From Patient to Provider to Founder: Reclaiming Health and Helping Others Do the Same
- Aug 26
- 3 min read
By Nusha Nouhi
Like many first-generation daughters of Persian immigrants, I began my professional journey on the expected path: pre-med, ambitious, and eager to help. But everything shifted the summer I volunteered at City of Hope Medical Center. I was placed in the pediatric cancer unit, where my job was simply to be present—playing, sitting, or talking with children and their families. That experience revealed something profound: healing is not just physical. It is emotional. It is relational. It is about creating space when answers do not exist.
That realization led me to psychology, and I have never looked back.
Since then, I have worked across hospitals, nonprofits, and integrated care systems—supporting people through some of life’s most complex transitions. I completed my predoctoral internship in a major academic medical center and later pursued postdoctoral work in Las Vegas, where I supported foster youth, survivors of sex trafficking, and transitional age youth navigating significant life disruption. I have also volunteered with Camp To Belong, a nonprofit that reunites siblings separated by foster care—an experience that deeply shaped how I show up in the world. Every setting, every role, has reminded me that the small things we do can leave lasting impact.
Eventually, I began to feel to focus my energy on ripples—to create a model of care that honored not only my clients’ needs, but also my own health and values. That is when I founded Marina Health, a boutique behavioral health practice designed to support individuals navigating major life changes—especially those coping with chronic illness, burnout, and identity shifts. Marina Health now has two branches: one based in California and one in the Netherlands, where I currently live and practice as an international psychologist.
My clients are often high-functioning individuals who have held it all together for everyone else—driven, self-aware, and quietly overwhelmed. They come to me during times of transition:
after a diagnosis, during cancer treatment, following a career shift, or while questioning what success really means. I have designed my practice to meet them with presence, not pressure.
That means longer sessions and communication that is personal—not solely clinical. It means honoring emotional nuance, cultural identities, and lived experience. It means validating their stories while offering tools to help them move forward with clarity and confidence.
I have always known I experience the world a little differently. I tend to sense what is happening under the surface, take in my environment deeply, and reflect back what others might be missing. As someone wired for attunement and observation, I have come to trust that this slower, more grounded approach is not just valuable—it is necessary. It shapes how I work, how I lead, and how I hold space for others.
Starting this journey was not only a professional move; it was a personal act of healing. I left behind rigid systems and burnout culture to build something that reflects what I believe: that healing can be spacious, heart-led, and sustainable. Healing helps you thrive.
This is what motivates me. I see it all the time: one person sets a boundary, or slows down long enough to reflect, and suddenly everything begins to move. Momentum builds. A ripple starts. And that ripple touches others—partners, families, teams, communities. Like I often tell my clients: one small step changes the path. You get to choose what direction that domino falls. And from there, everything begins to shift.
That is the work I care about- the steady, lasting transformation that happens when someone begins to lead their own life with intention. That is the kind of change that sticks. And it is the reason I will keep showing up. Let’s thrive through change, together.
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