Our Philosophy

 I’m Tahmineh Shadkhoo, a Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor and the Owner of Cordillera Counseling Services. I try to bring both clinical depth and authenticity into the room. My style is collaborative, compassionate, direct when it needs to be, and grounded in humor, curiosity, and cultural humility.

I believe meaningful change starts with understanding people in context, not just identifying symptoms. Together, we can look at how your experiences, relationships, beliefs, protective responses, and nervous system have shaped the ways you have learned to move through the world.

Therapy can be serious work, but it does not have to feel serious every minute. There is room for humor, creativity, and moments of lightness alongside the harder parts. I want therapy to feel human.

My perspective as a therapist has also been shaped by lived experience. I understand from more than professional training what it can mean to live through major change, loss, cultural transition, family complexity, and circumstances that require us to adapt before we are ready. My own life has also been shaped by more than one culture and by experiences of migration, rebuilding, and belonging.

Those experiences bring depth and humility to my work, but I do not assume that my story is the same as yours. Your experience is your own.

I believe people can carry the effects of what they have lived through without being defined by them. Healing often means understanding how we adapted, recognizing when old survival responses are still showing up, and finding more room for choice in the present.

I have pursued extensive training in trauma, traumatic stress, attachment, and emotion regulation. I am a Certified EMDR Therapist, certified in Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT), and have completed Level I training in Sensorimotor Psychotherapy for the treatment of trauma.

My additional training includes Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT), Combined Parent-Child Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CPC-CBT), Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), and parts-oriented approaches informed by Internal Family Systems (IFS).

That breadth of training gives me more than one way to think about what is happening and what may help. I do not require clients to fit a particular treatment model. We look at what you need, what feels useful, and what makes sense for the work we are doing together.

Culture, race, identity, family, community, and lived experience all shape how we understand ourselves and the world around us.

I approach these parts of your experience with cultural humility. You are the expert on what they mean in your life. My role is to stay curious, respectful, and open to understanding your perspective.

When larger social or cultural realities are part of what you are carrying, there is room for them in our work.

Much of my work focuses on trauma and the ways it can affect how we see ourselves, relate to others, and respond to the world around us. I also work with anxiety, depression, grief and loss, attachment and relationship concerns, and patterns that can develop when people have had to adapt to difficult or overwhelming experiences.

I try to understand those patterns in context. Many of the ways we cope, protect ourselves, or stay connected developed for a reason. Therapy can help us understand those responses, build new resources, work through unresolved experiences, and create more choice in the present.

I view therapy as a partnership. I bring clinical knowledge, perspective, and a range of approaches. You bring your experience, your goals, and your sense of what feels helpful, tolerable, or off. I value honesty, collaboration, and flexibility. If something is not landing, I want us to be able to talk about it. We can slow down, change direction, revisit something, or decide that a particular approach is not useful.

I also believe that misunderstandings and ruptures can happen in therapy. When they do, working through them with care and honesty can become an important part of the work.

My goal is to create a relationship where you can feel understood without being reduced to a diagnosis, challenged without being pushed past your capacity, and supported in building more clarity, flexibility, and choice.

If you’re considering therapy and want to get a sense of whether we might be a good fit, you’re welcome to schedule a complimentary 15-minute consultation.

Call 443-203-9838 or send a message through our contact page.