Healing Through Wholeness and Truth – Exclusive Interview With Eva Benmeleh

Dr. Eva Benmeleh focuses on the multifaceted impact of perfectionism on individuals and their relationships. She is a clinical psychologist in private practice, an educator on maternal mental health and perfectionism, and the author of the book Sun and Moon Love Cloud: A Book about Divorce. She is committed to unraveling the polarities in perfectionism, integrating the striving for personal growth with harmonious flow. She is committed to working with individuals open to compassionate yet astute feedback, expanding their awareness, and making profound changes to the quality of their lives.

Eva Benmeleh, Licensed Clinical Psychologist

Introduce yourself! Please tell us about you and your life, so we can get to know you better.

Hi, I’m Dr. Eva Benmeleh, a clinical psychologist, author, speaker, and creator of the PIE Method: Perceive, Integrate, Embody. But before the titles, I’m a woman unlearning the performance of perfection and choosing truth over image every day.

I’m a mother to two deeply insightful children, and in many ways, they’ve been my greatest teachers. They’ve grounded me in truth and called me into deeper honesty and compassion with myself. The more clarity I build within, the more grounded and loving my presence becomes for them and for those around me.”

I was born in Venezuela, raised in Miami, and shaped by a richly multicultural lineage: Costa Rica, Greece, Poland, and Turkey. That complexity lives in me, and I honor it in how I live, parent, and practice.

I’m passionate about transformation that actually lands. I love poetry, ritual, and real conversation, the kind that drops beneath the surface. I am always making meaning out of the moment. When I’m not working, you’ll find me journaling, moving my body (running, dancing, yoga, swimming). Humor and depth live side by side in my world, so I never know when I am about to say something that will make you cry from joy or sadness, sometimes it’s a bittersweet mix of the two. And as a proud Yiddishe Mame, cooking and feeding my people is one of the ways I express love. Nourishment, in all forms, is at the heart of my work.

What inspired you to blend integrative psychology with a more holistic approach?

I began questioning the traditional psychology model when I noticed that insight alone wasn’t leading to lasting change. Neither was manualized treatment or reward charts. Without connecting to the consciousness inherent in each individual, the manual backfired, and the insight would trap them in analysis paralysis. My clients could name their patterns, but still felt stuck inside them.

Through my own inner work, I discovered meditation and began exploring breathwork, somatic therapy, plant medicine, and spiritual modalities not as trends, but as tools. I realized healing isn’t about fixing what’s broken. It’s about remembering what’s whole.

I don’t believe in bypassing the mind, but I don’t worship it either. My work lives where science and soul speak to one another. Insight builds structure. The body gives us signals. Healing happens when the two are in a relationship. When we feel the rush of emotions overwhelm us through spiritual and/ or somatic practices, it makes a significant difference if we have created a strong vessel to carry them through and out. That’s what insight and awareness provide for us, the structure and framework to discern when to sit with it, when to transmute, when to radically shift. And this structure can only carry on with the consistent feedback from the body. It’s all one big system that we categorize into separate parts to help us make sense of it.

What kind of audience do you target your business towards?

My ideal client often looks successful on paper but feels exhausted inside. They’re high-functioning perfectionists, especially women who are ready to stop performing and start feeling real peace.

I work with mothers who want to show up for their families without abandoning themselves. Leaders and professionals who want to stay grounded while navigating intense environments. Psychology students are preparing to serve others with resilience and integrity.

I’m especially called to work with those on the edge of a spiritual awakening, often catalyzed by a physiological or life crisis, autoimmune flares, chronic fatigue, burnout, divorce, or job loss. These clients are waking up to the wisdom of their symptoms. They’re done managing and ready to listen. I walk with them as they meet themselves in a new way. Someone who is ready to see themselves fully and let go of outdated belief systems through this process is ready to work with me.

How do you guide someone who's feeling stuck or overwhelmed in their healing journey?

First, I ask for permission. No one heals through force, and no one moves through stuckness without safety. When someone invites me into their emotional or energetic space, that’s the real beginning.

From there, I listen not just to their words, but to the parts of them that are begging to be seen. Often, it’s not the “adult” or “Higher Self” speaking. It’s a part that’s been dismissed, silenced, or left behind. My job is to witness that part with compassion and tenacity, and to help them build enough internal safety to stay present with it.

What most people call “stuckness” is often a protective freeze, an old strategy trying to keep them safe. When we honor that, instead of pushing through it, space opens. That’s when the manual appears. That’s when we can co-create practical shifts and long-term behavioral change.

No two journeys look exactly the same. But the foundation is universal: being fully seen, held with reverence, and guided with steady accountability. That’s what moves people from survival into self-trust.

What does a typical first session with you look like?

A first session with me isn’t about quick fixes or surface-level conversation, it never is, actually. It’s an intentional space to begin connecting the dots between thoughts, feelings, and life events that may seem unrelated at first glance.

