Biography
The Story Behind the Therapist.
My path into psychotherapy has been shaped by both lived experience and a deep curiosity about how people make meaning of their lives.
I grew up as the third child of Albanian Muslim parents in Croatia, moving between very different cultural worlds from an early age. Home life was rooted in traditional rural Albanian values, while the wider social environment was shaped by Western European and Catholic cultural norms. During the 1990s and beyond, anti-Albanian prejudice was common, and my name often marked me as different before anything else was known about me. Navigating these parallel realities required constant adaptation and sharpened my awareness of identity, belonging, and the subtle ways culture influences relationships, power, and self-perception.
Spending extended periods with family in a rural Albanian village in Macedonia further exposed me to contrasting expectations around gender roles, family structures, and emotional expression. These early experiences shaped how I understand the complexity of human behaviour and continue to inform the way I work with clients navigating cultural, relational, or identity-based tensions.
Throughout my life, I have tended to function well on the outside—performing academically, staying socially engaged, and appearing composed—regardless of what was happening internally. Growing up, difficult emotions were unspoken and unsupported, and I learned early to rely on independence, rational thinking, and achievement rather than emotional expression. As a child and teenager, I often coped by distancing from my feelings through over-rationalizing, emotional over-regulation, distraction, and dissociation. Experiences with body image struggles, anxiety, ADHD, trauma, and periods of depression were therefore carried in isolation. Over time, understanding the impact of these early patterns and working through them has been an important part of my own development and continues to shape the way I sit with clients.
Questions about meaning, identity, and belief emerged early in my life. In early adolescence, I rejected monotheistic religion and found myself drawn toward humanist perspectives. In my late teens, meditation and Buddhist philosophy became a profound turning point, helping me through a period of severe depression and transforming the way I related to myself and others. These experiences gradually led me toward psychotherapy.
My training includes three postgraduate degrees in mental health, alongside a background in the sociology of culture and communication. My academic foundation supports my work, but it is the integration of professional knowledge with lived experience that most strongly informs how I practice.
I see therapy as a space where people don’t need to perform, explain away their pain, or appear more put together than they feel. My role is to meet you there—human to human—and support the often non-linear process of understanding yourself more fully and creating meaningful change.
Warmly,
Besa
