Selena Saad

Selena Saad (she/her) is a clinical psychology doctoral candidate at Palo Alto University with an emphasis in Diversity and Community Mental Health. She completed her undergraduate education at UC Santa Barbara with a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology with a Minor in Black Studies, and she received her Masters of Science in Clinical Psychology at Palo Alto University. She is homegrown in the Bay Area, born and raised in foggy San Francisco to a family of immigrants from the Middle East and West Africa. She has a range of experiences providing comprehensive cultural and trauma-informed therapeutic and psychodiagnostic assessment services in community clinics and schools with adults, teens, and young children of all cultural, gender, and sexual identities.

Selena understands the significance of incorporating a respect and understanding for individual lived experiences in the context of cultural identity, community, and society into therapeutic work and psychological testing. She has utilized this understanding when working with clients with different presenting problems, such as PTSD, major depression, anxiety, and more. She has also considered these details when doing ADHD and IQ testing with adolescents, and diagnostic assessments with adults. She approaches therapy from a mix of Psychodynamic and ACT frameworks, and is trained in EMDR, exposure-based interventions, DBT interventions, and polyvagal theory.

When she’s not in the therapy office, she’s most likely spending time with family and friends, hanging out with her cat, playing board games, going for a hike, watching anime, or reading manga.