Her Story
About Dr. Hema
My journey in therapy began when I was pursuing my master's degree in social work. During my two-year internship, I really got hands-on experience working with adolescents and working in schools, and that experience took me down this career path. For the past 8 years, I've worked for various organizations in the field. I started doing private practice work in 2023, so about two and a half to three years now, while maintaining my full-time position as a clinical supervisor for an agency where I supervise school-based therapists. It was when I was getting my most recent degree - I just got my doctorate last year - that I started to get into teaching as well. Now my typical day is a mixed bag: during the day I'm supervising school-based therapists for the agency, in the evening I do therapy with my private practice clients, and I also teach a class in the evening in a master's social work program. I love all the work that I do, which is why I do so much of it, but I've really found a soft spot for teaching and passing along what I've learned over the years while continuing to learn from my students.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Dr. Hema
01What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
Being very intentional about, or just intentionally knowing why you want to do this is important. Just having that kind of motivation to carry you through. But I think it's also important to really be intentional about self-care, which I think is one of those buzzword-y things right now, but self-care really at its root is about taking care of yourself in any way that that means. I think taking care of yourself is really the biggest thing, the biggest difference maker in terms of preventing burnout and preventing vicarious trauma. I've picked up Pilates in the last year, and I've never really been much of an exercise girl, but that's really been something that's helped me focus on me and take care of myself. So I think just finding whatever that looks like for you and continuously being intentional about it over time, never stop thinking about that taking care of yourself aspect, because this work gets really heavy sometimes, and it's important to take care of yourself.
02What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
I think one of the biggest challenges is just the socio-political climate being what it is. As social workers, as therapists, a lot of times we're working with the most vulnerable populations, the most marginalized, and those are the people who are being the most targeted right now. Whether it's private practice clients coming in with unique stressors, or uniquely stressful things - because these have always been issues, but they're kind of at the forefront now - or supervising therapists in the schools who are also experiencing some of these challenges and trying to support students and families who are experiencing very real-world challenges because of changes in policy, reduction of resources, things like that. That's definitely one of the biggest stressors, which I think also leads to another stressor of burnout among therapists. Whether it's trying to prevent my own burnout or trying to prevent the burnout of therapists that I supervise, it's just trying to really meet the challenge of the current times.
Keep Exploring
More Influential Women · New York
Join Influential Women and start making an impact. Register now.