My name is Maryam.

Alongside my formal education and years of experience in Social Work and Clinical Counselling, my work is rooted in professional knowledge, lived experience, and a deep respect for our shared humanity.

I am a person of colour from a Middle Eastern background who grew up in the West. I understand what it can feel like to move between cultures, expectations, and identities, to hold different parts of yourself in different spaces, and at times wonder where you fully belong.

I am also a mother and in a long-term partnership. I understand the depth and complexity of relationships, how parenting stretches both your heart and capacity, and how balancing work, caregiving, and personal needs can sometimes leave you feeling depleted.

Before private practice, I spent years working within systems and witnessed how depleting they can be. Systems designed to help can sometimes miss the human experience, leaving people feeling unseen, exhausted, or stretched thin.

I believe in the power of the collective and in what becomes possible when individuals are supported in moving toward their full potential — knowing that personal growth ripples outward into stronger communities. I value authentic connection and the quiet courage of vulnerability, especially in a world that often asks us to guard it, and for BIPOC identities that have too often been othered or marginalized for their lived experiences. I aim to show up as the same authentic person in the therapy room as I do in my everyday life.

This experience allows me to hold space with compassion while also understanding the broader pressures people carry. I know what it means to be the strong one, the dependable one, the one others lean on — while quietly carrying your own grief, questions, or exhaustion. I understand how generational patterns, cultural narratives, and past experiences can shape how we see ourselves and our relationships.

When we work together, you’re not sitting with someone who understands these things only in theory, but with someone who has moved through life’s complexities and has the felt sense experience of gone through the motions and learned what can unfold through hard work and healing.

My hope is to offer a space where you feel safe to arrive as you are, to gently explore your story and the experiences that may still hold you back from living your authentic life, and to move toward a life that feels more grounded, aligned, and true to who you are — where healing can create more space, more choice, and a deeper sense of freedom in how you live. I bring empathy, warmth, authenticity, and cultural awareness into the room, shaped by lived experience and a quiet understanding of what it means to ride the shifting waves of being human — and to come home to yourself feeling grounded and aligned.