Integrative Psychotherapist • Creative Leader • Cultural Advocate
Maryam Cheema’s work is a living tapestry, alive with the colors of psyche, culture, creativity, and collective healing. She sees emotional distress as a story written by the threads of personal history, family, faith, migration, gender, and the world at large. For Maryam, psychotherapy is a relationship rooted in care, clarity, and unwavering devotion to humanity. As a Humanistic Integrative Psychotherapist with transcultural and psychodynamic expertise, she meets people in the fullness of their cultural, religious, and social identities. Her trauma-informed, LGBTQ+ affirmative, and culturally responsive approach is guided by a deep curiosity about the many ways people belong to themselves and to each other. In her therapy room, questions of identity, belonging, power, and meaning are explored with gentle depth, always listening for the echoes of oppression, migration, and inequality.
In addition to her private practice, Maryam has served as an Integrative Psychotherapist and Creative Lead at U Matter Counselling since 2024. She combines therapeutic expertise with creative innovation to enhance client well-being and advance the organization’s vision.
Beyond the therapy room, Maryam is a visual artist, creative leader, and social entrepreneur, her life a vibrant dance with community, culture, and service. With more than eighteen years of experience spanning England, Europe and South Asia, she moves fluidly between psychotherapy, the arts, research, education, and digital innovation. Her art, from ceramics to sacred geometry, embodies her belief that creativity is a language of healing and connection, a bridge linking the inner world to the collective.
At the heart of Maryam’s work is a devotion to reciprocity and to crafting spaces where healing feels accessible, dignified, and culturally vibrant. This vision found form in ZehnSaaz, the holistic mental health and wellbeing space she founded in the UK. ZehnSaaz grew from Maryam’s awareness of the gaps in mainstream mental health services, especially for migrant, collectivist, and marginalized communities. Here, psychotherapy is woven together with creative and community-based practices, honoring the whole person, mind, body, culture, and spirit, within the open invitation to come as you are.
Maryam’s journey is powered by a lifelong curiosity about consciousness and the subtle interplay of religion, culture, identity, and psychological well-being. Raised in Southeast Asia and later living across the UK and Europe, her cross-cultural path has shaped an integrative, socially conscious approach to therapy, leadership, and community. Her influence extends far beyond the therapy room. As Founder of the Institute for Youth, Artists & Research (PIYAR), she champions creative empowerment, cultural preservation, gender inclusion, and research-driven practice for underserved youth. As Co-Founder and Festival Director of the International Mountain Film Festival (PIMFF), she gathered filmmakers, artists, mountaineers, and environmental thinkers, illuminating the often unseen lives of porters and mountain communities.
Through psychotherapy, art, research, and community leadership, Maryam stands at the intersection of inner life and collective experience. She welcomes individuals and communities into spaces of reflection, healing, and belonging, guided by a vision of care that is culturally rooted, ethically grounded, and deeply human.