Laya Jamali, LMFT

Laya received her MA in Marriage and Family Therapy from St. Marys' College of California and her MRes. in Brain Imaging and Cognitive Neuroscience from The University of Birmingham, UK. Laya's approach to psychotherapy is relational. She draws from somatic, mindfulness-based, and anti-oppressive practices. Laya believes deeply that you are the expert in your own life and likes to collaborate with you in developing a plan that helps you tap into our own inner wisdom. She is passionate about working with dreams and imagery to explore the less known avenues of the psyche in a search for a deeper understanding of the self.

Laya strives for cultural humility, curiosity and openness, and you can expect to be met with empathy, honesty and a non-judgmental approach. Her work is trauma informed and her areas of interest are identity development with a focus on the intersections of identity, depression, grief, shame, trauma and complex trauma, religious oppression, spiritual emergence, borderline personality structure, bipolar, dissociation, Ketamine-assisted psychotherapy, and psychedelic integration. She enjoys working with LGBTQ+, sex workers, BIPOC and immigrant population.

Laya was born and raised in Iran. She has lived in the UK and the US and is familiar with the struggles of immigration, assimilation and acculturation. She loves gardening and plants, meditating, dancing, drawing, painting and making things with her hands.