MENAHAL BEGAWALA, LMHC

 I’m Menahal, a licensed mental health counselor based in NYC. I’ve had the privilege of working with individuals, couples, and families to overcome a range of concerns including mental health struggles, rocky marriages, addictions, and trauma, to name a few. I believe that we all have exactly what we need to heal within us. This belief drives my work where I collaborate with my clients to uncover their innate ability to not only understand them, but also heal emotional wounding to create room for growth and thriving.

I’ve worked in both mental health and substance abuse treatment facilities, which have helped me understand the prevalence of trauma and its profound affect on both mental and physical health. I’ve learned how deeply we can be impacted by adverse experiences, and in turn may unintentionally engage in patterns of behavior that cause us to remain stuck, whether personally, professionally, or in our relationships (or lack thereof). I’ve trained in Sensorimotor Psychotherapy and EMDR, two powerful and effective modalities for the treatment of trauma, to enhance my work with clients who are seeking help for deep emotional wounding and/or traumatic experiences. With loneliness eating away at so many of us, I seek to create a means of safe connection where difficult experiences and emotions can be processed and released.

I am passionate about seeing couples succeed in their relationship goals, whether enhancing an already solid relationship or getting “unstuck” from recurring fighting patterns. When working with couples, I utilize the skills gained through training in the Gottman method as well as in EFT. I’ve had the honor of teaming with the Gottman Institute to author the Islamic Reference Guide for the Gottman Method, a companion to The New York Times bestseller The Seven Principles of Making Marriage Work.