Anxiety therapy in Palo Alto for the life that looks fine from the outside.
What Brings People Here
You are not anxious because
something went wrong.
You are anxious because of how much you are holding.
01
The mind that will not stop reviewing
Intrusive worry · Rumination
A conversation from four days ago, replayed at 1 AM with the volume turned up. What you should have said. Whether anyone noticed the thing you cannot quite name. The reviewing does not arrive anywhere. It just keeps going.
02
Calm on the surface, depleted underneath
High-Functioning Anxiety
You hold the room. Reliable, prepared, the one people count on. By the time you get home there is sometimes very little left, and from the outside, nobody would guess.
03
Guilt with no clear object
Chronic Guilt · Perfectionism
A diffuse guilt, less about one specific thing and more a hum underneath everything: not grateful enough, not present enough, not quite there even when you technically are. It showed up before you had language for it and has not fully left since.
04
Decisions that feel frozen
Anxiety · Avoidance
A career question. Whether to move closer to family or put real distance between you. Every option disappoints someone whose opinion still matters more than you would like. So you stay exactly where you are, and staying has its own cost, even when it is a quiet one.
05
A body that stays on alert
Somatic Anxiety
Jaw tight before you have noticed it is tight. Shoulders that do not drop. A stomach that knows something before the rest of you catches up. The body has been braced this long, even in rooms that are genuinely safe.
06
Anxiety that crossed borders with you
Immigration · Intergenerational Stress
First generation. 1.5 generation. The child of immigrants who has never left at all. Each position carries its own particular weight, the grief of being in-between, the constant work of translating, the pressure of being proof it was worth it. For a lot of clients, this carries most of the weight.
The Team
The people you’d be working with.
Leela was started because the existing options kept asking South Asian and immigrant clients to explain themselves before the real work could begin. Every clinician receives ongoing training and consultation in the communities we serve.
Moitreyee Chowdhury
LMFT #121934 · LPCC #9238 · EMDR Trained
Couples · Individual · Family · Trauma
Moitreyee started Leela after years of watching South Asian and immigrant couples get asked to explain themselves before anyone actually listened. Her couples work draws on CBT, DBT, Family Systems, and trauma-focused approaches, but it always begins with what each person walked in already carrying. She studied fine arts in Delhi, built and fabricated puppets for stage productions in Germany, and has practiced in California for over two decades. She is also a published poet. Sessions in English, Hindi, and Bengali.
“Anxiety therapy that does not require you to explain your whole background first.”
Clinical Methods
Evidence-based approaches,
chosen for the person actually in front of us
Leela Mental Health uses four primary modalities for anxiety work. Which approach leads depends on what is driving the anxiety, how long it has been present, and what the client needs to do first.
CBT
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
CBT examines the relationship between what you are thinking and the anxiety that follows. If perfectionism, fear of disappointing people, or constant self-monitoring is part of the picture, CBT makes that loop visible enough to interrupt. We adapt it to work alongside your values and cultural frame.
DBT
Dialectical Behavior Therapy
DBT offers specific, usable skills for the moments when anxiety is largest, when the feeling is too big and there is little room left to think clearly. Many clients live in the gap between what is culturally expected of them and what is emotionally honest. DBT widens that gap into something you can actually move inside.
EMDR
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing
EMDR is for anxiety with a history behind it, something that happened and was never fully processed, so the nervous system is still responding to it years later. Childhood academic pressure. Early loss. Discrimination. Immigration itself. Relational ruptures that never closed. Moitreyee is EMDR Trained. This is usually the approach when talking alone has not reached it.
Family Systems
Family Systems Work
For many clients, the anxiety is not only individual. It lives in inherited roles, in unspoken rules about who is allowed to need things, in patterns nobody chose but everybody has carried for decades anyway. This work makes those structures visible, without turning it into an indictment of the family. The goal is understanding what was handed to you, so you can decide, on purpose, what you actually want to keep carrying.
Who Comes to Leela
Anxiety at different
chapters of life.
Leela Mental Health offers anxiety therapy to adults, young adults, and teens. The pressures differ at each stage. What does not change is the approach, attentive, clinically rigorous, and beginning from cultural fluency.
Carrying visible success and private weight
The professional track is established, or nearly. Everything on the outside registers as fine. Inside, there is a background hum that has been present so long it feels like temperament. Leela works with adults who function, who deliver, who show up, and who have recognized that functioning is not the same as living without constant dread.
When achievement and anxiety become the same thing
Academic performance, social belonging, family reputation, and personal identity, for many teenagers, especially in high-pressure Bay Area school environments, these converge into a pressure with no visible exit. Leela takes that pressure seriously, not as adolescent drama but as real weight in a genuinely demanding context.
Between the plan and what is actually happening
The plan was clear. The execution is harder than expected, and the gap between the two is where anxiety lives. For young adults navigating the distance between family expectation and personal becoming, therapy at Leela is a space to name that tension without having to resolve it before you are ready.
Why Leela
A starting point built with care, not a finished answer.
