Atekeh Sadat, LCSW

I help adults and adolescents who may appear capable on the outside while feeling anxious, overwhelmed, stuck, or exhausted inside understand what’s beneath the surface and create meaningful change.

You may be keeping up with school, work, relationships, family responsibilities, or other expectations while privately feeling anxious, overwhelmed, exhausted, or stuck. Maybe your mind rarely slows down. You overthink decisions and conversations, procrastinate on things that matter to you, or hold yourself to standards you would never expect from anyone else. You may understand your patterns intellectually and still find yourself repeating them.
I’m Atekeh Sadat, LCSW, C-DBT, founder of Serena Counseling PLLC. I work with adolescents and adults experiencing anxiety and panic, ADHD and executive functioning difficulties, trauma and difficult past experiences, perfectionism, procrastination, burnout, depression, self-criticism and shame, relationship and attachment concerns, and significant life transitions.
My approach to therapy is warm, collaborative, and active. We may work on practical strategies for what is happening right now while also exploring the deeper emotional, relational, and protective patterns that may be keeping you stuck. I believe therapy can be most helpful when it goes beyond managing symptoms and helps you understand why certain patterns developed, what purpose they may have served, and what needs to change now.
I tailor therapy to the individual rather than expecting every client to fit one therapeutic model. My work draws from evidence-based and trauma-informed approaches, including Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), mindfulness and emotion-regulation strategies, attachment and relational work, self-compassion, and parts-oriented interventions. I am Certified in Dialectical Behavior Therapy (C-DBT).
My clinical background includes extensive experience in a university counseling setting and working with individuals facing anxiety, depression, ADHD, academic and career pressures, relationship difficulties, trauma, significant emotional distress, and periods of crisis. This experience has shaped my ability to work with both everyday challenges and more complex concerns while keeping therapy grounded in each client's individual needs and goals.
Culture, family, language, and life experiences can all shape how we understand ourselves and the difficulties we face. I provide therapy in English and Farsi and welcome clients from diverse cultural and international backgrounds.
You don’t need to have everything figured out before beginning therapy. You may know exactly what you want to work on, or simply know that something isn’t working the way you want it to anymore. We can start there.