Zena Yarde
Depth work for grief, people pleasing, and the guilt that arrives when you rest.
About Zena
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Zena has spent over ten years working every room this profession has: school counselling, college teaching, palliative care, digital-first therapy, and now senior psychologist at The Thought Co., where she supervises the team and heads training and workshops. She has taught psychology, practised it, and now teaches the practising of it.
Her home ground is grief. She sat with people at the end of life and with families learning to live around the loss, and in 2019 she started Talking Death, one of Mumbai's first death café style gatherings, because she believed the city needed somewhere to say the unsayable over tea. That is her measure of a topic: if everyone avoids it, it probably matters.
She holds has a Master's in Counselling Psychology, and she has never really stopped studying. Her writing borrows from wherever the learning lives: Jung and Bowlby in one paragraph, BoJack Horseman in the next. In the room she is humanistic and depth oriented. The question is rarely what is wrong with you. It is what happened, and what did you decide it meant.
She sees individuals and couples, and describes herself as comically melancholic, comically serious. Both are accurate. People pleasers and anyone carrying an unfinished goodbye do especially well with her.
What Zena works with
Anxiety & Depression · Personal Growth & Empowerment · Adult Loneliness · Palliative Care Mental Health Support · Grief · Self-Exploration & Identity Work · Depth-Oriented Therapy · Loss & Meaning-Making · Self-Esteem & Self-Management · Life Skills & Emotional Resilience · Stress Management
How the work goes
The practical bits
Before you book
How do I know if we are a fit?
You start with a free 15 minute call. If someone else on the team fits you better, we will say so.
Online or in person?
Both. Online anywhere, or in person at our Mumbai studio in Lower Parel.
How does payment work?
Payment is collected at the time of booking, through Razorpay. You see the fee before you confirm.
Is it confidential?
What you share stays between you and your therapist, with the standard clinical exceptions: risk of serious harm to you or someone else, or a legal requirement. If that line ever becomes relevant, your therapist tells you before acting, not after.
Where to next
If you need help right now, a therapy booking is not immediate support. Call Tele-MANAS: 14416, free, 24x7, in multiple Indian languages.
Schedule a session
Before you book
Therapy at The Thought Co: what to know before your first session
Straight answers to the questions people ask us most, written by our psychologists, so nothing surprises you after you book.
you can use the free 15 minutes just to talk, and never book. people do.
How much does therapy cost at The Thought Co?
Sessions are ₹1,500 to ₹8,000 for 60 minutes, depending on the therapist you choose. Every fee is listed before you book, and your first conversation is a free 15 minute intro call. There is nothing to pay before you decide.
What happens in the first therapy session?
Your therapist asks what brought you in, and you share as much or as little as you want. Expect questions about your week, your sleep, your people. No couch, no diagnosis in the first hour. You are also assessing them, and that part matters. By the end, the two of you decide what working on this could look like.
How many therapy sessions will I need?
There is no fixed number, and anyone who promises one is selling something. Some people work for a couple of months around one specific thing. Some stay longer and go deeper than they planned. Most people can tell by session three or four whether the work has traction, and that is a conversation you can have with your therapist openly, at any point.
Does online therapy work as well as in person therapy?
For most concerns, yes. Research on video based therapy consistently finds outcomes comparable to in person sessions, and our own practice runs both every week. Same therapist, same 60 minutes, on a private video call. If you are in Mumbai and want a room, our Lower Parel studio has one.
Is what I say in therapy confidential?
Yes. What you share stays between you and your therapist, with the standard clinical exceptions: risk of serious harm to you or someone else, or a legal requirement. If that line ever becomes relevant, your therapist tells you before acting, not after. Nothing goes to your family, your employer, or anyone who did not sit in the room.
What if my therapist does not feel like the right fit?
Say so. To them, or to us, whichever is easier. We will help you move to another therapist within the practice without awkwardness and without starting the whole story from zero. Fit matters more than politeness, and switching is more common than you would think.
Do I need therapy, or am I overreacting?
You do not need a diagnosis, a crisis, or a defensible reason to book. "I don't feel like myself" is a complete reason. If you have read this far, take that as information.
If you need help right now, a therapy booking is not immediate support. Call Tele-MANAS: 14416, free, 24x7, in multiple Indian languages.