Therapy for asian americans
Therapy for ASian Americans, Children of immigrants, or bi/multi-cultural individuals.
If you’re straddling multiple cultures, whatever that looks like for you, there can be a particular tiredness in having to explain your context before you can explain yourself.
“Asian American” is a big, slippery phrase. It holds the children of immigrants and the fourth-generation kid, the one raised in the suburbs and the one raised behind the register of the family business, the mixed and the adopted, the fluent and the I-understand-it-but-can't-really-speak-it.
As a culturally-responsive therapist, I am here to embrace your story with all its complexities, while also holding nuance and understanding from my own lived experience. I will never assume your story looks like mine (or what the research claims), but some of the background hum—the expectations, the silences, the love that arrives as pressure—I probably won’t need translated.
It’s Complicated
For many clients, it starts with family: the quiet expectations, the guilt or shame, the heaviness of your parents’ very real sacrifices. Or maybe navigating cultures has taught you to code-switch so well that you’re not sure who’s the real you.
Some issues I work on with my AAPI or other cross-cultural/bicultural clients:
Having a hard time setting boundaries, or feeling guilty when you do
Feeling torn between your parents' expectations and your own choices
Recognizing emotional neglect from parents who were under-resourced, or never had the language for feelings themselves
Feeling burdened by your family's sacrifices or suffering
Carrying shame over mistakes or worrying you'll let people down
Reading the room so well that you expect others to read you back, and feeling unseen when they don't
People-pleasing, or struggling to say no when you need to
Not feeling fully accepted in either culture
Feeling misunderstood or isolated by people who don't share your background
Having a hard time stepping back from family conflict or unhealthy dynamics
Let’s Work Together
We’ll start simply, wherever you are with your cultural identity and relationships. It’s not easy in the midst of a busy work or family life to pause and consider the impacts of your upbringing or to take the time to figure out how you want to relate with yourself or your loved ones. The point is not to resolve your identity into something tidy. It’s to live more honestly inside the one life that’s yours.
If you feel even a little bit seen on this page, I welcome you to reach out for a free 15-minute consultation.