Reema Baniabbasi
Allied – Counsellor
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 and immigrants.
The way I work as a therapist involves asking questions to help people self-reflect and thus help themselves. In this way I aim to:
- Help you break down the problem into smaller manageable pieces.
- Explore how different forces may have contributed to the problem. I thus do not believe in limiting the problem to one explanation. Without understanding the problem, the possible solutions or ways of coping become difficult to see.
- Explore the stories of your strengths, successes, passions, values, goals, and relationships that have helped you. These may have been pushed to the background due to personal experiences or limiting societal beliefs. When things are not named and storied, we do not recognise their impact and we lose touch with what has nourished us and our ancestors. Naming exactly how we lost touch with these is important in figuring out how to get back in touch.
Aside from asking questions, I understand that some people may first need to build a solid foundation of coping skills. Sometimes we may even struggle with what words to use to describe our experiences. This is why I offer to help build self-care practices that feel meaningful to you, explore barriers to getting more support from people, teach relaxation strategies, and teach secular adaptations of mindfulness meditation. I am further open to using creative writing, journaling, and collage as alternative ways of expressing yourself, but I will not analyse their meaning for you. Instead, I will support you in building your own meaning of what you have created.
My 1-hour therapy sessions are offered one-on-one for people aged 18 and above in both English and Arabic at a frequency of once per week. While the total number of sessions to expect depends on the nature of the problem, I tend to suggest starting with a minimum of 8 sessions before deciding whether to end or continue therapy. 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
