Hridaya Sivalingam

Hridaya Sivalingam serves as core faculty in the Counseling Department at Saybrook University. She provides instruction, advising, and supervision within the MA Counseling program and in the PhD program in Counselor Education and Supervision. She co-coordinates the MA program's clinical experience. Hridaya is delighted to have the opportunity to work with students and colleagues who are attracted to the humanistic vision and mission of Saybrook.

She received her BA in Psychology from Elmira College. After working in college admissions and serving in AmeriCorps she returned to school to complete an MA in Counseling with a focus on Student Development in Higher Education and a PhD in Counselor Education and Supervision at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She is a Nationally Certified Counselor (NCC) and has practiced counseling in private practice and college counseling settings in North Carolina and New Hampshire.

Hridaya has enjoyed counseling college students and adults on issues of anxiety, depression, life adjustments, LGBTQIA concerns, spirituality, and identity exploration. She enjoys mindfulness practices and exploring the impact of personal reflection and growth on developing counselors and clients. She holds a certification in breath therapy and is particularly inspired by integrative work with mind body connections in psychotherapy, teaching and supervision. She is licensed as a Clinical Mental Health Counselor in New Hampshire and provides pre-licensure supervision there.

Hridaya has more than 14 years of higher education instruction experience including teaching:

Basic Counseling Skills

Group Counseling & Psychotherapy

Professional Orientation and Ethics in Counseling

Counseling Theories

Spirituality in Counseling

Women's Issues in Counseling

Counseling Supervision

Practicum & Internship

Hridaya has been an active member in a variety of professional associations including:

American Counseling Association (ACA)

Association for Counselor Education and Supervision (ACES)

Association for Creativity in Counseling (ACC)

North Atlantic Region Association for Counselor Education and Supervision (NARACES)

In addition to formal training in counseling, Hridaya has had diverse, but related experiences. She has had rich group leadership experience including having served as an experiential ropes course educator and worked as a hiking and canoeing trek guide in the Adirondacks of New York and Sangre de Cristos of New Mexico. She very much enjoys exploring the healing relationship between individuals and their natural world. Previously she worked as an AmeriCorps member and service provider for adults with disabilities in the Virgin Islands thus she brings an attentiveness to social justice to her work.

Other unique experience include having worked as a CrossFit Coach and having studied American Sign Language in the USVI. In her spare time Hridaya studies holistic health including healing herbs, Ayurveda, and homoeopathy. She resides in New England with her family and enjoys hiking and canoeing