BIO

With a thriving private mid-town Manhattan practice, Simona Shokrian, LCSW-R, brings 16 years of experience working with diverse clientele in multiple modalities on both the east and west coasts. After receiving her MSW from the University of Southern California in 2001, she practiced in Los Angeles before relocating to NYC in 2008 and currently holds licenses as a Clinical Social Worker in both California and New York.

Simona specializes in relationship and intimacy issues, parenting, family conflict, cultural divides and acculturation, career and work problems, college students, identity issues, self-esteem, anxiety, depression, and the many transitions we encounter in life – aging, loss, college, marriage, relationships, pregnancy and fertility issues, having a baby, moving, divorce. Her practice focuses on couples &
family as well as individual psychotherapy for a culturally and professionally diverse clientele. She is also multi-lingual speaking Farsi
and French.

She brings to her private practice significant experience having worked in clinics and a variety of other mental health services organizations. In addition to her 4000+ post-graduate clinical training hours, Simona recently completed a two year clinical training externship in family and couples therapy at the Ackerman Institute for the Family and continues ongoing participation in their Supervision & Consultation Groups.
 

PAST EXPERIENCE

In addition to her private practice, Simona provided psychotherapy and counseling services at the Jewish Board of Family and Children Services (2008 – 2013) and was a consultant with the Family Program at the Freedom Institute, Drug and Alcohol Rehabilitation Clinic, an abstinence based outpatient treatment center (2009 – 2010). Prior to these engagements, she worked with private practice clients in an outpatient Dual-Diagnosis Rehab clinic (the West Coast Counseling Center) where she provided individual and group psychotherapy services dealing with a variety of addictions.

Expanding the scope of her experience, Simona guided a team of social workers at the Bedford-Stuyvesant Family Center using a Family Systems and Structural Family Therapy approach to keep children safe and families intact (2008 – 2009). She was also a Crisis Counselor for the Student Counseling Services at the University of Southern California (2007 – 2008) and, prior to that, worked within the Los Angeles school system as a Behavioral Interventionist with special needs children between the ages of 3-8 (2004 – 2007).
 

CLINICAL TRAINING

Following graduate work at the University of Southern California in Social Work, Simona completed her post-graduate training at the Maple Counseling Center, a community mental health counseling center in Beverly Hills, CA. Trained in both psychodynamic as well as family systems psychotherapy, she worked with families to identify overall family dynamics, including healthy and unhealthy patterns of interacting, roles, communication styles, boundaries, and power structure.

Simona also has expertise in infant mental health and childhood development, emphasizing the attachments of infants and young children to their parents and primary caregivers. Additionally, Simona spent several years working with college students at a University where she provided short-term therapy as well as crisis counseling. Treating college students through psychotherapy and counseling, Simona had exposure to a wide range of social, emotional and mental health issues from eating disorders, sexual violations, and substance abuse, to depression and anxiety disorders.