Ariel Almarakeshy, MSW, ASW

---

Call: (619) 787-6676 | TEXT | Email: PEP@PEPSanDiego.com

---

Ariel Almarakeshy, MSW, ASW has worked in mental health for over 5 years as a counselor, advocate and case manager working with adults and families from various cultural and experiential backgrounds with varying types and severities of mental health and co-occurring substance use disorders. Ariel values the importance of meaningful support with consideration to environment, lived experiences within cultural and societal contexts, relationships, community connection, and overall wellness to support for meaningful change. She is a compassionate therapist who provides a genuine, judgement-free and safe space to develop a supportive therapeutic relationship, meeting people where they are at. She believes that everyone has innate strengths and abilities to draw on to support a working relationship that prioritizes empowering people's experiences of change to live a more accepting and authentic self.

Specialties:

• CBT
• Crisis Intervention
• DBT
• LGBTQ+
• Gender Therapy
• Trauma-informed care
• Grief and Loss
• Trauma and PTSD
• Anxiety
• Depression
• Substance Use/Dual Diagnosis
• Multicultural/Immigration issues

Prior to continuing education while living in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Ariel engaged in weekly dinners at a halfway house for people previously incarcerated facilitating discussions with program participants around trauma, addiction, recovery, reintegration into the community and healing. Ariel earned her Master’s Degree in Social Work in 2019 from the University of Madison in Wisconsin and received her Bachelors from University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee in Psychology with minors in international studies, art, and Japanese in 2017. Outside of professional experience, Ariel participated in immigration and refugee civil rights community organizing, with strategic issues and focus led and identified by immigrant and refugee youth and families in the community.

Ariel’s professional experience includes working with individuals in community-based programs, youth advocacy county government programs, domestic violence shelters, and outpatient programs working with severe and persistent mental health disorders. Ariel’s work in an outpatient setting included experience working with individuals, as well as their families and other support systems, from diverse cultural and experiential backgrounds in areas of concern including severe mental illness, co-occurring substance use disorders, trauma, chronic pain, mood/anxiety disorders, personality disorders, conflicts in interpersonal relationships, life transitions, immigration and refugees histories, with adolescents and adults. She also facilitated Racial/Social Injustice monthly meetings for her team, providing literature and facilitating a non-judgmental setting for colleagues to explore issues of racism, sexuality, gender, and classism and how we could improve accessibility of services and better serve clients through the lens of anti-oppression and intersectionality.

Ariel is clinically supervised by Ann Minnich (CA LCSW #72839) at Personal Evolution Psychotherapy and is continuing her education and training in Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT).