Reema Baniabbasi
Allied – Counsellor In Dubai
I hold a Bachelor’s in Psychology and a Master’s in Counseling Psychology both from Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA. I further hold a Certificate of Advanced Graduate Studies in Counseling Psychology from Lesley University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. Aside from studying in the US, I have work experience there with people of diverse cultural and class backgrounds which included refugees, immigrants, expats, Emiratis, and people who grew up as “third culture kids.”
My work as a therapist uses a combination of approaches in which the person consulting me is seen as an expert in their own lives with whom I am collaboratively exploring and reflecting with. I am an expert in what I studied and experienced, but you know yourself more than I do and have had life experiences that took you as far as they could, even if not always in the ways you were hoping for. Thus, we are both “experts” collaborating with each other and filling in each other’s gaps in knowledge or discovering together the things we both don’t know about.
I believe that every problem we come across gives us the opportunity to learn about what is valuable to us in life. The existence of a problem assumes that there is something important to us that the problem is interfering with, otherwise we would not be experiencing any problems. Learning about what is important to us is part of living a meaningful life. The existence of a problem can also be an invitation for us to reassess any personal, family, or societal expectations we have taken on and to sift between those that are helpful to us versus those that contribute to the problem. Knowing this can help you come up with a response that is helpful to you and in alignment with what matters to you.
I am further interested in the ways you have so far responded to life’s challenges even if they did not lead to the results you were hoping for. I believe this can give me clues to your values, hopes, strengths, and meaningful relationships (whether with people, ancestors, books, pets, art, nature, music, or spirituality among others). I want to explore the experiences that nurtured these things in your life. So often they get easily missed in life’s day to day stress that we lose touch with them. So, learning about them can help us better navigate what life throws at us.
I don’t prescribe “solutions”, but I co-create experiments with you that could help you navigate your experience and stay anchored in what matters to you even if nothing changes. I believe that focusing on “fixes” can stigmatize parts of our human experience which includes painful ones. So often what we label as a “mental health disorder” is our body’s way of alerting us to a human experience we have been shaming away instead of learning from it. “Fixing” also assumes that the only valid option for you is to go back to how you used to be. But problems may be invitations to grow in a different direction. Even if you are not experiencing problems, who you were 10 years ago is different from who you are today. So rather than proposing “fixes,” therapy can be a space to explore what responses to life’s problems would be aligned with your values.
My 1-hour therapy sessions are offered one-on-one, or in person, for people aged 18 and above in both English and Arabic. While it is recommended to do the sessions on a weekly basis, I am open to offering the sessions twice per week, every two weeks, or once per month depending on your needs and circumstances.
I am open to helping people struggling with a wide range of problems including:
- Adjustment/transition difficulties
- Stress
- Personal development
- Personal and cultural identity crises
- Lack of direction/meaning
- Self esteem
- Depression
- Anxiety
- Panic attacks
- Phobias
- Trauma
