Saba Harouni Lurie

What It’s Like to Be in Therapy with Me

You’ve done everything right. Built the career, hit the milestones, and kept it together even when keeping it together took everything you had. From the outside, your life looks like success. From the inside, it can feel like loneliness, like pressure with no off switch, like you’re always one step behind some version of yourself you’re supposed to become.

If you’re a high achiever who’s never quite been able to rest in who you are, this might sound familiar.

Maybe you were the kid who had to grow up too fast, the “parentified child,” the one who held things together for everyone else. Maybe love in your family came with conditions: achieve, perform, don’t make waves. Maybe you’re a child of immigrants, straddling two worlds and never fully at home in either. Maybe you’re BIPOC, LGBTQ+, or queer, and you know what it means to move through spaces that weren’t built for you. Maybe you’re a first-generation American carrying the weight of your family’s sacrifices alongside your own dreams. Maybe you’re building a business and pouring everything into it, while quietly wondering if you are okay.

What I know is this: when you learn early that your worth is tied to what you produce, achievement becomes survival. And no amount of external success can fill that hole. The work we’ll do together is about changing that, so you can finally feel at home in yourself.

I know this because I’ve lived it. Growing up as a first-generation Iranian American and bisexual woman, I learned what it meant to straddle cultures, to be an outsider, and to believe I wasn’t enough. I’ve done my own deep work in therapy. Learning how to parent myself when I wasn’t parented, which means extending compassion to myself, not just pushing harder, changed my life. That’s what I want to help you with.

How I Work

I’m soft-spoken and warm, and I take your pain seriously. I’m also direct when you need it and I’m definitely not a smile-and-nod therapist. I’ll sit with you, and we’ll look at things together. I have a dry sense of humor, and I believe that finding lightness and laughter, even in the hardest moments, can be part of healing.

Most importantly: I will help you learn to be on your own side.

Self-compassion isn’t a soft concept. It’s one of the hardest and most transformative things we can practice, especially for those of us who were never modeled it. In therapy you won’t bypass what’s hard, but meet it with more gentleness than you’ve ever allowed yourself.

We’ll start by making sense of how you got here: how the patterns you developed to survive may be the same ones keeping you stuck today. Then we’ll work on actively creating change, so you can feel more connected to yourself, more aligned with who you actually are instead of who you had to be. I’ll be your biggest cheerleader. I’ll also hold up the mirror when you need it.

Who I Work With

I specialize in working with:

• High achievers and perfectionists who are successful by every external measure, yet still feel like it’s never enough
• BIPOC and first-generation individuals navigating identity, family expectations, cultural pressure, and belonging
• LGBTQ+ and queer individuals, especially those who’ve experienced marginalization, internalized shame, or the quiet grief of not being fully seen
• Children of immigrants who carry both pride and the complexity of being caught between worlds
• Small business owners and entrepreneurs managing the particular emotional weight of building something while staying afloat themselves
• People healing from trauma, including complex trauma, emotional neglect, parentification, and sexual trauma

I work with individuals and, when we’re a good fit, couples.

My Training & Tools

My foundation is psychodynamic and client-centered therapy, meaning we explore how your past shaped who you are today, while keeping the focus on you, your experience, and what you actually need. I’m trained in EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing), which is particularly effective for trauma, including complex and relational trauma. I’m also trained in Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) for both individuals and couples.

I’m also a trained and board-certified art therapist. This doesn’t mean you need to be an artist, or creative, or have any relationship with art at all to work together. (Though if you are an artist or creative, I love working with you too.) What it means is that I have another way in. Words are powerful, but they can also be the story we’ve rehearsed. The one we’ve told so many times it’s become a script. Art gives us a different kind of access. It can open a window into the subconscious, surfacing feelings, images, and truths that our carefully practiced narrative might be keeping just out of reach. We use art and images when it’s useful, and only when it feels right for you.

I approach every client with genuine curiosity. You are the only expert on your own experience, and I want to understand what it’s like to see the world through your eyes, including how your family, culture, and community have shaped you, both the parts that lifted you up and the parts that may have cost you something.

The work is real. Coming to therapy weekly and facing things you’ve been carrying for years isn’t easy. But my goal is always for you to leave each session intact. We will go at your pace, and you will have me in your corner for every step.

Education & Background

• B.S. in Psychology, Minor in Gender Studies, UC Berkeley
• M.A. in Marriage and Family Therapy, specializing in Art Therapy, Loyola Marymount University
• Trained in EMDR and Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT)
• Faculty, LMU’s Marriage and Family Therapy Program
• Former President, Southern California Art Therapy Association
• Clinical experience across private practice, intensive outpatient, residential, non-profit, and crisis settings
• Founder, Take Root Therapy

A Little More About Me

I became a therapist because of my own experiences, in therapy as a teenager, and again as an adult. Growing up first-generation, Iranian American, and queer came with its own particular challenges that required a lot of self-reflection and a lot of unlearning. I know what it’s like to feel like an outsider, to hold competing identities, and to tie your worth to your performance.

I am honored to do this work. And I genuinely believe in you, in the process, and in the possibility that you can come to know, in your bones, that you are enough.

On a more personal note, I am a parent and partner, and I love animals, plants, television, movies, and books. I have always been drawn to stories in whatever form they take, and the way they let us step into lives and experiences beyond our own. As a teen, a mentor gave me the title “hugger of the world and embracer of its eccentricities,” and it was one of my proudest moments.

My Specialties