Aashwi is a Licensed Professional Counselor who has had extensive experience working in various roles within the field of mental health. From behavioral tech to clinical counselor, Aashwi has been able to provide care to people in all the varied stages of their recovery journey, giving her a nuanced and expansive perspective on what mental health support looks like for each and every person. Aashwi received her Bachelor’s degree in Psychology from the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), and her Master’s degree in Clinical Counseling from National Louis University (NLU).
Aashwi began her journey right at the beginning of the pandemic, as a behavioral health associate for a residential eating disorder recovery program. Providing care to people at their most vulnerable through connection, advocacy, and some humor, she was able to build a strong rapport with her residents, allowing her to support them through the very vulnerable stages of their recovery. She aided with food exposure challenges, family and individual sessions, psychiatric testing and adjusting to new medications, and the resurfacing of traumatic memories, often having to conduct emergency check-in sessions in unique, unplanned ways. This pushed her to really grow into and expand her passion for ED recovery, advocating specifically for Health at Every Size, a framework she uses both in and out of sessions.
During her Master’s program, while working as a BHA, she also completed her internship with Accentcare Hospice as part of their bereavement team. Her role as a bereavement counselor was incredibly rewarding, and it sparked a new passion for grief work. Alongside reaching out to provide grief counseling to the recently bereaved, she also ran peer support grief groups, allowing her to facilitate and provide psychoeducation based primarily on the Dual Process Model of Grief, which she continues to use in her sessions to this day.
As she began her foray into private practice, Aashwi discovered that her own experience of being diagnosed with ADHD much later in life was extremely valuable to the neurodivergent clients she counseled. Bringing intersectionality into the counseling space is extremely important to her; finding counselors who understood the unique experience of being a South Asian immigrant, a woman, and having been late-diagnosed ADHD was nearly impossible, and there were always some cultural nuances that were overlooked. Along with the above mentioned, Aashwi also became adept at working with adjustment disorders, anxiety, depression, OCD, and couples counseling.
Aashwi’s mission is to work to fill this gap and to meet her clients in their cultural context, ultimately providing a safe and nurturing space for everyone, including the members of our community who have often been shut out of these valuable mental health resources. She approaches her clients with respect, compassion, humor, and an emphasis on the collaborative nature of the counseling relationship. She utilizes an eclectic mix of interventions from Rogerian person-centered therapy, dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), and motivational interviewing. She believes strongly that counseling can benefit everyone, and is passionate about making this tool accessible to all. Aashwi is fluent in Gujarati and Hindi, and can comfortably counsel in Urdu.
When she’s not in sessions, Aashwi enjoys reading, playing video games, spending quality time with her family and friends, and settling in to watch either her favorite Studio Ghibli or Bollywood films for the umpteenth time. Most importantly, though, she believes strongly that good food is the most important part of every gathering, and takes pride in being the designated snack list curator.
મટલ હલ્થ ની કઈ પણ તકલીફ મા હ તમન મદદ કરી શકીશ. દાખલા તરીક વ્યગ્રતા (anxiety), ઉદાસીનતા (depression), શોક (grief), માનિસક આઘાત (mental trauma), અન સામાન્ય તણાવ (general stress). હ સ ્પષ્ટ ગજરાતી મા તમારી મદદ કરી શકીશ.
म आपकी कोई भी मानसक समस्या म आपकी सहायता कर सकती ह। जस की घबराहट (anxiety), उदासी (depression), शोक (grief), सदमा (mental trauma), और सामान्य तनाव (general stress)। म शद्ध हदी म आपकी सहायता कर सकती ह।.
What people are saying about Aashwi:
“Our experience with Aashwi has been wonderful. My daughter has been going to her for over a year now and I see so much progress with her. My daughter liked her right away which says a lot! She was very wary to start therapy but the first day she was happy. There is so much that makes sense now as well. She’s awesome, it was nice to have someone that seems like they actually love the work they do definitely would recommend!”
Aashwi’s Recommended Readings:
How to Keep House While Drowning – KC Davis
Brain Over Binge – Kathryn Hansen
It’s OK That You’re Not OK – Megan Devine
I Want to Die But I Want to Eat Tteokbokki – Baek Sehee
Letters to my Brown Mother – Muzna Abbas
Permission to Come Home – Jenny Wang
Taming Your Gremlin – Rick Carson
Why Does He Do That – Lundy Bancroft
The Body Keeps the Score – Bessel van der Kolk
Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents – Lindsay Gibbons
