The performance has been flawless.
The calendar is full. The life is built.
Something offstage has been waiting to speak.
Therapy for anxiety, burnout, trauma, OCD—and the weight of being the bridge between two worlds. For South Asian and East Asian families, immigrants, young adults, and anyone caught between who they are and who they’re expected to be. Available in Palo Alto and across California.
When you are ready, this is where to begin.
We respond within 48 hours.Â
Moitreyee Chowdhury
LMFT . LPCC . Founder
“Every inquiry is answered by a real person.”
 LMFT & LPCC Licensed . EMDR. CBT. DBT. Family systems . English · Hindi · Bengali . In-Person Palo Alto . Telehealth California . CAMFT Member
Who Finds Their Way Here
The people who come to Leela have been fluent in every room but one.
This practice was built around a specific kind of story. The one where everything looks fine from the outside. The one where the weight is real but hard to name. The one where being understood has always required a little too much explanation first.
If that is your story — or something close to it — you are in the right place. All backgrounds, cultures, genders, and identities are welcome here.
High-Achievers · Tech Professionals · The Bay Area
The burnout that lives underneath a life that looks, from every angle, completely fine.
The anxiety here is not the dramatic kind. It runs quietly underneath competence — the hypervigilance that never fully switches off, the burnout that doesn’t look like burnout because the work is still getting done. You’ve been performing this version of yourself for so long that stopping feels more dangerous than continuing. Something has been accumulating. You already know that. That is why you are here.
South Asian · East Asian · Desi · Immigrant · Collectivist Families
The weight your parents carried, and what it cost you to inherit it.
Leela Mental Health was founded by a South Asian therapist who holds the particular story of South Asian and East Asian families in the Bay Area — where the self has long been understood in relation to the family, the ancestors, the collective. The honor that cannot be questioned. The grief of a migration that was supposed to be only a gain. The cost of being the one who holds it together across two countries and three generations. You do not have to explain any of this here. It arrives already understood.
College Students · Young Adults · Emerging Professionals
Growing up between cultures, between expectations, between selves.
If any part of this named something you have been carrying without quite being able to say it — that is a beginning.
What Brings People to Leela
Anxiety & Burnout
The kind that lives underneath a life that looks completely fine. The hypervigilance. The inability to rest. The feeling that stopping means failing.
Trauma & EMDR
For experiences that left a mark the world expected you to walk away from. EMDR works at the level where memory is stored—not just recounted.
OCD & Rumination
The thoughts that loop. The rituals that promised relief. The exhaustion of trying to think your way out of something that isn’t about thinking.
ADHD & Focus
For people who were told they weren’t trying hard enough—when the truth was the world wasn’t built for how their brain works.
Fertility & Grief
The emotional labor of fertility treatment rarely gets space. This is that space—without timelines, without expectations that you hold it together.
Family & Culture
Navigating two sets of expectations. Two cultures. Two definitions of who you’re supposed to become. The work is building something entirely your own.
A room built for the stories that needed more space.
The name comes from Sanskrit: leela — life as enacted authorship. Not something that happens to you. Something you write, moment by moment, from exactly where you are standing
Moitreyee Chowdhury founded Leela Mental Health in Palo Alto because she saw what happens when those stories have nowhere to go: they compress. They surface sideways. They wait.
She trained as a fine artist in Delhi, moved through stage design and puppetry across Germany and California, taught therapy at Palo Alto University, and built wellness programs for communities mainstream care had not reached. Her poetry and art have always turned toward the immigrant journey — toward what gets said sideways when it can’t be said directly. That background informs every session.
Her approach is shaped by the client in front of her — drawing on EMDR, CBT, and DBT as the work calls for them, and always through the lens of cultural context.
Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT 121934) · Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor (LPCC 9238) · EMDR Trained · Sessions in English, Hindi, and Bengali.Â
Therapy here is not about being fixed. It is about having enough room — finally — to find out what you actually think, and what comes next.
What makes this practice different is not a list of features. It is a set of reasons.
