Therapy that understands
where you come from.
Second-generation Asian American psychologist · Los Alamitos & online in CA
For high-achieving adults and couples carrying family expectations, cultural duty, and the pressure to look fine — with a psychologist who understands it from the inside, not from a textbook.
You shouldn't have to translate yourself.
Half your story was never in English. In here, you don't have to explain the parts you shouldn't have to explain.
The model-minority weight
Excellence treated as baseline. Struggle hidden as shame. The exhaustion of performing fine so no one worries — or asks.
Family duty and the guilt no one names
Filial piety, obligations to parents and elders, the debt of sacrifice. You can love your family deeply and still be exhausted by what you owe them.
Couples across cultures
When you and your partner grew up with different family rules — or the same culture pressed onto you differently — therapy that understands both worlds changes what's discussable.
Identity, faith, and belonging
First-gen expectations, faith that shifted, the feeling of being between cultures at family dinners and at work. All of it belongs in the room.
What many Asian American clients bring
Saying no to parents without betraying them. Choosing a career, partner, or city that family doesn't fully understand. Caring for aging parents while raising kids and holding a career — the quiet arithmetic of duty that no one taught you.
The loneliness that can come with success when your community measures success in one specific way. Relationship patterns pulled between what you want and what would keep the peace.
Spending therapy sessions explaining why rest feels dangerous, why 'good child' is a job title, why two cultures live in you with different rules. My job is to know those without you having to translate them first.
A lens, not the whole story
My own story is second-generation Chinese-American, and it shapes how I work — without letting any single part of your identity swallow the rest of you.
Start with your actual life
Culture is context, not a diagnosis. We work on what you brought in — relationships, anxiety, identity, burnout — with your history in view.
Hold both worlds at once
Honoring your family does not require abandoning yourself. We find the terms where duty and self-respect can coexist — and where boundaries fit inside love.
Go beneath, together
Psychodynamic and attachment-oriented: we look at the patterns underneath — the ones that kept you safe in one world and costly in another.
Questions clients often ask first
Do I need an Asian American therapist?
Not a requirement — many wonderful therapists come from every background. But there's a particular relief in not having to explain the family rules, the untranslated words, or why saying no feels impossible. That lived context is already in the room here, and fit — feeling genuinely seen — remains what matters most.
What languages do you offer therapy in?
Sessions are in English. Family phrases and heritage concepts are always welcome in the room; the work itself is in English.
Is this practice only for Asian American clients?
No. I work with adults and couples of every background. The cultural lens is one lens I bring with lived understanding, not a filter on who is welcome.
Will my family find out I'm in therapy?
No. What you share is confidential, and I do not communicate with family about your care without your written consent. Fear of community judgment is a common — and legitimate — thing to bring into therapy. We can talk about it directly, at your pace.