Padma Jairam

Profile

Padma has been a psychologist for 10 years. She has worked in a forensic setting as a prison psychologist, and her role at the Institute of Mental Health (IMH) gave her the opportunity to continue working with the forensic population as well as the general population. As a private practitioner for the past 2 years, she has also worked extensively with couples and families. She is comfortable working with a variety of areas including mental health issues (e.g., mood and anxiety issues), LGBTQIA+ concerns, sex-offending issues, paraphilias, personality disorders, trauma & PTSD, suicide/self-harm behaviours, relationship difficulties, and parenting challenges. Padma’s forensic experience also entailed providing risk assessments.

While Padma mainly identifies with a client-centred approach, she also strongly believes in an integrated approach to therapy based on the client’s best interests and needs. She is trained to deliver Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, Schema Therapy, Motivational Interviewing, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, and working with trauma. Padma is also trained in Psychological First Aid, and her time as a prison psychologist gave her the chance to be trained as a Caring Actions in Response to Emergencies (CARE) officer. As a CARE officer at IMH, she has participated in several exercises at the national level.

As a passionate educator, Padma is skilled in providing clinical supervision and has supervised counsellors in training. She is also an Associate at the Singapore University of Social Sciences (SUSS) where she teaches several modules and has also developed some modules for both the Counselling and Psychology programmes. She is a two-time Excellence in Teaching Award winner at SUSS in both the Counselling and Psychology programmes. ​Padma is recognised as a Specialist Adult Educator by the Institute for Adult Learning (IAL). Having made career transitions from a lawyer, to teacher, and a psychologist, Padma believes in continual learning and keeps herself updated on the latest psychological research and actively utilises research findings in her practice.

Padma considers empathy and compassion as central to everything she does, and therefore ensures that her clients have a safe, empathic, and non-judgemental space to explore their hopes, dreams, and fears so that they can feel empowered through learning new skills and gaining insights about themselves. Through her own therapeutic journey, Padma has overcome several challenges and has since wanted to share the power of therapy with others. Whether as a lawyer, teacher or psychologist, Padma has always wanted to walk alongside her clients on their personal journeys so that they can chart their own paths to live fulfilling lives.

Born and raised as a Singaporean, Padma is also grateful for the extensive travel she has experienced and her 3 years in Vancouver, Canada during her graduate studies, all of which have shaped her love for languages, history and cultures. ​

Padma is fluent in English, Malay, and Tamil and speaks conversational Mandarin and Bahasa Indonesia, while continuing to dabble in other languages. What keeps her grounded are her husband, her bunnies, travel, Body Combat, and Zumba.