Tanya Sharma, LLMSW

Hi, I’m Tanya! I’m here to offer a warm, inclusive, and non-judgmental space where you, and your family, can feel seen, heard, and supported. As a therapist, I’m especially attuned to how systems like culture, identity, and disability can shape our stories. I honor the impact of race, gender, sexuality, and family dynamics in the healing process, and I strive to support each client’s unique strengths and experiences with care and respect.

My work is rooted in compassion, collaboration, and curiosity. I use approaches like Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), Child-Centered Play Therapy, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), mind-body grounding techniques, and Motivational Interviewing to help clients better understand emotions, build self-awareness, and work toward meaningful goals. These tools are especially helpful when life feels overwhelming or when we’re trying to balance complicated relationships, emotions, or experiences. Child-centered play therapy is an evidence based therapeutic approach that allows for clinicians to help teach skills at cognitive-appropriate intervals. Often, talk therapy can feel boring or overwhelming for children, so creating a safe environment through the use of play allows for us to explore challenges in a way that feels fun and engaging.

My passion for serving the neurodiverse population led me to spend five years working with autistic youth of all ages, where I learned to support them in meeting their needs in authentic ways, improving the quality of their communication and connection with their family members, and enhancing their executive function skills. I also worked as a social work intern at Mott Children’s Hospital’s at Gender Clinic. Every gender journey is unique and individualized, and I strive to honor the needs of clients by providing letters of support for gender-affirming care, working with schools to create a gender-affirming environment, and working with parents and families to communicate in a way that everyone’s needs and feelings are heard. Gender journeys are a collaborative effort. It takes intentional work from the clinicians, the client, and the parents to support the client’s needs. To ensure this collaborative effort, I worked directly with the parents to allow them the space to navigate their questions and concerns.

As a child of Indian immigrants, I understand the need for clinicians that understand how one’s cultural identity can impact our lives. I utilize cultural story telling and narrative-based therapeutic approaches to help clients understand their unique cultural experiences, and how to navigate barriers that exist in the world today. I hope to create a space in which clients feel like they have a therapist that “just gets it”. Often, as immigrants in therapeutic spaces, it becomes our role as the client to explain our cultural practices, traditions, and parenting styles to clinicians that may not understand the immigrant/BIPOC experience. I want clients to know that their culture is an integral part of who they are, and strive to incorporate this into our therapy. As parents, it can be challenging to navigate parenting in a culture that is so different than the culture we are brought up in. With one-on-one parent-coaching sessions, I hope to provide a space where parents and I can work together to intentionally find parenting techniques that work best for their family.

Whether you or your child are navigating anxiety, stress, identity exploration, family conflict, or just need a safe place to talk, I’d be honored to walk alongside you in this journey. Therapy is a space to grow—and you don’t have to do it alone.