Meet Yasmine Khoushab | Psychotherapist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Yasmine Khoushab and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Yasmine, what role has risk played in your life or career?
I love risks. The risk was the main ingredient that pushed me into my career. Without risk, I would have never gotten to see or enjoy the wonderful moments my life and career have given me. I am such a firm believer in whatever it is that you want in this life, you can think, speak, work, and write it into existence. I originally grew up living in the suburbs of Philadelphia, PA, and remember, in my younger years, sitting behind the TV watching reality stars walking around LA seeing the sites and sceneries. My family and I would vacation in LA almost every summer. I fell in love with it, it was a dream that I never thought would be a reality to build my life and career! I never had a plan to be a psychotherapist, never prepared for it. My loved ones were questioning what was next for me after college and I didn’t have an answer for them. This is no exaggeration, it was such a blur! I woke up one day and said I wanted to go to Graduate School. By the time I was looking, I had missed the deadlines for the majority of the school applications except for two schools that I came across. One was closer to home and the other in LA, I applied to both and I remember saying to myself, “Wherever I am meant to go, take me there.” Fast forward, out of those 2 schools, I only got accepted into Pepperdine University Graduate School of Education and Psychology. I packed my bags at the age of 22, left all my friends and family behind, to start this new life. Now, I can say I have more than I could have ever imagined! All due to taking a risk and wanting something better!

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
I think out of everything, I am excited about the woman that I continue to become. My past supervisor, Anat Cohen, told me something I will never forget. She said, “I can teach you to be a good therapist, but I can’t teach you to be a good person and that’s what is going to help you in this field.” Now in order to be a good person to others, I must first be a good person to myself to see what that looks like. It was shortly after, I found myself falling in love with holistic approaches where you focus on yourself as an entire entity which consists of the physical, emotional, social, and spiritual wellbeing. I believe in order to grow and heal you must focus on your wellness rather than your illness. I believe this is what led to my level of success. Was it easy? No. Was it worth it? Yes. Working on yourself is HARD! When you’re a therapist, or even just an every-day person lol, sometimes you are in this mental battle with yourself. You can struggle with confidence, feelings of not being enough, giving up, or if you’re doing the right things, the list goes on. That’s why I say, it’s so important to focus on your wellness, than your illness. There is no love, empathy, or understanding in illness. It’s designed to be critical and self-defeating. Wellness is designed to be lifting and compassionate. This is a practice I continue to do for myself and what I gift to my clients in therapy. I am all about where can we find this hidden love you carry within yourself and bring it out to the surface for you to heal. I help my clients discover that they have all the answers, but it’s blinded by past trauma, toxicity, self-hate, pain, and negative experiences. I designed my work to offer humanistic/existential modalities along with a sprinkle of trauma therapy through the use of EMDR (Eye-movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) and utilizing Reiki in my practice to collectively create an experience where we focus on the mind, body, and spirit to promote healing.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
Oh, this is such a tortuous question during a pandemic! LOL 4 words, I AM A FOODIE! I also love a good tourist attraction. LOL I am not an LA native, so LA still is so exciting to me. I would love to head over to Paradise Cove on a hot summer day, searching through the crowds of people, for a place to layout with some cold drinks in hand and some good fried calamari! Going to the Bonavista Lounge while looking out at the night sky in LA while the restaurant revolves around the city. Going to Barton G The Restaurant where you can eat macaroni and cheese out of a life-size mousetrap, popcorn chicken out of a popcorn machine, and eat cotton candy off of a Marie Antoinette mannequin head. Going to melrose for breakfast at the Carrera Cafe, with an order of their waffles and coffee with a scanned picture of your choice on top of a latte. Going to the Warner Bros. Tour and getting to be in your very own scene of Friends while sitting in the actual set used for the TV series. Going to Oue Skyspace LA, where you get to see 360-degree views and slide down a full-on glass slide nearly 1,000 feet above about the city! There is so much I love about my adopted city and I can’t wait for more adventures to come to share with my loved ones once this pandemic is over!

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
It’s never ever one thing. I owe it to a series of people and a series of events. They all hold such a deep place in my spirit that I will always honor in the most beautiful ways. To start, my father is the man that has always taught me to be the woman who finds out what she wants, goes after what she wants, and carries what she wants. He sacrificed a great deal to be my biggest supporter and help me reach my goals every step of the way. My father taught me how to be empowered and to never settle for anything less. I also want to dedicate my work to my beyond amazing supervisors, Denise Cooney, Madlen Pashinian Foroughmand, and Anat Cohen. They have challenged me, supported me, believed in me, and shown me what it means to be a psychotherapist along with all the wonderful gifts that can come out of it. I am deeply blessed and grateful for these strong independent women, I would not be where I am today without them. They have all contributed to my inner work and outer work to be the individual I am today.

Other: https://linktr.ee/SayYasToTherapy

Image Credits
Gabby Pacheco