Aditi rai, LMHC-D
Founder & Clinical Director | She/Her/Hers
It can be exhausting to constantly question yourself, make room for everyone else, or feel responsible for holding relationships together. Even when you understand where these patterns come from, it may still be difficult to trust your own needs, set boundaries without guilt, or believe that you deserve the same care you so freely offer to others.
Hi, I'm Aditi Rai, a Licensed Mental Health Counselor and the Founder, Clinical Director, and a Psychotherapist of Aura of Hope Psychotherapy. I don't believe these patterns mean something is wrong with you. More often, they reflect the ways you learned to adapt, protect yourself, and stay connected in the environments that shaped you. Together, we can understand those adaptations with compassion, reconnect with the parts of yourself that may have gone quiet along the way, and create space for a life that feels more authentic, grounded, and truly your own.
*Aditi is currently not accepting new clients.
How I Understand the Work
I believe our struggles rarely exist in isolation. More often, they reflect the ways we learned to adapt, protect ourselves, stay connected, or survive the environments that shaped us. Rather than asking, “What is wrong with you?” I find it more meaningful to ask, “What happened, and how did these patterns once make sense?”
My approach is holistic and trauma-informed, blending cognitive, emotional, somatic, and mindfulness-based perspectives. I believe healing begins with understanding the deeper roots of our experiences, including early attachment relationships, complex family dynamics, cultural expectations, and the stories we have come to believe about ourselves. Together, we can explore these influences with curiosity and compassion, helping you understand yourself more fully and create space for change that feels authentic and lasting.
What Therapy With Me Feels Like
Therapy with me is warm, honest, collaborative, and deeply human. I am not a distant or overly formal therapist. I listen closely, notice the patterns that may be difficult to see from the inside, and gently reflect them back with curiosity rather than judgment. Sometimes that means sitting with difficult emotions; other times it means asking thoughtful questions, naming what I notice, or offering a perspective that helps something finally click.
There may be tears, humor, difficult truths, moments of relief, and conversations that stay with you long after the session ends. I will not expect you to have all the answers, but I will invite you to look more closely at what may be happening beneath the surface. We may slow down a reaction, stay with a feeling a little longer, or explore the tension between what you understand intellectually and what still feels difficult emotionally. My goal is not only to help you feel supported, but to help you understand yourself with greater clarity, trust your own voice, and make choices that feel more aligned with who you are.
Areas I Often Support
Mood Disorders | Rejection & Abandonment | Cultural Silence
Mind-Body Connection | Inner Child Work | Self-Differentiation
Complex Family Dynamics | Early Childhood Experiences
Languages
Therapy is available in English.
A little about me
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I was drawn to this field through my own relationship with hope. There were times in my life when hope felt quiet or difficult to hold onto, and therapy showed me how powerful it can be to feel met with care, honesty, and safety. As a South Asian woman, my own experiences with identity, culture, family, and healing continue to shape the way I understand this work.
Over time, I realized I wanted my work to extend beyond the therapy room. Founding Aura of Hope Psychotherapy allowed me to bring together the kind of care, leadership, and clinical community I believe in. The practice reflects what hope has made possible in my own life—greater resilience, alignment, and the courage to live by my values—while creating space for others to discover what hope can make possible for them.
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One of my favorite parts of being a therapist is the collaborative, moment-to-moment process of understanding what each client needs. I value creating a space that can shift with the work, sometimes offering more direction, and other times slowing down, listening closely, or making room for the client to lead.
What matters most to me is helping clients feel that therapy is responsive, purposeful, and shaped around who they are. I welcome honest feedback and aim to be transparent about the intention behind our work so that clients feel actively involved in their own healing.
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Lately, I have been finding comfort and joy in creating. Sometimes that looks like cooking something delicious and creating a small moment of warmth or care through food. I also find a lot of comfort in storytelling and the many ways it can take shape, whether through writing, visual design, the imagery on our website, or even the clothes we choose to wear. I love finding ways to bring meaning, feeling, and intention into ordinary things. Creating helps me feel grounded, expressive, and connected to myself.
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Outside of work, I feel most like myself when I am outdoors and connected to the natural beauty of upstate New York. I love taking long solo hikes through local parks, noticing wildlife, identifying frogs, turtles, snakes, and other animals, and staying curious about the world around me. I also enjoy foraging, learning about wild mushrooms and berries, and finding small joys like homemade ice cream from local farms. These moments help me feel grounded, playful, and connected to something larger than myself.
That connection to nature is also woven throughout the Aura of Hope website through images of mountains, water, sunlight, flowers, forests, and fields. I am drawn to the idea that our relationship with the natural world is deeply rooted in us, not only through the calm of water, the movement of a breeze, or the colors and fragrances of a forest, but also through the meaning we find in nature. A lotus growing through mud can represent resilience and transformation, while animals, landscapes, and natural cycles can hold personal, cultural, or spiritual significance. To me, nature engages the senses while also offering symbols that help us feel grounded, connected, and reminded of our own capacity to grow.
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LMHC-D, NY
LPC, NJ & CT
M.S. Ed. Clinical Mental Health Counseling, St. John's University (CACREP Accredited)
B.A. Psychology, Queens College
“Home is not where you are born; home is where all your attempts to escape cease.”