Sharing my story with VoyageLA

Maryam Obeyd
Nov 13
3 min read

Today we’d like to introduce you to Maryam Obeyd. Click here and read below:

Hi Maryam, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?

I’m a first-generation American and daughter of a former refugee from Kurdistan and an immigrant from Iran. Growing up, me and my family’s political and migration experiences brought changes and losses that were too big for me to understand fully as a kid. As I grew into an adult, I began to grasp the depth of grief and how it influenced me, my family, and communities. This became a big part of my journey into pursuing mental health and walking alongside people who hold multiple identities, carry layered histories, and straddle experiences that traverse what I was learning about in traditional psychology.

In my education I began pursuing journalism and have always had a passion for writing, truth seeking, and storytelling. But, while I was in my undergraduate program, I took a course on philosophy, character development, and psychology that changed my direction. I changed my major to human services and psychology, and found my footing studying how to become a therapist.

I’m grateful for the community of therapists and healers that share experiences that are also multifaceted. Deep empathy and compassion can grow in these places of complexity, fortunately, and they’ve become the heart of my work today.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?

I would not say it has been a smooth ride, though it’s been full of depth, growth, community, and relational support. My passion for deeper healing matured through my own growing pains and the guidance of healers of all facets that I met along the way. As a teenager, and as a form of coping through various pressures and grief, I developed depression and received treatment for it. While that care saved my life, much of it was culturally out of sync for me and my family. Over time, I found my path towards resilience, community, healing, and meaning, with deep gratitude for those who supported me and the people that came before me, sharing their own stories. In the healing and mental health fields, I met many other first and second generation, diaspora, immigrant, minority, and LGBTQIA+ communities. Those connections felt like a homecoming. It’s a reminder that healing is communal, not solitary.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?

I’m a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist that specializes in sex therapy, relationship conflict, depression and anxiety, ADHD and neurodivergent care, intergenerational trauma, and trauma-related challenges for individuals, couples, and families. Many of the people I work with come to therapy feeling disconnected from deeper aspects of themselves, stuck in particular problem-based patterns, or uncertain about what they want in their relationships and lives.

My approach integrates both evidence-based therapy and expressive forms of creativity and culture—through poetry and writing, play and creativity, your own cultural practices as relevant, painting and doodling, singing, and ritual, as pathways to reclaim your voice and take action towards what feels most alive and meaningful personally and communally. I’m a poet and writer at heart, and love learning from fellow artists about creative expression and sharing that in community.

At the core of my practice is relationship: I work from a cultural-relational lens, meaning the cultural contexts and relationships that influence you historically and currently are integrated into how we work together. My intention is to offer a space where you are seen, understood, and empowered to live more fully, genuinely, and meaningfully.

I’m also an active member of AASECT (The American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors and Therapists), AMENA-PSY (American Arab, “Middle Eastern,” and North African Psychological Association), SWANA Therapist Collective (Southwest Asian North African), and the Kurdish Community of Southern California (KCSC).

In terms of your work and the industry, what are some of the changes you are expecting to see over the next five to ten years?

I see a growing movement to integrate social and political contexts into psychology; to recognize that our emotional lives don’t exist in isolation from the systems around us. Just as early attachment experiences shape our patterns internally and in relationships, so do our interactions within systemic contexts and how such contexts influence our familial experiences, for example. I think the next decade will bring more community-rooted, creative, and culturally responsive approaches to therapy—and I hope to continue contributing to that through my therapeutic work and writing.

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