Ashti Mistry
MSW, LICSW · Founder & Clinical Director
Ashti helps adults through pregnancy and new parenthood, anxiety, depression, grief and loss, and the life transitions that ask us to reconfigure who we are. She brings a warm, culturally grounded, attachment-informed lens to her work — and an honest curiosity about what her clients are actually experiencing, underneath the explanations they’ve already tried.
- Perinatal & Postpartum
- Anxiety
- Relationship Stress
- Life Transitions
- Identity & Culture
- South Asian clients
About my practice
I’m a licensed independent clinical social worker (LICSW) in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, and I’ve been in practice since 2017. I started this work because I kept meeting people who were clearly struggling, who had good insight and good intentions, but who kept hitting the same walls. Often what looked like a motivation or self-discipline problem was something older and more stubborn: an attachment pattern, a painful memory that hadn’t been fully processed, a belief absorbed in childhood that had never been examined.
In our work together, you’ll have a safe, open, nonjudgmental space where you’re truly listened to and understood. I don’t believe people who are struggling need to be fixed. They need someone steady with them — and sometimes a fresh perspective that helps them see their situation in a new light.
My approach is warm and direct, without being confrontational. I’m not a blank-screen therapist — I bring my perspective, I ask honest questions, and I’ll tell you when I think the story you’re telling yourself doesn’t add up. Together we look for the patterns that keep getting in your way. I also know when to follow your lead, and I never push faster than you’re ready to go.
The goal isn’t insight for its own sake. It’s insight that actually changes something — in your relationships, your internal experience, your daily life.
I work primarily with adults navigating the perinatal period, anxiety, depression, grief and loss, relationship stress, life transitions, and identity questions that don’t have clean answers. I have a particular interest in working with BIPOC clients — a community I’m part of — and especially South Asian clients and others navigating bicultural identity and intergenerational family dynamics. If you’re pregnant or a new parent, learn more about postpartum & perinatal therapy in MA and RI, including support for South Asian and immigrant families.
Areas of specialization
Perinatal Mental Health
Trying to conceive, pregnancy, postpartum, pregnancy loss, infertility
Anxiety
CBT and mindfulness-based approaches to worry, panic, and the pressure to hold everything together
Relationship Stress
Attachment-informed work on how early relationships shape current ones — with partners, parents, and family
Life Transitions
Becoming a parent, moving between cultures, career and family changes — the seasons that ask you to reconfigure who you are
Identity & Cultural Issues
Bicultural identity, intergenerational family dynamics, immigration, first-generation experience
My approach
I draw from a range of evidence-based approaches, including cognitive-behavioral, relational, and family systems work, and I tailor them to each person rather than applying them mechanically. The research guides what I use; the relationship guides how and when. Here’s the toolkit I work from most often:
CBT
Identifying and restructuring thought patterns that maintain anxiety, depression, or distress — collaborative and skill-based
Motivational Interviewing
A collaborative, non-judgmental way of exploring mixed feelings about change — strengthening your own reasons rather than being told what to do
Compassion-Based
Softening self-criticism and shame, and building a kinder, steadier inner voice
DBT-informed
Practical skills for managing intense emotions, tolerating distress, and navigating relationships
Solution-Focused
Focusing on what’s already working and the small, concrete steps that move you toward the life you want
Attachment
Understanding how early relational experiences shape present-day patterns in relationships, emotion regulation, and self-perception
Lifespan
A developmental lens on where you are in life’s larger arc — from becoming a parent to caring for aging family
Mindfulness
Building present-moment awareness so you can notice thoughts and feelings without being swept away by them
A note on cultural humility
I’m a South Asian woman and a mother. I grew up navigating the gap between the culture I came from and the culture I was being trained to succeed in, and I know what it feels like to be asked to explain yourself in contexts where the assumptions don’t fit your experience.
I try to bring that awareness into the room with every client — not by assuming I know your experience, but by not requiring you to educate me on the basics. I’m particularly attuned to the way intergenerational dynamics, immigration histories, and model minority expectations shape mental health in ways that don’t always show up in DSM criteria.
Sessions are in English. If you’d be more comfortable in another language, please ask during your free consultation and I’ll help you find the right fit.
Meet the rest of the team
Your first point of contact for scheduling, insurance and intake questions.