Adriana Karapetian

Adriana Karapetian is a Direct Services Team Leader/Counsellor who has worked at STARTTS since 2017. Adriana is of Armenian background and was born in Iran. She is a former refugee who fled Iran at the age of 15 with her family due to the extensive persecution of the Armenian minority in Iran after the Iranian revolution. She completed high school in Australia, and a Bachelor of Science and Mathematics at the University of NSW. However, because of her passion for humanity and her own life experiences, she later completed a Master of Counselling and Applied Psychotherapy at the Jansen Newman Institute (JNI) and a Graduate Certificate of Public Health at the University of New South Wales. Adriana is also an accredited Clinical Supervisor which she completed in 2017 (at Supervision 101).

Prior to her work at STARTTS, Adriana worked for 13 years at Alzheimer’s Australia as a Dementia Advisor and then she worked as a manager at Northcott Disability Services. Adriana is particularly interested on the topic of transgenerational trauma and its impact on individuals, families and society, as well as recovery and healing. Adriana is a very experienced counsellor, is passionate and has developed expertise in treating people who have experienced torture and refugee trauma, and transgenerational trauma. She is hoping that one day she will undertake a PhD on transgenerational trauma.