Chirsteen Badie

Licensed Clinical Social Worker Associate|Clinically Supervised

I’m a brown immigrant woman who emigrated from Egypt at age 11 and grew up in the American South during and after 9/11. I learned early what it means to navigate racism, surveillance, assimilation, and the pressure to be grateful, quiet, high achieving, and the “perfect” immigrant. Those lived experiences shape everything about how I practice. I understand immigration, and collective trauma and the resulting anxiety, rage, and depression, not as diagnoses, but as survival responses to systems rooted in colonization, violence, sexism, and exclusion.

For many BIPOC and immigrant communities, there are deep cultural nuances around how mental health is understood. Questions often arise like: Who is therapy really for? What does it say about me or my family if I seek help? Is this something we handle privately? In some communities, seeking therapy can be seen as weakness, failure, or even betrayal of cultural values. There is also the very real challenge of finding providers who are culturally responsive, multilingual, and reflective of the communities they serve. For many people, especially those from minority backgrounds, it can feel exhausting to explain racism, migration, intergenerational trauma, or cultural dynamics to someone who may not fully grasp those lived experiences. When people don’t feel seen or understood, it creates another layer of hesitation. And that hesitation makes sense. Bridging that gap requires not only increasing access, but building spaces where people feel culturally affirmed, respected, and safe enough to show up fully as themselves.

My education and work focused on macro social work with a strong social justice lens. I always knew I wanted to help people, and I believed the greatest impact would come from improving systems of care in the United States. I am passionate about policy, prevention, and structural change and for a long time, I didn’t imagine I would become a therapist, even though social workers are the largest group of mental health providers in the country. But life has a way of reshaping us. At one point, I began to feel deeply the weight of my own childhood experiences, intergenerational trauma, work-related stress, and collective immigration trauma. It surfaced in ways I couldn’t ignore. Through my own healing journey, I experienced firsthand the transformative power of having space to process, to feel, and to be seen without judgment. That experience shifted my path. Today, my systems perspective still informs my work. I understand how policy, culture, power, and history shape individual pain. But as a therapist, I also get to sit with people in the most human moments of their lives, helping them make meaning of their experiences, reconnect with their worth, and recognize that they are, and have always been, more than good enough.