Ella Chrelashvili, MA, LPC (Staff Therapist)

Ella Chrelashvili (she/her/hers) is a therapist at The Center for Growth, providing individual, couples, and group therapy to adults and adolescents in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania at the Society Hill Therapy Office. In addition, she does virtual therapy in Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and New Jersey.

Ella works with teens & adults, individuals & couples who are struggling with:

• Anger Management Therapy

• Abuse / Trauma Therapy

• Anxiety, Panic Attacks, OCD Therapy

• ADHD Counseling

• Eating Disorders Treatment

• Grief Therapy

• Sexual Function / Dysfunction Sex Therapy

• LGBTQI+ Support

• Mood Disorders Treatment

What It’s Like to Work With Me

Therapy with me is a space where nothing in you needs to be hidden, explained away, or judged. Clients often tell me they feel a sense of grounded warmth in our work—like they can finally exhale. It’s not always easy work, but it’s deeply human, and deeply honoring of who you are beneath the masks you’ve had to wear to survive.

I won’t just nod and ask how that makes you feel. I’ll be right there with you—curious, engaged, gently challenging, and fully present as we examine the patterns that have shaped your suffering and the ones that might shape your healing. I believe in therapy that’s courageous, tender, and intellectually honest. I’ll help you learn to relate to your thoughts, emotions, and body in new ways so you can move toward the life you long for—not perfectly, but meaningfully.

I bring my full humanity into the room with you. Humor, irreverence, depth, history, cultural context, trauma, tenderness—it all has a place here. We’ll talk about what matters, not just what hurts.

My Approach to Therapy

My approach is grounded in the science and spirit of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Contextual Behavioral Science, Functional Analytic Psychotherapy, and Compassion-Focused Therapy, modalities that go far beyond symptom reduction and ask what it means to be fully alive, even in the presence of pain.

ACT teaches us that suffering is not pathology. It's often a natural byproduct of being conscious, caring, and trying to control an uncontrollable world. Rather than helping you “get rid” of painful thoughts or emotions, I’ll help you notice them, hold them with kindness, and choose actions that bring you closer to your values. It’s not about feeling better, it’s about feeling more free to be who you are.

My work is also deeply relational. From a Functional Analytic perspective, I pay close attention to the real-time interpersonal patterns that show up between us in the therapy room. Therapy becomes a live space to practice new ways of being seen, setting boundaries, trusting, asserting, receiving, and repairing. These moments, small as they may seem, are the heartbeat of lasting change.

I draw from Compassion-Focused Therapy to support clients in softening shame and building a felt sense of safeness in the body. Many of us have lived with harsh inner critics for so long that we forget kindness is a skill, one that can be learned. I’ll help you cultivate a more compassionate inner world, especially in moments that feel undeserving of it.

And threading through all of this is mindfulness, not as a buzzword, but as a deeply embodied practice. I maintain a daily meditation practice and regularly integrate breath, body, and awareness work into therapy sessions. Whether we’re practicing contact with the present moment, grounding through strong emotion, or building metacognitive awareness, mindfulness is both a method and a way of being.

Working with Suffering, Working with the Self

Many clients come to me with a sense that something inside them is “too much” or “not enough.” They’ve learned to survive through over-control, self-judgment, or emotional shutdown. Maybe this strategy worked for a while. But over time, the cost becomes too high, disconnection, anxiety, shame, relationship struggles, compulsions, exhaustion.

Together, we explore the function of those protective strategies. What were they trying to protect you from? What wisdom is embedded in the behaviors you’ve come to resent? Using contextual behavioral approaches, we look not just at what you're doing, but why, and how your environment has shaped your patterns.

Rather than chasing an idealized, perfected self, we make space for your actual self — messy, complex, alive. The work becomes about gently turning toward what you've spent a lifetime avoiding and doing so with a little more courage, a little more clarity, and a lot more compassion.

Eating Disorders & Body Image

Few things are more deeply felt, and less openly discussed, than our relationship to food, body, and worth. For those struggling with disordered eating, it can feel like your entire identity gets consumed by rules, rituals, and self-criticism. Recovery often requires unlearning everything our culture has taught us to strive for: control, perfection, thinness, productivity.

