Iran, The News, and Your Clients

An interview with Pardis Mahdavi, PhD, and Negeen Moussavian, AMFT, regarding Iran, current events, and how the news might impact Iranian clients.

It’s time to reimagine therapy and what it means to be a therapist. We are human beings who can now present ourselves as whole people, with authenticity, purpose, and connection. Especially now, when therapists must develop a personal brand to market their practices.

To support you as a whole person and a therapist, your hosts, Curt Widhalm and Katie Vernoy talk about how to approach the role of therapist in the modern age.

 Interview with Pardis Mahdavi, PhD and Negeen Moussavian, AMFT

Pardis Mahdavi, PhD is currently Director of the School for Social Transformation at Arizona State University. Before coming to Arizona, she was Acting Dean of the Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver (2017-2019), after spending eleven years at Pomona College from 2006-2017 where she most recently served as professor and chair of anthropology and director of the Pacific Basin Institute at Pomona College as well as Dean of Women. Her research interests include gendered labor, human trafficking, migration, sexuality, human rights, transnational feminism, and public health in the context of changing global and political structures. She has published four single authored books and one edited volume in addition to numerous journal and news articles. She has been a fellow at the Social Sciences Research Council, the American Council on Learned Societies, Google Ideas, and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. In 2018 she was appointed by Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper and re-appointed by Governor Jared Polis to serve on the Colorado Commission on Higher Education.

Negeen Moussavian is a Registered Associate Marriage and Family Therapist (#107771) working under the supervision of Curt Widhalm LMFT (#47333) in Encino, CA. She received her Master of Arts in Clinical Psychology with an emphasis in Marriage & Family Therapy from Pepperdine University. She works with clients dealing with relationships, dating, infidelity, and trauma. Additionally, she works with Iranian-American clients on issues surrounding identity, generational trauma, and other culture specific topics. She implements a combination of holistic and traditional therapy practices, including EMDR therapy.

In this episode we talk about:

• Current events in Iran as well as historical context
• Liminality – the feeling of not belonging here or there
• The importance of being informed
• The uncertainty that can lead to fear and then to hate
• The crushing tsunami wave of islamophobia that is coming in the United States
• How significant events related to Iran impact Iranian-Americans
• The dramatic changes within Iran
• How therapists can help Iranian families to cope with the impacts of current events