My name is pronounced ahn-KEE-tha and I use she/her pronouns. I’m a queer woman of color and the eldest daughter of Indian immigrants, raised in the Midwest and living on unceded Ohlone land in the Bay Area for over a decade.

My lived experience deeply informs the commitment I bring to my clients and their healing. I met my first therapist at my university’s mental health services at 19. She offered me what I hadn’t experienced before: permission to speak and feel openly with a compassionate witness. I was so impacted by the simple yet profound act of being seen and heard that I began the long and winding journey to becoming a therapist myself.

Before establishing my private practice, I worked in a wide variety of mental health settings: schools, hospitals, community mental health, foster care, and residential treatment. I was also drawn to research and policy focused on racial justice and intimate partner violence prevention in South Asian communities. I have my BA in Psychology and Gender Studies from the University of Michigan and my MSW from UC Berkeley.

My personal healing journey has involved tending to parts of myself that have been wounded or distanced from over time. The photo you see here is me at age three or four. She reminds me of how important it is to care for what is tender in all of us.