Dr. Ashwini Govinda

Dr. Ashwini Govinda is a trauma-informed psychologist with nine years of clinical experience. Her work centres on reconnecting individuals with their emotional world, fostering self-compassion, and interrupting cycles of intergenerational trauma. She holds an MSc in Clinical Psychology from Manipal Academy of Higher Education and a PhD in Psychology from CHRIST (Deemed to be University), where her doctoral research on childhood trauma, reparenting, and parenting was granted two copyrights by the Government of India. Ashwini has completed Level 1 training in Emotion-Focused Therapy (EFT) and Emotion-Focused Therapy for Couples (EFT-C) through the Emotion-Focused Therapy Institute India (accredited by isEFT), and earlier trained in Cognitive Behaviour Therapy at the Beck Institute (USA) and Swati Institute (Pune). Alongside her clinical work, she teaches undergraduate and postgraduate psychology students at CHRIST University. 

Her passion lies in bringing trauma-informed awareness to therapy, parenting, and education, and in creating mental-health awareness through illustrations and visual storytelling. Her advocacy includes written contributions to Indian News Media, Talk Shows in Radio Mirchi 98.3 FM segments, and a TEDx talk, which highlighted how trauma-informed and compassionate approaches can transform parenting and intergenerational healing. Her work across therapy, research, teaching, and illustration reflects her belief that every story deserves to be met with safety and clarity.

What to expect in therapy with Ashwini?

Ashwini uses empathic attunement, active, and non-judgmental listening to build a collaborative therapeutic path with her clients. She views therapy work as shared navigation: therapist and client walking alongside, clearing the path together. She practices walking along with her clients to explore childhood experiences, relational patterns, and emotional wounds that may be shaping their present challenges.

Her sessions may include mapping childhood and relational patterns, emotion-focused processes, inner-child dialogues, grounding and nervous-system regulation practices, or guided visualisations, always paced to the client’s sense of agency and safety. Sessions are experiential, reflective, and tailored to each person’s narrative and lived experiences. This approach supports clients in accessing unprocessed emotions and developing self-trust and compassion in their healing journey. For couples, she facilitates emotion-centred processes that help partners soften defensive patterns, express unmet needs, and repair attachment injuries. Across all work, her aim is to facilitate processes for clients to build resilience, self-trust, and emotional clarity, focusing on sustainable and long-term healing and growth.

What is Ashwini's approach in therapy?

Ashwini’s practice is rooted in a trauma-informed lens; every modality begins with safety, nervous-system awareness, and deep respect for lived experience. She draws from Emotion-Focused Therapy (EFT), including emotion awareness, two-chair processes, and attachment repair, as well as EFT for Couples, which guides partners toward secure, emotionally attuned connections.

Her work is also guided by Rogerian principles of empathy, unconditional positive regard, and authenticity, ensuring a supportive and collaborative therapeutic relationship. She also integrates existential perspectives to support individuals and couples in finding meaning, choice, and agency while honouring the cultural contexts that shape identity, relationships, and healing. Her approach is trauma-informed first, anchored in empathy, nervous-system attunement, and respect for lived experience.

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