Meet Our Team: A Q&A with Sita Mukerji, MA, APCC
At the heart of effective treatment is a team of dedicated professionals working together to support healing, growth, and lasting change. At BrightQuest, our clinicians, mentors, and staff each bring a unique blend of experience, skill, and purpose to the care they provide.
Through our Meet Our Team series, we invite you to get to know the people behind the work. These Q&As offer insight into their roles, what draws them to the mental health and recovery field, and how their perspectives shape the way they support clients and families.
In this edition, we feature Sita Mukerji, MA, APCC, Clinical Therapist at BrightQuest San Diego. She shares her approach to therapy, her view of the recovery process, and what continues to inspire her work each day.
Q: Tell us about your role! What do you do at BrightQuest and what do you love most about your job? What specialties or therapeutic approaches do you bring to your work?
A: I am a Clinical Therapist at BrightQuest; My day to day role includes holding Individual and Family sessions with clients, facilitating groups and supporting our milieu as needed. My absolute favorite part of my job is working one-on-one with clients and families. The clients are the reason I am here. My therapeutic approach is always holistic and humanistic. I see clients as complex individuals with varying stories and backgrounds that have shaped who they are. Through a humanistic approach, I can look at the person as a whole being versus just their diagnosis. Through this lens, I pull from many modalities to support the client in a multitude of ways.
Q: What is your “why?” What motivated or inspired you to be in this field?
A: I was drawn to this field by a deep and enduring curiosity about people—their stories, perspectives, and the unique ways they experience the world. Early in my career in Industrial Psychology, I worked with individuals within team environments, but I found myself naturally gravitating toward supporting people one-on-one—helping them navigate mindset challenges, recognize their strengths, and grow both personally and professionally.
With a mother in mental healthcare and a father in education, I was influenced by the importance of both support and learning from an early age. Clinical psychology allows me to bring these two foundations together through psychoeducation and compassionate care, while focusing deeply on each individual’s needs, experiences, and goals. Aside from this, I am a cheerleader at heart and sincerely want to see people find the wisdom within themselves to foster authentic lives.
Q: In your opinion, what are the strengths at BrightQuest? What makes them unique?
A: BrightQuest is such a unique space in the field because of its commitment to community and the community model. In today’s world, we often honor individualism and achieving success through our own merits; however, in my experience, nothing replaces the village in terms of support, healing, and growth opportunities. Whether as a parent, a friend, a teacher, to name a few, I believe that we do better and become better when we are in connection and have a system surrounding us that bridges the gaps that we cannot achieve on our own.
Q: What makes you excited to be a part of the BrightQuest Team?
A: I am most excited about being at BrightQuest because I not only am here to support others but I am supported on my growth journey as well. Community means collaboration, and at BrightQuest we share and learns from each other’s strengths and ideas as each team member brings their own wisdom and experiences. We spend several hours a week in collaboration, learning and supporting each other.
Q: What is your hope for the future of BrightQuest?
A: I hope that BrightQuest becomes synonymous with mental wellness and that as they grow, their ability to serve more people and different communities broadens.
Q: What do you wish more people knew about your profession?
A: I love this question; I wish more people understood that healing is individual and that our profession equips us with so many modalities to utilize. And with that, the therapist isn’t the healer; as therapists, we foster capacity for awareness so that an individual can tap into their own healing mechanisms.
Q: Is there a personal philosophy or guiding principle that shapes the way you approach care?
A: My personal philosophy has always been to listen to the individual, learn who they are and support them from a humanistic and holistic lens. I operate under the assumption that agency and autonomy occur when the individual is able to see their strengths and opportunities for themselves. Positive Regard, for me, fosters a space where the individual can find beauty and wisdom exactly where they are.
