Hasti Vaghani, AMFT Therapist in Los Angeles
For the people navigating who they were raised to be and who they actually want to become.
About Your South Asian Therapist in Los Angeles
Hi, I'm Hasti Vaghani. I'm a South Asian therapist in Los Angeles working from a psychodynamic and person-centered approach, which means we don't just talk about what's happening. We explore why it keeps happening, and what it was originally protecting you from.
I believe healing is not something that happens to you, it's something we build together, intentionally. My goal is that you never leave our sessions feeling unheard or alone in what you're carrying.
Holistic Therapy Services in California
Couples Therapy Los Angeles
Focus: Working through communication breakdowns, emotional disconnection, cultural misalignment, and the patterns that keep couples stuck in the same cycles.
Tools: Gottman-Informed Couples Therapy, Relational Psychodynamic Work
Intergenerational Trauma
Focus: Understanding how family history, cultural pressure, and inherited emotional patterns continue shaping your relationships, your self-worth, and how you move through the world today.
Tools: Psychodynamic Therapy, Somatic Exploration (ACT)
South Asian Identity & Dual Identity
Focus: Navigating the space between South Asian family expectations and your own emerging sense of self without having to choose one identity over the other.
Tools: Person-Centered Therapy, Cultural Attunement
Perfectionism & Self-Worth
Focus: For the high-achievers who have spent years earning love and safety through performance and are exhausted by it. We work toward a self-worth that does not depend on productivity.
Tools: Psychodynamic Therapy, Somatic Awareness
Relationship therapy
Focus: Exploring the relational dynamics, attachment wounds, and emotional patterns that shape how you connect or disconnect in relationships.
Tools: Gottman Methods, Relational & Attachment-Informed Work
Somatic & Body-Based Work
Focus: Bringing awareness to how emotional patterns live in the body, not just the mind, so healing is not purely cognitive, but felt.
Tools: Somatic Exploration, Person-Centered Framework
In-Person & Virtual Therapy in
Los Angeles
Hasti offers in-person therapy at Shakti’s offices in Culver City and Torrance, and secure virtual sessions for clients across California.
Culver City
In-person therapy
Serving West LA, Mar Vista, Santa Monica
Torrance
In-person therapy
Serving South Bay. Torrance, Manhattan Beach
Virtual Sessions • All of California
Secure, HIPAA-compliant telehealth for clients statewide
Many of my clients have spent years being the person everyone else leans on. By the time they find their way here, they are not looking for someone to tell them they are strong. They already know that and they are looking for a place where they are finally allowed to be tired.
Hasti Vaghani, AMFT
A Personal Message to My Clients
A Note to the Person Who's Been Fine for Too Long
There is a specific kind of exhaustion that comes from being the one in your family who holds it together. Who translates, not just language, but emotion. Who knows that bringing up what you’re actually feeling at the dinner table is not worth what it costs. Who has learned, very early, that love in your family often came with conditions: performance, sacrifice, not making things harder for everyone else.
If you grew up South Asian in America, you probably know exactly what I mean and can benefit from a South Asian therapist Los Angeles.
You know what it feels like to navigate Diwali when there is tension in your marriage that no one is naming. To sit across from your parents and sense the weight of everything they gave up, and feel guilty for wanting something different. To love your family deeply and still feel like you can’t fully be yourself inside of it.
I don’t need you to explain any of that to me.
I am South Asian. I grew up navigating the same dual world where two sets of expectations lived inside one life, and where the distance between who you were raised to be and who you actually are could feel enormous and private and exhausting to carry alone.
This is not a space where you’ll spend your sessions translating your culture so your therapist can understand it. You won’t have to justify why you can’t just set a boundary with your mom, or explain why leaving the marriage feels more complicated than anyone outside the community would understand.
We can start from where things actually are.
My work is relational and psychodynamic, which means we don’t just look at what’s happening on the surface. We look at where these patterns came from, what you had to become in order to survive, belong, or earn love in your family, and what it might look like to stop organizing your life around that.
