Shaifali Sandhya, PhD. | Psychologist
Dr. Shaifali Sandhya is the Director of CARE Family Consultation, a boutique relational consultancy firm specializing in issues related to fragile relationships and complex family matters. She assists individuals, families, couples, and executives from different backgrounds arrive at workable goals towards holistic health, balance, and positive growth in a confidential, warm and empathic environment. She is currently a Professor of Clinical Psychology and teaches at the Adler School of Professional Psychology in Chicago.
Dr. Sandhya’s education spans three continents. She holds a PhD in Psychology as an Andrew Mellon Fellow from the University of Chicago. She also holds an M.A. from Trinity College, Cambridge University, U.K. as a Cambridge Commonwealth Scholar and Rajiv Gandhi Fellow. At Trinity College, she was a cox for Trinity’s First and Third Boat Club and during the May and Lent bumps on the river Cam, raced her crew to victory. In Michaelmas 1994, she was the first debater to open floor at the Cambridge Union Society, the oldest debating society in the world. While at Delhi University, she was one of two University toppers in Psychology and was awarded the College All-Round Excellence trophy by Dr. Manmohan Singh, the current Prime Minister of India.
Intimate relationships are never a smooth sailing even in their early honeymoon years. Whether it is a young couple facing standoffs with each other or an older couple confronting a waning intimacy, she collaborates with clients to craft an emotionally available, accessible, and authentic relationship. Dr. Sandhya is a licensed Clinical Psychologist in Chicago, IL; her psychotherapy techniques have helped individuals, couples and families successfully transition and effective cope with relationship challenges. In general, she provides psychotherapy for individuals and couples on issues such as, but not limited to: depression and anxiety, breakups, dealing with demanding personalities, building positive communication, infidelity, parenting and child, eating disorders, negotiating through an emotional divorce, and breaking the negative downward-spiraling cycles in intimate relationship.
While Dr. Sandhya is proficient and passionate about treating couples from all backgrounds, in particular, she has intimate familiarity and academic expertise on intercultural couples and issues that immigrant couples confront such as inter-generational disagreements, the complications of assimilating to a new culture, parenting your child in a culture different from your own, and issues that come up as you straddle two, often polarized worlds. A proportion of her private practice focuses on providing pro bono psychotherapy services for victims of domestic violence and children in the low-income under-served South Asian population.
In the past, Dr. Sandhya has provided psychotherapy at hospitals and health centers in Illinois such as The University of Chicago Hospitals, The Chicago Center for Family Health, The Family Institute at Northwestern University and Columbia Michael Reese Hospitals. She has presented at several academic conferences around the world. Currently, she volunteers as a steering member in the Ryan Licht Sang Bipolar Foundation, a foundation dedicated to fostering awareness, understanding and research for early-onset Bipolar Disorder.Dr. Sandhya was born in New Delhi, India but has lived in several countries. In her recent book published by Random House India, “Love will follow: Why the Indian Marriage is Burning”, Dr. Sandhya focuses on breakthrough principles in achieving success and happiness in the underexplored Indian mindspace.
Psychologist //
