Vaveena Somaskantharajah, M.A., Registered Psychotherapist (Qualifying)

Why this work.

I grew up between languages and worlds. Tamil at the dinner table, English at school, the long arc of a family that moved across an ocean. Therapy, when I found it, felt like the first place where all of that could sit in one room — without translation, without flattening.

That experience shapes how I practise. I'm interested in the places where culture, family, body, and story meet — and in the kind of room that lets people speak from the parts of themselves they usually have to keep tidy.

How I work.

My approach is integrative and relational. I draw on a few evidence-based modalities — including cognitive behavioural therapy, acceptance and commitment therapy, person-centered therapy, and mindfulness — and I weave them based on what someone needs, not the other way around.

With younger clients, sessions often include creative or play-based elements. With teens, we move at the pace of trust. With adults, the work often involves the patterns we inherit, the parts we've had to mute, and the lives we're trying to grow into.

I work from a trauma-informed, anti-oppressive frame. That means slowing down, naming power, and treating your context — your family, community, body, and history — as part of the story rather than separate from it.

What it's like in session.

Sessions are virtual, fifty minutes, and held over a secure video platform. I tend to be warm and curious rather than formal — I ask questions, I follow your lead, and I'm honest when something stands out. The work goes at the pace of what feels right for you.

Tamil is welcome in the room. It comes up most often as the language of family, of food, of grief, of childhood. You don't have to choose between languages here.