licensed psychologist and mind-body integration specialist
Meet Dr. Kalianivala
Hi there 👋, I’m Dr. Anahita Kalianivala, PhD, a licensed psychologist and mind-body integration specialist.
I hold space for people who are wise, insightful and deeply self-aware…
…but who are worn out from accommodating everyone else & finally ready to live for themselves.
My people are the ones who usually know just what to say. But, lately, their heart is asking questions even they don’t have the answers for.
Their mind replays old stories like it’s trying to rewrite the ending. They rehearse conversations they’ll never have, because they fear the response. They say “I’m fine,” when people check in, even though they feel like a stranger in their own life.
And still, they wake up and try again.
That’s what’s remarkable about the ones I help.
They believe in healing. And they’ve already pursued it in countless ways.
So what’s next? Now, they get to find a space to soften, to de-condition, to truly integrate, and to be fully themselves.
What No One Sees (but you wish they could)
* You give and give — emotionally, physically, energetically — and wonder what it would feel like to stop.
* You’ve saved every post on nervous system healing and boundary setting, but still freeze after you put down the phone.
* You replay conversations in your head, wondering why you always ask for so much feedback and approval when you actually know what you want.
* You’re tired of feeling like you’re doing all the right things and still not feeling right inside.
* You just want someone to see what you’re carrying — understand how you’re feeling — without having to explain it all.
* You wish your brain would stop circling and churning long enough for you to catch your breath. Or loosen your muscles.
What You’ve Tried Before
I know you’ve already tried to fix this feeling of longing.
This wanting more, this dissatisfaction that maybe you can’t name but you definitely can’t shake.
I’m betting you’ve sat in therapy sessions that felt more like venting loops than transformation. You’ve had massages, acupuncture, even tarot readings - and they feel good in the moment, but they don’t really stick. You’ve tried different kinds of therapy, too. Talk therapy that ignored your body. Somatic work that skipped your story.
Enter “slow therapy.”
It’s not another method, routine, or mindset trick. It’s a space where all parts of you - mind, body, & spirit - get to tell the truth and be believed.
I’ve been there myself…
I was in virtual somatic therapy, sitting forward in my chair, bracing, scanning for what needed fixing. And my therapist said gently: “You don’t know how to sit back in your life.”
She was right.
I was always reaching. Controlling. Striving.
Until one day, I laid back - literally - and let myself be seen in the stillness.
Not performing. Not producing. Just… being.
That’s when I learned:
Softness doesn’t mean collapse. It means freedom.
Allowing doesn’t mean weakness. It means safety.
How do I know? Because, I’ve lived it, too.
In this short video, I share a bit of my own burnout “origin story.” You’ll hear what it revealed about my patterns of overachievement, how my nervous system stayed stuck in fight-or-flight, and why no amount of “fixing” ever felt like enough.
Even when life looked good on the outside.
Why I Call It “Slow Therapy”
I used to believe suffering came down to a lack of awareness: an unnamed problem, a missing tool, or not enough guidance to make it stick. So I did what my medical-model PhD taught me - do an assessment, make a diagnosis, then offer a tool or a skill or an insight. And sometimes that worked. But it’s not the whole story…
Because healing isn’t just about “getting it.”
It’s also about living it, breathing it, feeling it.
Looking back, I’ve always been drawn to sitting with the real stuff: the unfinished business, the questions people carry when nothing else has worked, the stories the body holds that the mind can’t explain.
In my work as a clinical pain psychologist, I learned to recognize the trauma that is rooted in accumulation; not just “capital-T” trauma:
*Years of biting your tongue.
*A lifetime not being seen.
*Decades of holding everything… alone.
My clients weren’t just coping with the physical sensations. They had stories stored in their muscles, identities collapsed across migraines, and whole lives rearranged around invisible pain.
I will never take lightly all that my clients have shared with me. They helped me see that healing can’t just be cognitive… or just somatic… or just behavioral.
Healing has to be integrated. And it has to be felt.
And when I found that for myself - not in a textbook, but on a couch, sitting back, being messy, and feeling seen - I knew I couldn’t practice the old way again.