Clients often start by sharing what feels like a ramble. But as we talk, patterns begin to emerge—what once felt disjointed becomes a clear map. Each story, emotion, or moment they mention becomes a breadcrumb leading to insight. By the end, there’s often laughter, tears, deep sighs, and the beginning of real clarity and possibility for something different. The beautiful shift in the first session is that by seeing the pattern, we also address the inherent shame or guilt revolving around “not doing enough, not being good enough,” so that awareness is not marred with that from the get-go of our work together. This shift is imperative for the process.

And while it may look like “just talking,” every word is part of a deeper process. This is an intentional conversation, designed to create flow, loosen old narratives, and build the trust needed for real transformation.

During our first session, I listened to my client’s concerns and began showing them how everything that we do is just one reiteration of a single pattern. At first, it seems to the person that they are rambling or speaking in circles about unrelated aspects of their life, and throughout the session, we begin to see how each seemingly unrelated event in their life is a breadcrumb, a signal, a stone leading them to the path. The first session usually consists of a mix of laughs, some crying, sighing, and A-ha moments, creating a liminal space between the overwhelm and the optimal solution. This is all done through talking intentionally, synergistic talking.

Who inspires you to be the best that you can be?

My children. They represent all children who look to us for answers as they begin to find them within themselves. When my 13-year-old daughter tells me that she and her friends want to be like us (their mothers) when they become mothers themselves, I’m reminded of the sacred responsibility we carry and that we can learn to carry it well, despite our past, despite our insecurities, we can learn, grow, and morph into a graceful and strong feminine model. This inspires me to love myself more deeply and live more expansively, so my daughter and son have a close reference point for what it looks like to live in love with life.

Can you share a bit about how you work with ancestral patterns and healing?

This is where science and spirituality converge. We now understand, through epigenetics, that trauma and resilience are both passed down. When I meet with a client, I listen to their biopsychosocial history through a structured lens: biological, psychological, and relational patterns.

Some of what’s inherited is conscious, shared through stories or family roles. Some of it is unconscious, revealed in the way someone holds their body, repeats certain dynamics, or even the language they use to describe themselves.

My work is influenced by modalities like family constellations, the Adult Attachment Interview, and maternal-infant mental health frameworks. These tools give me a map, but the real healing happens when we name what’s been unspoken and give the client permission to choose differently. Healing ancestral patterns is not just about knowing where the pain came from. It’s about shifting how it continues or doesn’t.

Tell us about your greatest career achievement so far.

My greatest career achievement has been weaving psychology with creative writing. I’ve always been a storyteller, someone who sees meaning in moments and lessons in the everyday. To bring that part of myself fully into my professional life feels like both a return and a breakthrough.

Integrating my writing into my clinical and teaching work has allowed me to reach people in new ways. I no longer separate the psychologist from the creator. Standing fully in both identities and sharing my voice publicly through essays, metaphors, and reflections has been a personal and professional milestone I’m incredibly proud of.

My book about divorce for children is meant for the parents. So they feel the impact of their actions on their child in real time and shift, for the sake of their love and desire for a better future for their child, despite their heartbreak, fear, anger and resentment. The journals I created for moms is to help them step out of their guilt, shame, and insecurities and own the responsibility of raising another being with as much love and quiet courage as it takes to be a role model of the feminine, masculine, practical, and spiritual energies we house. My upcoming book about narcissistic love is personal and universal. We all have experienced this one way or another and it’s time we see it for what it is and pivot to the truth.

Why do you believe reconnecting with the body is so important for mental health?

Because it’s the first step toward integration, we cannot continue to live fragmented, treating the mind and body as if they operate in isolation. There is an inherent consciousness within the body, and everything is interconnected.

When we reconnect with the body, we process emotions and thoughts more clearly and efficiently, as long as we’ve built a mental framework that allows for digestion and transmutation. Emotions are not abstract; they are neurochemical messages moving through the body. The fact that we have neurons not only in the brain but also in the heart and gut says a lot. How can we only talk about thoughts and feelings and ignore their physical pathways?

If we only focus on the body’s symptoms, we miss the deeper emotional and spiritual cues. If we focus solely on thoughts and feelings, we miss when the body is quietly signaling a need for change. True healing requires a full-system awareness, where the body is not just included, but trusted as a wise and active companion.

Where do you see yourself in 10 years from now?

In ten years, I’ll be entering my 50s, sharing this work through international conferences, books, and immersive transformational spaces. If I feel this lit up with what I know now, I can only imagine the depth that another decade will bring. I’m committed to continuing this work with humility, clarity, and devotion, witnessing healing that ripples far beyond me. I am excited to be here, to see more clearly, and be a reference point to others seeking the same resonance and reverence.

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