Dylan Khanal

I am a clinical social worker based in Brookline with accessibility from the C and D lines. I work with adult individuals and couples, with a particular emphasis on life events or transitions that disrupt our sense of who we are. Before going to school to become a therapist, I completed a doctorate in philosophy — a domain of inquiry that continues to inform my clinical work on many levels.

My primary therapeutic worldview comes from narrative therapy, which views problems in life as supported by dominant stories about who we are or how we should be. These stories can cause distress when they fail to represent what is most important to us. Instead of seeing such stories as an indication of flaws in a person’s self or personality, I assume they have been introduced from the contexts that have shaped us.

In addition to narrative therapy, I draw from Buddhist mind training practices, which cultivate the ability to hold difficult emotions with steadiness and kindness to ourselves. Finally, I am influenced by psychodynamic approaches, which emphasize nuanced empathic understanding as well as attentiveness to what is happening between client and therapist in real time.

I aspire to meet everyone I encounter in my work with respect, warmth, and curiosity. I often imagine myself walking alongside the people I work with, but following one step behind. My job is to look out with you at the landscape you see and help you identify places you might like to explore. Then we can visit those places and see how things look from there.