Healing does not mean abandoning your culture or your family. It means finally having enough internal ground to stand on that you can choose, consciously, what you carry forward and what you’re allowed to put down.
Credentials & Education
- Associate Marriage & Family Therapist (AMFT #163699), California BBS
- Psychodynamic Therapy · Person-Centered Therapy · Gottman-Informed Couples Therapy · South Asian Mental Health
- Languages spoken: English · Hindi · Gujarati
- Master of Arts, Marriage & Family Therapy — Pepperdine University
Ready to Begin?
Therapy is not about having the right words for what you're carrying. It's about finally having a place to set it down.
Meet The Experts
Behind Your Breakthrough
Diverse, Multilingual, and Highly Specialized.
We are a collective of clinical experts, not generalists. With over 11,000+ sessions guided and 6,000 lives impacted, our team blends ancient wisdom with modern science to help you heal.
Whether you need a deep dive into trauma, cultural alignment, or a strategic partner for burnout, we have a specialist matched to your specific nervous system.
Don’t settle for “just talking.” Work with a team that drives results.
Ektha Aggarwal, LCSW Founder
George Alexander, LPCC Lead Therapist
Dipika Bisht, AMFT
Miranda Ordoñez, APCC
Hasti Vaghani, AMFT
Dr. Matthew Torrington
Nysa Lilani, UCLA Clinical Intern
Charlotte Sargent, AMFT
Frequently Asked Questions
We've answered some common questions to help you feel more confident about taking the first step.
Is there a Gujarati-speaking therapist in Los Angeles?
Yes. Hasti Vaghani is one of the few therapists in Los Angeles offering therapy in Gujarati. As a South Asian therapist Los Angeles, Hasti works with individuals and couples in English, Hindi, and Gujarati, and understands the cultural context that comes with each, not just the language. If you have been putting off therapy because you weren't sure you could find someone who would understand your background without a lengthy explanation, that barrier does not exist here.
Can I do couples therapy in Hindi?
Yes. Hasti offers couples therapy in English, Hindi, and Gujarati as a South Asian therapist Culver City. Sessions can be conducted entirely in one language or move fluidly between them, whatever allows both partners to express themselves most honestly. For many South Asian couples, being able to say something in Hindi or Gujarati is not just a preference. Some things do not translate. You don't have to make them.
What is intergenerational trauma therapy?
Intergenerational trauma refers to the emotional patterns, survival strategies, and relational dynamics that get passed down through families, often without anyone naming them as such. It is the anxiety your parents carried that you absorbed before you had words for it. The way love in your family was expressed through sacrifice or silence or achievement rather than through direct emotional attunement. The rules about what you were and weren’t allowed to feel.
As a South Asian therapist Culver City, in therapy, we look at how those inherited patterns are shaping your relationships, your self-worth, and how you move through the world today, and we work toward something different. Not erasing where you came from, but no longer being unconsciously run by it.
Do you take insurance?
Shakti Therapy operates as an out-of-network provider. We do not bill insurance directly, but we provide a monthly Superbill you can submit to your PPO insurance plan (such as Aetna, Cigna, or Blue Cross Blue Shield) for potential reimbursement. We also accept HSA and FSA cards. If you are unsure whether your plan covers out-of-network mental health services, we recommend calling the member services number on the back of your insurance card and asking about your out-of-network benefits before your first session.
What is psychodynamic therapy?
Psychodynamic therapy is an approach that looks beneath the surface at the patterns, defenses, and relational dynamics that developed early in life and continue shaping how you think, feel, and connect today. Rather than focusing only on managing current symptoms, psychodynamic work asks why those symptoms developed in the first place and what they were originally protecting you from.
In practice, this means we pay attention not just to what you say, but to what keeps recurring in your relationships, in your internal experience, in the way you show up when things feel threatening. The goal is not insight alone. It is insight that eventually becomes felt, embodied, and lived differently.