Clinically Rigorous
Anxiety, trauma, burnout, OCD, ADHD, fertility-related distress, intergenerational patterns, identity — each calls for a different instrument. Leela Mental Health uses EMDR, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Dialectical Behavior Therapy, and Family Systems approaches. The modality is chosen for the person and the moment. Not assigned in advance.
The whole story is held here.
Model minority expectations. The honor that cannot be questioned. Immigration grief. Intergenerational silence — what was passed down, what was never named, what arrived in the body before it had language. The experience of being queer or gender-diverse inside a family or culture that has not yet caught up. South Asian and East Asian cultures are not monolithic, and no assumption is made about your specific experience. Every story that walks through this door is met with curiosity, not assumption.
In the language it happened in.
Many clients who come to Leela carry things that took shape in a specific cultural and emotional language — one that doesn’t always translate directly. The context. The family dynamics. The grief that arrived before there were words for it. Hindi and Bengali are available when they’re needed. What is always available is a room where the whole story fits.
Care that isn’t rushed.
Leela Mental Health is in-network with Lyra and Wellfleet SHIP, and provides superbills for out-of-network reimbursement — with plans to expand insurance access as the practice grows. A careful caseload. Thoughtful availability. A practice where every client is actually known. The work here is specific to you, and it is not hurried.
The questions people ask before they let themselves reach out.
Do you work with anxiety and burnout?
Leela Mental Health offers therapy for anxiety and burnout in Palo Alto and via telehealth across California, using EMDR, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and Dialectical Behavior Therapy — each chosen for the person and the moment.
Do you work with trauma — including intergenerational and immigration trauma?
EMDR — Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing — is an evidence-based trauma therapy designed to work directly with how the nervous system holds these experiences. It reaches what talking alone sometimes cannot. Leela Mental Health offers EMDR therapy in Palo Alto and across California for trauma, intergenerational trauma, immigration trauma, and acculturation stress.
Do you work with OCD, ADHD, or fertility-related stress?
Are you a South Asian therapist — and do you offer therapy in Hindi or Bengali?
Therapy is available in English, Hindi, and Bengali. For some clients this matters deeply — there are things that surface more naturally in a first language, feelings formed in a register that does not fully translate into English. For others, English is entirely comfortable, and what matters is that the cultural context is already understood without needing to be explained. South Asian and Asian cultures are not monolithic. No assumption is made about your specific story. The commitment is to arrive at it with genuine curiosity — so you can spend your time in therapy, not providing context for it.
Do you accept insurance — and what about Medicare?
Leela Mental Health is an opted-out provider for Medicare. The practice is not contracted with Medicare, and Medicare will not reimburse you for sessions here. If you are a Medicare beneficiary and would like to work together, a private contract is required before services begin. If you are unsure whether any of this applies to you, reach out — there is no wrong question to ask before the first conversation.
Do you offer telehealth therapy in California?
How do I get started?
Fill out the form on this page or email information@leelamentalhealth.com. Every inquiry is answered within 48 hours. No paperwork before the call. No commitment after it. If Leela Mental Health is not the right fit, every effort will be made to point you toward something that is.
Ready When You Are
This is your scene. You get to write what comes next.
Good Faith Estimate: If you are paying out of pocket or not using insurance, you have the right to a written Good Faith Estimate before your first session. Read the full notice âžž
988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline
Free, confidential 24/7 support for people in distress. Call or text — they will answer.
Crisis Text Line
Free 24/7 text-based crisis support from a trained counselor.
Emergency Services
If you or someone else is in immediate danger, please call 911 or go to your nearest emergency room.
This is your scene. You get to write what comes next.
Bay Area: Bay Area cities (San Francisco, San Jose, Oakland etc.)
Southern California: Los Angeles · San Diego · Irvine · Central Valley & Beyond: Available statewide via telehealth
© 2026 Leela Mental Health, Family Therapy Corporation. All rights reserved. Therapy services are provided within California only, by licensed mental health professionals or by registered associates under licensed supervision. This practice is for ongoing, scheduled care — not crisis response. If you are in immediate distress, please call or text 988 or call 911. You do not have to be alone in it.