We are not going to tell you we are the right fit for everyone, because we are not. What we can tell you is what we actually do: clinically rigorous methods, chosen for the person in front of us, by people who carry some of this weight themselves. The rest gets figured out together, in the room.
01
Cultural fluency is something we keep working at, not something we claim to have finished.
No one therapist can fully understand every version of the South Asian, East Asian, or any other culture specific experience. The differences are real even within one community, let alone across three. What Leela offers instead is a starting point built by people who carry pieces of that weight themselves: the immigration story, what the family expected, the pressure of being the one who made it. You still will not need to explain the basics from scratch. But we are not claiming we already know your particular story. We are listening for it.
02
Clinically rigorous methods — CBT, DBT, EMDR, Family Systems.
We use Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Dialectical Behavior Therapy, EMDR, and Family Systems work, each chosen for the specific pattern you are carrying rather than handed out as a standard package.
03
English, Hindi, and Bengali now, building toward Spanish-language care.
For clients who have spent years finding clinical language in a language that is not the one they actually think or feel in, working in your own language is not a minor convenience. It changes what you are able to say. We currently offer English, Hindi, and Bengali, and we are building toward Spanish-language care for our Latine community. If you want to work in Hindi or Bengali, say so when you reach out. We will make it happen.
What people ask before reaching out.
I have been managing my anxiety for years. Why would therapy be any different now?
Managing anxiety and understanding what drives it are different activities. Many people develop effective strategies, routines, control, performance, productivity, that contain anxiety well enough until a life change narrows their capacity. Leela Mental Health works with clients who have been functioning successfully for years and have arrived at a point where functioning is no longer the same as feeling intact. Anxiety therapy at Leela Mental Health goes beyond symptom management. Our clinicians, including founder Moitreyee Chowdhury, LMFT and LPCC, work to understand the pattern underneath: what shaped it, what sustains it, and what is needed to relate to it differently. Clients seeking anxiety therapy in Palo Alto or across California by telehealth are welcome to schedule a fifteen-minute consultation before committing to anything.
What kind of therapy does Leela Mental Health offer?
Will I have to spend sessions explaining my cultural background?
No. Leela Mental Health was founded for South Asian, East Asian, Latine, and multicultural clients in the Bay Area and across California. The practice operates from the understanding that immigration history, generational expectation, family loyalty, and cultural identity are often central to a client’s anxiety, not background information a client needs to supply. Sessions are currently available in English, Hindi, and Bengali, and we are building toward Spanish-language care. A therapist who speaks your language and also holds real clinical depth in anxiety work is genuinely rare. That is the specific gap Leela was built to fill.
What kind of anxiety does Leela Mental Health work with?
Leela Mental Health works with generalized anxiety, social anxiety, perfectionism, high-functioning anxiety, panic, and anxiety connected to life transitions, relational stress, and intergenerational pressure. Our clinicians do not rely on a single method for every anxiety presentation. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy addresses thought patterns and their behavioral consequences. Dialectical Behavior Therapy offers specific skills for emotional regulation. Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing with founder Moitreyee Chowdhury, who is EMDR Trained, is used where anxiety has roots in unprocessed experience. Family Systems work addresses anxiety that lives in inherited roles and relational patterns. Leela Mental Health offers anxiety therapy in Palo Alto and by telehealth throughout California, including the Bay Area, Los Angeles, and San Diego.
I'm not sure my anxiety is serious enough. Do I qualify?
There is no minimum threshold of distress required to begin therapy. Leela Mental Health works with clients who are, by most external measures, doing well, holding demanding jobs, maintaining relationships, meeting expectations, and who have a private, persistent recognition that the way they are carrying their lives is exhausting, or unsustainable, or not honest. Anxiety does not have to be debilitating to warrant clinical attention. Many South Asian, East Asian, and immigrant, high functioning clients at Leela have delayed seeking therapy specifically because their anxiety was invisible from the outside. The most useful question is not whether your anxiety qualifies. It is whether understanding it matters to you. A free fifteen-minute consultation with our team is available by calling (650) 206-9448.
Does Leela offer telehealth anxiety therapy across California?
What does anxiety therapy cost? Does insurance cover it?
Leela Mental Health is an out-of-network practice, meaning the practice does not bill insurance companies directly. Clients who have PPO insurance plans may be eligible to submit a superbill, a detailed receipt, to their insurer for possible partial reimbursement. The amount reimbursed, if any, depends entirely on your individual plan’s out-of-network benefits. Leela Mental Health encourages clients to verify their out-of-network benefits directly with their insurer before the first session; the practice cannot confirm coverage or reimbursement rates on a client’s behalf. Leela Mental Health is in-network with Lyra Health EAP and accepts Cardinal Care administered by Wellfleet. Self-pay clients have the right to a written Good Faith Estimate before the first session. Full fee information is available on the Fees page.
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 ➞
Something in this has been
waiting for a room where
it can be said plainly.
When you are ready, this is where to begin.
We respond within 48 hours.