Sailaja Menon
Sailaja is an American trained Licensed Counseling Psychologist, with over 30 years of clinical experience in the field of Mental Health, Counseling, training, teaching and supervision.
Prior to joining Lifeworks, Sailaja worked in various leading Public and private settings – non-profit mental health centers, prestigious Universities and clinical mental health settings in the USA, Singapore, India, and Dubai. Sailaja also currently serves as a Global Advisor / Psychologist for Therapheal an online Psychology forum based in Bengaluru founded and set up by NIMHANS trained Psychologists
Sailaja under the patronship of CGI, Dubai and ICWC set up the Crisis Prevention Program, a free Psychological Service for those Indian citizens in Dubai (who cannot afford Psychological Services) in 2005. Since then, the psychological services have moved into several platforms such as IWRC, and currently PBSK where she serves her professional services once a week Probono for the community. Sailaja has been associated with CGI in this capacity since 2005 until present.
Sailaja graduated as the first Psychologist with a Post Master’s Degree specializing in Multicultural Counseling from the world-renowned and prestigious Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore , MD, USA (and thereafter went on to teach the inaugural course on Multicultural Counseling at Johns Hopkins for over 7 consecutive years) and has a Master’s Degree in Psychology from Radford university, Virginia , USA and a Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology from Presidency College, Chennai.
In her clinical capacity, Sailaja strongly emphasizes the importance of incorporating a holistic model of services that takes into consideration the mental/emotional, physical/biological, social, community and the spiritual aspects of the client to ensure well-being and self-sufficiency.
Her theoretical orientation is primarily client centered; however, however she is eclectic in her approach and often integrates other models of therapy such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Solution Focused Compassion based therapy, Mindfulness based therapy, Emotion focused therapy, Acceptance and Commitment therapy.
Sailaja works primarily with couples, individuals and families on a broad range of mental health issues.
With Couples, Sailaja has worked extensively on issues related to- relationship issues, breakdown in communication, trust and confidence, loneliness and sadness, inability to adjust to a marital life conflict with extended families, infidelity, addictions, anger management and abuse.
With Individuals, Sailaja has worked extensively on depression, anxiety, personality issues, anger management, stress management, and issues related to adjustment and acculturation in new surroundings, relationship issues and management, workplace conflicts, loss of identity and grief and loss
With Families, Sailaja has worked extensively on issues related to intergenerational issues, parenting, conflict management, grief and loss, stress management, abusive and dysfunctional family functioning
Some of Sailaja’s key Therapeutic approaches
- Couple’s/ Marital therapy
- Client Centered therapy
- Acceptance and Commitment therapy (ACT)
- Solution focused therapy
- Cognitive Behavioral therapy(CBT)
- Supportive therapy
- Mindfulness and compassion based therapy
- Critical incident Stress Debriefing
- Family therapy
- Psycho-Educational therapy
Some of Sailaja’s specialized counseling Services are:
- Mood disorder (e.g., Depression)
- Adjustment Issues
- Relationship issues
- Personality issues
- Marital /relationship issues
- Acculturation / Assimilation issues
- Intergenerational conflicts
- Psycho education
- Family conflicts
- Issues of transition in youth
- Corporate/employee assistance
- Academic challenges and behavioral issues in youth
- Cross Cultural Training
Sailaja’s Educational Qualifications
