Dr. Kiyanoosh Shamlou, PhD

After years of working with him, I feel entitled to write a review and warn others. Starting with confidentiality. It’s a joke to him. Discussed my conditions with his patient/friend whenever he wanted. Shared a diagnosis he denied multiple times that I have, to my friend in a brief, first-time chat. In therapy goals, he is almost always completely off. He creates fictional achievements to polish his own ego; while you are suffering from something else. Even when you tell him, he doesn’t get it. If you fight for it, he remembers it for 2 weeks ONLY, every time. He rarely empathizes or is even attuned, listens passively when you talk, not many comments or opinions. Like, if we must be honored that he lets us be there, nothing else is needed from him. Extremely irresponsible, doesn’t take the responsibility of you as his patient or the consequences of his sayings or doings on you, or even diagnosing you. For years I was showing some life-threatening symptoms, yet he didn’t advise me… to see a doctor with his new diagnosis! A simple medication made my life much easier, while he was opposing the psychiatrist diagnoses! When everything is going well, he is a non-harming psychologist. BUT if he deems you as defenselessly “weak”, starts condescending, gets judgmental, and freely comments cruelly about you. He proudly calls himself ‘tough,' hurting clients with his apathetic, cruel attitude. When life gets hard, e.g. when you face a failure, he becomes patronizing, apathetic, humiliating, extremely mean and unsupportive. I recently realized this pattern. For a whole year, he told me he cannot help my severe anxiety unless I do ‘X’. I started doing ‘X’, which led to more anxiety that made me a little psychotic. Instead of stepping in to see if he can help, he kept distancing, ignoring, humiliating, and shaming me more. I began losing my personality and my sense of self for about a year and cut off my connection with friends because I thought I’m the trash he is treating me like, while he kept gaslighting, ignoring me, and threatening to terminate our relationship. The whole time, a short validation would be lifesaving for me. I had a narcissistic father, so he could freely unleash his narcissistic traits while I’m so stuck in this relationship. Most importantly, there is no hint of “unconditional respect” in him. He looks down on us, but the intensity and his behavior depend on your current professional standing. I have several examples for this. When I got my first great job, he became caring, supportive, and respectful, even checking on me again when I was not well. I got laid-off afterwards, the market was so bad that I couldn’t get an interview in a while; and he became the same judgmental, cruel and humiliating person, making hurtful comments. I checked with friends to see if I’m really what he sees and calls me, yet it’s still painfully damaging; increased my anxiety, shame and self-hate, and destroyed my hardly-gained confidence. Plus, he stopped all support and showed no care!!! Never wants to alleviate your pain, gleefully watches you struggling. I’ve seen the same pattern over and over again. He will make you more alone and ashamed of yourself when you are already alone and having a hard time. He has hindered my healing process in different phases of life instead of supporting me, breaking my little hardly grown wings. I had to mourn alone for a long time, hoping I can overcome shame and start over again. In summary, I believe he made a trap in his office, waiting for fragile, vulnerable patients to fall into it and tortured by his ego. If you are a narcissistic guy with high social profile, he will be a good choice for you, treats you well to always keep you around for his own need and ego. Otherwise, if you are already damaged and need a caring, knowledgeable, and supportive therapist to ease your life, stay away from him, you’ll get more hopeless, shameful, and damaged over time, while he shows you a whole new lev

Dr Shamlou cares about his clients and walks with them through their experiences. He's knowledgeable and is open to know his clients from different cultures. His work is deep since he challenges clients so they find the best solutions to their problems. However, his therapy is not always about solutions and responses. Through therapy with him, I learned to sit with my emotions and embrace them. It was a long journey but it was worthy. I highly recommend Dr Shamlou.

Dr. Shamlou is a wonderful psychologist. He is very skilled at his job and shows great knowledge. He is a very compassionate and understanding person. I believe the most important thing is being able to make a connection with your patients and build trust and he has definitely done that. I would recommend him to everyone.

I came to see Dr. Kiyanoosh Shamlou because I was having problems being stuck in between a Persian mom and Persian girlfriend. Dr. Shamlou had the requisite knowledge of human behavior, knowledge of Persian culture and was an extremely skilled analyst. He was able to provide guidance on how to take steps to manage my relationships and to become free and happy again. Although it was a tough road at times, it is very worth digging deep into one's issues in order to get to the other end of therapy. There is light at the end of the tunnel. The unfortunate thing is that one one person gets freedom from negativity, toxic relationships, the other side can develop a feeling of animosity towards anyone who helped the victim to become free. So basically, this guy has helped me tremendously in my life, though my mom and girlfriend both are upset at him because I'm my own man now and have pretty clear boundaries set up finally. So, if you see a negative review of him, it could be somebody… who is upset that they lost power to abuse their victime, due to Dr. Shamlou's helping the victim. So make your own judgement, but if a negative review is not detailed, then probably it holds no water.