Today we’d like to introduce you to Navid Zamani.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I am the son of Iranian immigrants who came to Southern California in the 1970s. My dad arrived as part of a six-month work training through a U.S. company, and three months in, the revolution happened. He stayed, and a few years later was able to bring my mom, though she had to endure the horrors of the Iran-Iraq war in the meantime. I’ve been lucky to be raised in Southern California—LA County for the first ten years of my life, Orange County for the next ten, and San Diego since. I speak Farsi, have a wife and two children, and enjoy surfing, swimming, and playing music (drums and piano), along with many of the other things San Diego makes possible.
I came to Marriage and Family Therapy through a mix of curiosity and contradiction. As an undergraduate studying psychology and music, I encountered two very different ways of understanding the world. Psychology—at least the classics—often leaned toward a rigid, “universalist” view of human experience. Ethnomusicology, on the other hand, revealed just how diverse human experience really is. Across listening practices, musical theory, and cultural assumptions, I couldn’t find a single universal. After graduating from UC Davis, I began working with children with special needs. While I loved the work, I quickly noticed how different the outcomes were when families were fully involved, compared to when the work was isolated from the broader family system. That realization pulled me toward family systems and a broader focus on relationships, both familial and intimate.
I entered San Diego State University’s MFT program, where I was placed at the nonprofit License to Freedom, largely because of my language access. LTF serves Middle Eastern refugees experiencing domestic violence, and this work pulled me deeply into the domestic violence field—where I’ve remained ever since. I’ve worked across the spectrum of services, from responding to domestic violence calls alongside law enforcement as part of the Domestic Violence Response Team, to facilitating rehabilitation programs for offenders. I’ve also worked in a domestic violence shelter and led survivor and children’s groups for different organizations (e.g. Child Welfare Services, San Diego Domestic Violence Council, LTF, etc.).
My connection to License to Freedom ultimately brought me back long-term. I helped develop the agency’s family therapy services program and served as clinical director for ten years, a role I eventually stepped away from due to family demands. I continue to provide clinical supervision, have taught in SDSU’s MFT program for eight years, and earned my PhD in psychology, with doctoral research focused on domestic violence work. Years in nonprofit work have brought me into contact with countless stories—of suffering and love, war and grief, immigration, escape, and connection. I’m forever changed by these stories.
Now, I still work at LTF and provide supervision to a team of therapist trainees. I live in North Park with my wife and kids, and feel incredibly lucky to be here. I have a private practice with a location in South Park, and play in a couple of local bands.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It definitely wasn’t a smooth road. As a Farsi-speaking therapist working with Middle Eastern refugees, I’ve had to navigate political and cultural complexities on multiple levels. That includes working across deep historical and ethnic divides within the region itself—such as being Iranian while working with Iraqi families—while also practicing within a U.S. context that has grown increasingly anti-immigrant, anti–Middle Eastern, and more openly racist.
What’s surprised me most is where the struggle hasn’t been. The challenges have rarely come from clients. Instead, they’ve come from rigid, dispassionate systems—systems more focused on compliance, control, or liability than on actually helping families heal. Navigating institutions that are often unwilling or unable to hold nuance, cultural context, or humanity has been far more difficult than the therapeutic work itself. Supporting families within those constraints has required persistence, creativity, and, at times, pushing back against structures that were never designed with them in mind.
As you know, we’re big fans of License to Freedom. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
My work lives in two connected spaces. One is License to Freedom, a nonprofit based in El Cajon that serves Middle Eastern refugees experiencing domestic violence. The other is my private practice, where I work as a sole proprietor and continue many of the same commitments on a smaller, more individualized scale.
At License to Freedom, I developed and continue to support our family therapy program, where we offer free therapeutic services to families. The program is intentionally different. It’s grounded in a poststructural, decolonial, and feminist philosophy—an approach that questions power, resists one-size-fits-all models, and stays attentive to the realities families are actually living in. Rather than imposing external frameworks, we work alongside families as they navigate the cultural, political, and structural complexities shaping their lives.
Out of my doctoral research, I developed the Down and Forward Approach, a preventative model for working with families impacted by violence. The approach reflects years of clinical practice, research, and close listening to families themselves. It centers early, relational intervention and treats violence not as an isolated event, but as something embedded within broader social, historical, and relational contexts. Supported by a federal grant, the model is now being delivered in the community, allowing theory, research, and practice to remain in ongoing conversation with one another.
What sets this work apart is a sustained commitment to alignment—between ethics, values, and action. That means holding complexity, honoring cultural context, and recognizing that healing doesn’t happen outside of immigration systems, legal structures, racism, or intergenerational trauma. We don’t attempt to work around those realities; we work directly within them.
What I’m most proud of is that the work has remained deeply relational and grounded, even as it has grown. Whether through License to Freedom or my private practice, the goal isn’t to offer solutions that look good on paper. It’s to provide thoughtful, culturally responsive care that treats families with dignity, nuance, and respect. That commitment—to integrity, to families, and to staying accountable to the communities we serve—is what I most want readers to understand.
Are there any books, apps, podcasts or blogs that help you do your best?
I do host a podcast called The AFTA (American Family therapy Academy) Podcast. I read a lot of academic articles, with some of my favorite authors being Gerald Monk, marcela polanco, Vikki Reynolds. I love the Philosophize This! podcast, as I believe therapy is more philosophical than providing lists of coping strategies. I also love reading fiction books. I recently read James by Percivall Everett and am re-reading East of Eden by John Steinbeck right now. I think leaving the world of therapy and exploring all the interesting things the world has to offer enriches my life.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.navidzamani.com
- Instagram: @license2freedom
