The name

Sōhum

/ soː.həm / · Sanskrit

"I am that."

Sōhum is a Sanskrit phrase meaning “I am that.” It captures what we believe therapy is about: rediscovering the truest form of yourself beneath the layers that have accumulated.

It not only calls us into a deep sense of self-awareness but also into a shared connection with others.

The story

The Sōhum Story

Years ago, my yoga teacher offered me the mantra Sōhum. It was during a difficult time in my life and one of profound loss. I struggled to repeat these words that invited me into connection with myself and to something larger than myself. As I slowly opened to my body through this mantra, I felt sadness, pain and anger along with a sense of relief at how real it all felt.

Staying with myself and turning inward allowed me to intimately connect with the people in my life who I love and trust. My life became fuller.

I was able to hold sadness and loss along with moments of joy and connection. It’s a complexity that we often face – holding messy, contradictory emotions at the same time.

As humans, we often find ways to escape ourselves and our experience. We have good and valid reasons for doing so – and sometimes it can even be adaptive – but when this becomes our norm, our lives and relationships begin to deflate. We don’t feel alive.

I started Sōhum Therapy out of the belief that when we are more fully ourselves – connected to who we are, what we value, and the people who matter most – our lives become richer and more alive. This work requires curiosity, courage, and a willingness to stay with yourself, even when it’s difficult. We’re here to support you in that work so that you
can feel most fully alive in your own life.

— Christine Menna

LCSW · Founder & Clinical Director

Christine Menna

LCSW · Licensed in NY & NJ
she/her

Founder & Clinical Director

The work

On some level, I think people come to therapy to be kinder – to our messy, dark parts, to the ones we come in wishing weren’t there. It might not feel that way at first, but compassion makes change possible.

Our inner world operates by different rules. It often requires the opposite of what has made us successful externally — a slowing down, a tuning in, and a willingness to stay with ourselves. You may have spent years trying to think your way through, only to discover that understanding something and changing it are not the same thing.

In therapy, we invite you to become curious about patterns in your life before deciding what to do about them. We can honor what may be a tender loyalty to these older ways of coping without excusing their cost. Together, we get to know parts of you that have been buried, abandoned, or left out of the story. Change means parting with a version of yourself you have known, often for a long time. There is grief that comes with new beginnings, even when they are long awaited and desired.

Therapy happens between two people—people with different stories and histories, who occupy different roles in the room, but who share in the universal experience of being human. Being adequately met—and in therapy, also appropriately challenged—by another person can shift long-held assumptions. It can remind us that despite the hardships and disappointments we inevitably encounter, there is also goodness in the world. That despite being hurt by others, there are people capable of offering comfort, understanding, and love. And that despite our flaws, mistakes, and contradictions, we remain – as we always have been – worthy of connection and kindness.

The therapist

As a kid, I remember imagining – whether or not I acted on it – that if I could find the courage to share something difficult with someone, it would make me feel better. In the most fundamental sense, I believed there was something powerful about taking an experience that lived inside, giving it life, and having it land in the heart of another person.

I was curious about how we all “work,” what makes us universally similar yet so idiosyncratically different and ourselves. And I was just as fascinated by what happens between people—the ways we shape one another and come together in community. Early on, musical theater became an outlet for these curiosities. Here was an invitation to step inside someone else’s inner world. It was also a chance to participate in a communal, often cathartic experience—one threaded through music, language, storytelling, and connection.

But in many ways, I never fully knew what to do with my fascination with humans and humanity. It lingered in the background, without a fully satisfying expression. Ultimately, I realized that therapy was a natural home for these questions. It offered not only a way to understand people more deeply, but also the privilege of accompanying them as they moved toward new possibilities.

I’m still not sure I can name all the reasons I’m drawn to this work; I just know that I am. I’m compelled by the ways people tell stories to themselves and one another, and the remarkable ways they learn to endure experiences that might otherwise feel impossible to bear. I’m equally moved by the ways we come together—as an audience, a family, or a community—to make meaning out of what we live through, but also simply to be together in it.

And then there’s that original intuition—the possibility that something painful, confusing, and hard to hold can transform when it is brought to light, expressed, and properly received by another person. After all, we are not meant to make sense of life alone, nor are we meant to live it that way.

Influences — music