My Bio
I was born and raised in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE) and lived in Boston, Massachusetts, USA from 2008 to 2018 to train as a counseling psychologist before returning to Dubai. I have experience working in the US and UAE with people aged 18+ of diverse cultural and class backgrounds which included refugees, immigrants, UAE expats, adult children of immigrants and expats, UAE nationals, and those who grew up in culturally blended families or identify as "third culture kids." Currently I am employed in The Psychiatry and Therapy Centre (TPTC) in Dubai Healthcare City where I offer psychotherapy services and used to advise a UAE-based mental health startup called Takalam. I will be resigning from TPTC on February 28, 2025 to transition into a public health career.
Most people have consulted me for difficult life transitions, relationship difficulties, work stress, toxic office cultures, trauma, grief, depression, anxiety, panic attacks, phobias, personal development, self understanding, and crises in meaning-making, cultural identity, and spirituality. An ongoing theme I have noticed in both countries I have lived in is how many people lack meaningful supportive relationships, especially when it comes to stigmatized topics, and are disconnected from a sense of place.
This has had me interested in learning more about belonging, social connection, loneliness, and community care. While psychotherapy and self care are important, they can be limited when there is no community care. I started a newsletter called Belonging Co-Lab on February 2024 and want to pursue a career in public health to explore how to develop and evaluate peer support programs for people living in cities with largely transient demographics.
I am more interested in how people make meaning out of their lives and in how they want to grow and the values and relationships that nourish them as opposed to "fixing" them. 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 is to go back to how one used to be. But problems may be invitations to grow in a different direction and I am more interested in supporting people and communities through that process of growth. These are the values I tried to stay close to as a counseling psychologist and I hope to continue doing so in my new career in public health.