Lavanya Shankar, PhD

Specialties

I am a licensed psychologist in Austin. I provide individual, couples, and group psychotherapy to adults. People work with me for a variety of reasons but typically they comes in with some sort of hindrance to personal growth or in interpersonal relationships. I see people who struggle to understand aspects of themselves and themselves in relation to others. Through use of the therapeutic frame and relationship, my role is to help people understand themselves and to subsequently move beyond those hindrances that impede them from living fuller lives. I work primarily from a psychodynamic perspective and incorporate principles of attachment theory into my work. In this process, all inner experiences and emotions are welcome in the room, and there are no negative or wrong emotions. I work with clients to be present with their inner world and to becomes acquainted with the different parts of themselves. What can result from understanding the totality of oneself, including the light and dark parts, is a much fuller and richer experience of oneself and of life. From an attachment perspective, it's important to the success of psychotherapy that you feel safe and connected with the therapist with whom you work. Therefore, I encourage prospective clients to contact me to set up an initial consultation to assess whether we might work well together.