Silvija was born into a Serbian family during the collapse of the former Yugoslavia, where the dominant message of her childhood was that God belonged to the past. In the absence of a faith framework, she turned to creative expression and eventually to psychology, seeking to grapple with questions of meaning, suffering, and transformation. That search ultimately led her to grapple with absence, and to recognize Christ as the foundation for true and lasting change. Through engaging Scripture, her understanding of healing was reoriented, and her interest in integrating faith with therapeutic work was awakened.

Silvija is relationally oriented and attachment-focused, with a passion for engaging meaning-making through the therapeutic encounter and beyond. She studied film at USC and earned her master’s degree in psychology from California Southern University.

Outside the therapy room, Silvija continues to write and make films that live somewhere between the poetic and the unsettling. A fun fact: she was once a Yugoslav national silver medalist in figure skating, though these days, she’s largely retired from the cold.