Meet Shailee Vakulabharanam, MEd: Comprehensive Mental Health Support at MCG

About Shailee

Therapy languages: English, Hindi, Gujarati

Pronouns: she/her

SShailee Vakulabharanam is a mental health clinician specializing in evidence-based treatment for school-aged children, younger adolescents and adults suffering from general anxiety, social anxiety, panic attacks, agoraphobia, OCD-related disorders, adjustment disorders, separation anxiety, avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder and phobias. Shailee tailors her interventions to the needs of her clients and also works closely with parents and schools to implement an approach that is geared towards support and safety for her clients.

Shailee specializes in Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Exposure and Ritual Prevention (ERP) Therapy and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). She also has a distinct interest in working to help alleviate tendencies of control and perfectionism, stress and anxiety, as well as encouraging a high degree of self-compassion in her clientele.

Shailee has a postgraduate diploma in Counseling Psychology from the Institute of Holistic Mental Health in Tamil Nadu, India and a Master's of Education in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from the University of Missouri-St. Louis. She has worked at a variety of settings in the United States and India helping adults and students develop life skills, problem solving skills, and distress-tolerance skills.

As part of her Master's program, Shailee interned at the Counseling and Social Advocacy Center at the University of Missouri-St. Louis and at the Advocates Community Counseling Center in Framingham. In these settings, she provided individual therapy to children, adolescents, and adults with generalized anxiety, depression, trauma, and adjustment disorders, and she led a group of individuals struggling with perfectionism and over-control. In India, Shailee volunteered at the Jehangir Hospital in Pune City as part of the NAG foundation, where she worked under the clinical guidance of an onco-psychologist to provide therapeutic support and space for women undergoing chemotherapy. She has completed a training course in CBT for anxiety disorders through the Beck Institute of Cognitive Behavior Therapy and CBT for OCD through Massachusetts General Hospital, as well as courses in Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT), somatic approaches to counseling, and Psychological First Aid.