Healing Circle with Special Facilitator Gitika Talwar

In 2020 Gitika facilitated a student support group to whom she also gifted the group facilitation guidebook. The student group went on to use the guidebook to run a peer-facilitated group for a YEAR! This experience was an insightful reminder that groups can become 'caring community" when there is a right combination of community agreements, readiness to offer+ receive care, and some knowledge of trauma-informed facilitation skills.

Gitika is now on a mission to develop healing communities using her personal and professional experience with psychotherapy to braid ancestral wisdom, integrative mindfulness, neuroscience, decolonial and liberation psychology. This braid is foundational to her mission to create restorative communities that augment individual mental health services. Her prayer is 'since our suffering is collective, may our healing also be'.

Bio:

Hi there! I’m Gitika and my pronouns are she/they/we. The ‘we’ pronoun is a reflection of my abiding belief that we are all deeply interconnected. Our struggles are not the same but they are also not separate.

As a Psychotherapist, my goal is to facilitate a collaborative conversation that allows your expertise about your experience to meet my understanding of mind-body-spiritual wellness. Using a mix of reflection, gentle prompts, I invite us into a space of non-judgemental curiosity about your stress and suffering so we can understand the lessons this experience could offer you.

My therapeutic approach is deeply influenced by a mix of personal and professional experiences as a user of therapy, psychotherapist and immigration activist. I am also deeply connected to my land, blood, spirit and wisdom ancestors in India and the U.S. I use decolonial and liberatory values as my North Star while drawing upon my exposure to Brief solution-focussed therapy, CBT, Narrative approaches, DBT, Motivational Interviewing and Feedback-informed care. My personal and professional experience with the mental health systems in India and the U.S. have made me particularly attuned to the importance of cultural humility while working with all the folks I meet.

My educational background is a Masters in Social Psychology from the University of Mumbai (India) and a PhD in Community-Clinical Psychology from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (United States). My clinical experience draws upon my time working in mental health advocacy in India, an LGBTQ+ affirming counselor with a support group in India, community agency devoted to asylum seekers and refugees in Maryland, justice-involved men in Maryland, a diverse student community at University Counseling centers in Washington state, and a tribal health agency in the Puget Sound region.

I enjoy working with folks who are new to therapy and also folks who may be interested in single-session/ brief/ short-term therapy approaches.

Given that a lot of our suffering is collective, I am committed to healing approaches that can happen within a collective. My life goal is to build more therapist-initiated, people-powered healing communities for all of us who are trying to heal and liberate from systemic harm (including colonization, apartheid and genocide). So definitely talk to me if you may be interested in being part of a community like that!