What Makes This Work Different
I believe healing isn’t about how well you can explain your trauma.
Or how “productive” your healing looks.
Or how calm you seem while your body screams inside.
It’s actually about:
How you meet yourself when no one’s watching.
The moment you choose your needs instead of overriding them.
How your body feels after you speak your truth.
And your capacity to hold all of it.
Healing lives where mindset, emotion, physiology, and identity meet.
Slow therapy isn’t about 50-minute sessions to check a box. It’s about being with what’s real. And I aim to do that with intuition and precision.
I pull from a rich bank of evidence-based therapies and effective skills.
And I practice the sacred art of presence.
I’m not here to be the expert on your life, but a sounding board for your inner knowing.
I’m here to witness your patterns, and mirror them back to you so you can see.
I’m here to honor your pauses as sacred signs of progress.
This is a space where your stories and sensations are welcome.
What It’s Like to Sit with Me
Sure, I’m a licensed psychologist with a f*ck ton of training in health psychology, integrative practices, and chronic pain (plus, a post-doctoral fellowship from Stanford University). But that’s not what I want you to remember about me.
I want you to remember how it felt to bring the hardest thing in the room and not be met with shock, or pity, or someone rushing to solve it. That you said, “I’ve never told anyone this…,” and the space held steady. That you didn’t have to explain every feeling for it to be honored.
And that’s what I aim to bring to this work:
The clinical and the intuitive.
The practical and the emotional.
The sovereign and the co-regulated.
Signs of Transformation Clients Have Shared
When feelings aren’t problems to solve, but signals to be felt.
That anxiety or guilt doesn’t always mean something is wrong. And even when it does, they don’t have to run from it.
Using their voice doesn’t require the “right” tone or perfect words, just their truth.
Doing something differently than they would’ve three months ago (quietly or loudly) is a win.
Change happens from trusting they can handle the unpredictable response on the other side of a new behavior.
When hard days are no longer proof of failure, but just part of the grand design.
That their true self is always there to come home to, and it’s ok to ask for support to get back there.
This work isn’t about never being dysregulated again.
It’s about knowing your way back to center.
It’s about reclaiming the agency that got buried under years of survival or performance.
And it’s about knowing that you don’t have to be perfect to be at peace.
Fun Facts
If we were getting coffee together, here are some things you’d learn about me:
I’m a 4/6 Emotional Manifesting Generator. (AKA I love my people with fire and fullness.)
I swear with joy.
I’ll happily lose a Saturday to watching college football (Go Frogs 🐸💜)
I don’t know how to swim, but I take baths like they’re holy.
I dance to the Spice Girls when I need a release.
I think rainbows are winks from the divine.
My dogs would tell you I narrate their every move like I’m David Attenborough.
My husband would tell you I talk to my Apple watch like it’s a person.
(They’re both right.)
And I don’t always feel like the “cool girl” I think others see. But I’m fiercely, irrationally proud of how fully myself I am. (Even when I don’t want to be.)
And every day, I learn in a new way: that’s more than enough.
Licensure
Nevada Licensed Psychologist (PY0991)
PSYPACT Authorization Holder (Mobility No. 21214)
Authority to Practice Interjurisdictional Telepsychology (APIT)
Education
Doctor of Philosophy - PhD, Clinical Psychology
University of North Carolina at Greensboro
Postdoctoral Fellowship, Pain Psychology
Stanford University School of Medicine
I hope you found some peace here — maybe even a flicker of recognition.
And if you need to hear it again, a reminder:
You don’t have to white-knuckle your way through transformation.
You don’t have to earn your way into healing.
And you sure as hell don’t have to do it alone.
Because this is a space where you get to show up before you have it all figured out. Where your laughter and your ache are both welcome. Where you can speak the scary truth and be held with steady care.
If you’d like to learn more - even if you don’t know exactly what comes next - let’s talk. Getting more information is safe here. If you have questions or just want to say a virtual hello, you’re welcome to schedule a free 15-min call.