I’ve worked extensively with clients experiencing anorexia, bulimia, ARFID, binge eating, orthorexia, and body dysmorphia. I understand these are not just issues of food, they are stories written in the body, often rooted in trauma, shame, and the desperate need to feel safe or valued.

My approach is compassionate, non-coercive, and attuned to the stages of recovery. Whether you’re in the throes of an eating disorder or navigating the complexities of maintenance after higher-level treatment, I will meet you where you are and support you in reconnecting with your body, your hunger, your identity, and your life. Recovery is possible. You don’t have to do it alone.

Addiction, Compulsions & the Path to Recovery

Addictive and compulsive behaviors—whether related to substances, work, food, or technology—are not signs of moral failure. They are survival strategies that once served a purpose. From a contextual behavioral lens, I help clients understand the function of their compulsions and build new, more workable ways of responding to pain and desire.

Having worked in criminal justice settings, inpatient and outpatient addiction treatment, and harm reduction models, I bring both clinical depth and cultural humility to this work. I understand that recovery must be situated within the realities of poverty, systemic oppression, and trauma.

Whether you’re seeking abstinence, moderation, or simply a more mindful relationship with your habits, we’ll develop a plan grounded in your values and goals—not someone else’s idea of what your recovery should look like.

Relationship Therapy Across All Structures

Relationships are living systems, constantly changing and responding to the stressors and joys of life. I work with couples and partnerships of all structures — monogamous, open, polyamorous, queer, straight, long-term, just-starting-out — to navigate conflict, rebuild trust, deepen intimacy, and reconnect to shared purpose.

I help couples learn to regulate emotion together, communicate with more clarity and less reactivity, and explore stuck patterns that often trace back to attachment wounds. We’ll look at how each partner’s history shows up in the relationship—and how to move from blame and avoidance toward connection and growth.

Sex and intimacy are also welcome topics in my practice. I help partners explore mismatched desire, sexual shame, erotic expression, kink, and more. There is no one “normal” way to love or connect. My goal is to help you find what works for you—in all its complexity and beauty.

Therapy for Russian-Speaking Clients & Immigrants

As a first-generation Russian-speaking therapist born in Kyiv, Ukraine, I offer therapy that honors the intricacies of immigration, identity, and cultural trauma. I understand what it’s like to grow up between worlds, to navigate the dissonance between collectivist values and American individualism, to hold grief for a homeland in crisis while building a life in a new country.

I offer therapy in both Russian and English. Whether you’ve been here for decades or arrived recently, you are welcome to show up exactly as you are—with your language, history, fears, and hopes. I understand the legacy of silence many immigrants carry, and I offer a space where even the unspeakable can be spoken.

A Bit About My Path

I completed my bachelor’s degree in Clinical Psychology at The College of New Jersey in 2012 and have been working in behavioral health ever since, in roles spanning evaluation, case management, and clinical supervision across inpatient, outpatient, and public health systems.

I earned my Master’s in Professional Clinical Counseling from La Salle University, with field experience in addiction treatment and community mental health. My clinical background is broad—mood, anxiety disorders, psychosis—but my deepest experience is in eating disorders, trauma, and recovery work.

What shapes me most, though, is not just my education, but my lived experience as an immigrant, a deeply feeling person, and a lifelong learner. I am an active member of the American Counseling Association and the Association for Contextual Behavioral Science, and I regularly pursue advanced training in ACT and mindfulness-based interventions. I also run the Mindfulness Skills Support Group at The Center for Growth.

Beyond the Office

Outside of therapy, I’m drawn to the things that make life feel big and rich: dance, music, poetry, history, philosophy, and conversation that goes deep fast. I’ve been immersed in the arts since childhood, especially Afro-Latin dances like Salsa, Bachata, Kizomba, and Brazilian Zouk, which continue to teach me about rhythm, embodiment, and nonverbal connection.

I’m endlessly curious about how people live, love, suffer, resist, and grow. This is more than a job for me—it’s a calling rooted in my own journey and a fierce belief in the resilience of the human spirit.