“Everything can be taken from a person but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
As a child survivor of a devastating earthquake that took place in Armenia in 1988, growing up in poverty and war, I have known trauma at a very young age. Adding to this a decade of wrestling with an undiagnosed chronic health condition as a young adult and the havoc it can create in one’s life, I can confidently say: I know what it means to experience trauma.
However, it is exactly because of these traumatic events and experiences that I decided to devote my life not only to healing myself but also to develop deeper understanding thanks to the professional training, education, and experience I have been receiving while working in mental health. This is where I discovered the wonderful world of relating to another’s pain in order to reduce their suffering in the face of trauma. Thus, I changed careers from being a teacher of literature at a major university, to becoming a student of psychotherapy, dedicating my life to the healing of trauma, while using the body as my specialty.
I have been extensively trained in meditation and healing of trauma while incorporating various therapeutic skills, with emphasis on awareness of the body as I apply highly effective 2600-years-old Buddhist meditation techniques. These in turn are brought into my training as a Western-trained psychotherapist, using modern evidenced-based psychotherapeutic tools, including such modalities as Somatic Experiencing and Internal Family Systems Therapy.
In my professional experience in the field, I have helped people from different ethnic backgrounds, religious beliefs, as well as various age ranges. I have been particularly moved in my work by the elderly population; people with far more experience in life than I, where I was given access to hear their pain and was privileged with their trust in me, despite being much younger in age. Owing to these experiences, I am very comfortable being around patients of different ages, because to me working with elderly individuals, although at first seemed intimidating, nevertheless provided me with the greatest of rewards.
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My name is Narine Jallatyan. I have a Masters Degree in Psychology from the University of the West, and a second Masters in Comparative Literature from UCLA. I have travelled extensively around the world, and being born overseas, I speak multiple languages in addition to English, including Armenian and Russian.
