ABOUT ME
Sonia Amin, PhD
I am a 1.5 generation, South-Asian, multilingual, cis-gender woman. I love spending time with friends and family with delicious food. This provides me with the much needed grounding and connection after a long week. I also enjoy unwinding by watching basketball, reading books, crafting cheese boards, watching Netflix, and hiking.
THERAPY APPROACH:
The foundation of my approach is rooted in social justice and liberation frameworks. This means an acknowledgement, honoring, and connecting of how our individual and collective communities’ histories, the histories of our ancestors (land and spiritual), and cultural backgrounds and identities influence our current lived experiences.
My approach to therapy is integrated and holistic— mainly informed through psychodynamic (insight-oriented), somatic (body-focused), interpersonal, and non-Western healing perspectives. In sessions, we might focus on exploring thinking or behavioral patterns that are contributing to your current concerns (e.g. childhood experiences or family relationships, trauma, defenses, previous similar patterns), your relational patterns with others and your relationship with yourself, somatic movement/exercises, or processing and understanding your emotions.
At times, I will use Exposure and Response Prevention Therapy (ERP) or Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) if it is a better fit for your concerns.
EDUCATIONAL/CLINICAL BACKGROUND
2020-2021, Post-Doctoral Fellow, Counseling and Psychological Services, University of California-Berkeley
2019-2020, Doctoral Intern, Counseling and Psychological Services, University of California-Berkeley
2020, Doctor of Philosophy in Counseling Psychology, Western Michigan University
2014, Master of Arts Degree in Clinical Psychology, University of Detroit Mercy