Refugee and immigrant communities. Over the 10 years working in the USA, I served as a bilingual therapist working on a diverse range of mental health issues related to adults, families, and youth. I also served as the Director of the Graduate Internship Field Training (GIFT) program at the reputed Center for Multicultural Human Services (CMHS) in the Washington Metropolitan area, USA. In this role, I provided program management, training, and supervision and served as the liaison with University internship programs for Psychology, Counseling, Social work, and Public Health. Concurrently, due to my deep interest in teaching and research, I served as a faculty at Johns Hopkins University in the Department of Counseling where I taught a graduate-level class on “Cross-Cultural Counseling: - Issues and interventions”, a mandated course for licensure for over 7 consecutive years for School Counseling, Applied Behavioral Counseling and Organizational Counseling track. My counseling approach In my clinical capacity, I strongly emphasize the importance of incorporating a holistic model of services that takes into consideration the mental/emotional, physical/biological, social, community, and spiritual aspects of the client to ensure well-being and self-sufficiency. My theoretical orientation is primarily client-centered; however, however, I take an eclectic approach and often integrate other models of therapy such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Solution-Focused Compassion based therapy, Mindfulness-based therapy, Emotion-focused therapy, Acceptance, and Commitment therapy. I primarily with couples, individuals, and families on a broad range of mental health issues. With Couples, I work extensively on issues related to- relationship issues, breakdown in communication, trust and confidence, loneliness and sadness, inability to adjust to marital life conflicts with extended families, infidelity, addictions, anger management, and abuse. With Individuals, I work extensively on depression, anxiety, personality issues, anger management, stress management, and issues related to adjustment and acculturation in new surroundings, relationship issues and management, workplace conflicts, loss of identity, and grief and loss With Families, I work on issues related to intergenerational issues, parenting, conflict management, grief and loss, stress management, abusive and dysfunctional family functioning Sailaja’s Educational Qualifications • Post Masters (CAGS- Multicultural Counseling), Johns Hopkins University, USA • MS (Psychology), Radford University, USA • BA (Psychology), Presidency College, University of Madras, Chennai, India • Certified Emergenetics Associate, Singapore Sailaja/s Professional Memberships • American Counseling Association (ACA), • American Psychological Association (APA) • American Multicultural Counseling and Development (AMCD) • International Association of Marriage and Family Counseling (IAMFC) Sailaja speaks fluent English, Malayalam, Tamil and Hindi