Meet Our Team
Dani Ediriweera (she/they)
Clinical Intern
Dani (she/they) is completing their MSW at the University of Chicago, where they are focused on becoming a therapist and continuing their work in housing policy.
Dani believes therapy is advocacy. She wants therapy to be a space where clients can learn about themselves, figure out their barriers, and advocate for changes that move them towards their best life. As someone with numerous marginalized identities, including gender and sexualities across the spectrum, she believes that those of us with marginalized identities have already been advocating for ourselves our whole life. Because of this, Dani believes therapy can be a space of acknowledgement, and also of rest.
Dani believes that we heal in community. They were raised with collectivist beliefs and a family that incorporated many different religions. When she thinks about her own family history, she finds that their spirituality is where they found their healing, and also where they found their advocacy. As a tribute to her family’s resilience and her great-grandmothers who were both astrologers, Dani is interested in integrating astrology and other spiritual practices with therapy.
Dani brings a blend of professional experience in the legal profession through her work as a corporate paralegal, and her advocacy work in housing rights, criminal justice, immigration, and public interest. Dani also brings medical experience through her previous work at a cancer research hospital and a cardiac clinic, and her time as a pre-med student.
Some of the clients and concerns she has worked with, and would love to continue working with, include:
BIPOC
LGBTQ+ immigrants
First-generation immigrants
Elder daughters
LGBTQ+ South Asians
Pre-Med students
Pre-Law students
Navigating complex family situations
Navigating careers and career changes
Navigating long-term grief
Navigating relationship changes
Queer/polyamorous relationships
Intergenerational trauma
Dani brings her lived experience to guide her trauma-informed work, she incorporates evidence-based approaches to her clinical practice through a decolonized lens that is holistic and context-aware to support holistic healing.
Education: B.A. in Psychology, Minors in Business Studies and Politics from New York University (NYU)
M.A. in Social Work from The University of Chicago