Laila Khan
AMFT
laila.khan@kisatherapyclinic.org
California, USA
Background
South Asian
Languages
English, Urdu
Who I help
Adults, Couples, Families, and Children
What I help with
Anxiety, Depression, Grief and Loss, Motherhood, Self-esteem and Self-improvement, Processing trauma, Addiction
My Approach
Existential-Humanistic from a trauma-informed lens
About Me
Salāmun ʿAlaykum!
I’m Laila, an associate marriage and family therapist. I graduated from Palo Alto University with a Masters in counseling. I also have a bachelors in Psychology with a minor in Gender Studies from Dominican University of California.
I mostly relate to existential and person-centered therapy and I strongly believe in the healing power of a therapeutic relationship and the understanding and growth one can get from understanding their suffering. My previous experience has given me the strength to work with the elderly, mothers, and adults especially in areas of transitions, such as grief, loss, and understanding your authentic self.
I was born and raised in California. I’m a wife, baker, poet and also a mother to an energetic 5 year old daughter. I’m also the operations director for Kisa Family (An entity of Al-Kisa Foundation).
Blogs I have written
Intimate Partner Violence – From Hopelessness to a Profound Connection to Allah (swt)
Introduction Intimate partner violence (IPV) affects millions of people annually on a global scale. Globally, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that about 1 in 3 (30%) women worldwide experience either physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence or...
Tears that Build Chambers: ʿAzāʾ, Communal Mourning, and the Grief the Clinic Forgot How to Honor
Introduction: The Grief That Will Not Be Scheduled It is two in the morning, three years after the funeral, and you are crying again. And somewhere beneath the grief is a second, more corrosive feeling: the suspicion that something is wrong with you for still grieving...
Muwāsāt: The Therapy of Being-With — Presence, Co-Regulation, and the Night of ʿĀshūrāʾ
Introduction: When There Is Nothing to Fix There is a particular hour that brings people to my consulting room, even when they arrive at it during the day. It is the hour, often around two in the morning, when a person sits on the floor of a bathroom or at the edge of...
Rebuilding What Cannot Be Rebuilt: Post-Traumatic Growth and the Community of Remembrance
Part 3 of 3 | The Graves They Could Not Bury: Islamic Psychology of Sacred Grief on Yawmul Ghamm Introduction: Can a Community Grow from a Wound That Remains Open? In the first post of this series, I named the grief: disenfranchised, morally injurious, and ongoing....
When You Cannot Visit: The Psychology and Spirituality of Mourning from Afar
Introduction: The Grief That Distance Carries In the first post of this series, I explored the psychological architecture of sacred grief: how the destruction of Jannatul Baqīʿ in 1925 produced a wound that Western clinical models struggle to name, let alone hold. I...
The Graves They Could Not Bury: The Psychology of Sacred Grief
Introduction: A Grief That Clinical Textbooks Do Not Name At Kisa Therapy Clinic, we encounter a form of grief that most clinical textbooks do not name. It is not the grief of losing a loved one to illness or accident. It is not the grief of a sudden death or an...
A Season of Healing: Behind the Mirror
I'm driving to the mosque. My newborn is in the back seat. I want to attend the program, then visit family afterward, then maybe fit in some reading time before the next event. And somewhere in the middle of planning all this activity, a question stops me: Am I...
A Season of Healing – Part 3
A Season of Healing, Part 3: The Harvest - Transformation and Return This is Part 3 of a 3-part series on using Rajab, Shaʿbān, and Shahr Ramaḍān to restore your heart and strengthen your connection to Imām Mahdī (ʿaj). The Arrival Remember where we started? Part 1:...
A Season of Healing – Part 2
A Season of Healing, Part 2: The Path of Restoration - From Paralysis to Presence This is Part 2 of a 3-part series on using Rajab, Shaʿbān, and Shahr Ramaḍān to restore your heart and strengthen your connection to Imām Mahdī (ʿaj). Where We Left Off In Part 1,...
A Season of Healing – Part 1
A Season of Healing, Part 1: Understanding the Distance and Receiving the Gift This is Part 1 of a 3-part series on using Rajab, Shaʿbān, and Shahr Ramaḍān to restore your heart and strengthen your connection to Imām Mahdī (ʿaj). The Quiet Erosion You've felt it, even...