Therapy for AAPI Individuals: Finding Support When You Understand What It Means to Live Between Worlds
I still remember making tiny play-dough potstickers, when I visited my grandparents' in California growing up, and watching my Abu (grandma) make tiny perfect folds with the bright pink “dough”. I was learning about my Chinese heritage through food (fake and real), through my grandparents' stories (when they would share them), through the few Mandarin and Shanghainese words I picked up. And I was also sitting at the dinner table knowing my dad's family cooked differently, spoke differently, saw the world differently.
Growing up mixed-race Chinese and White in a less diverse environment, I learned early what it meant to navigate between cultures. When I moved to California and found myself surrounded by other AAPI and multicultural folks for the first time, something in me relaxed. I didn't have to explain why I was taking my shoes off, why I didn’t want friends sitting on my bed in their street clothes, or translate cultural references, or justify my existence. People just got it, and that felt like such a relief.
As a therapist, I now work with AAPI individuals—East Asian, Southeast Asian, South Asian, Pacific Islander, immigrants, children of immigrants, second and third generation, and everyone navigating the complex experience of being Asian in America. And what I've learned is this: you don't need me to educate you about your own experience. You're living it. What you might need is space to process it with someone who understands.
You Already Know What It's Like
You know what it's like when public opinion about being Asian shifts like the wind.
During COVID-19, many of us experienced a specific kind of fear—the hypervigilance of wondering if someone would blame us for a pandemic, the anxiety of being visible in public spaces, the exhaustion of navigating hate crimes and microaggressions that suddenly felt everywhere.
And now? We're in what some people call a "very Chinese time." Asian aesthetics are trendy. Asian food is cool. Asian culture is popular. It's a bit disorienting, isn't it? To go from being scapegoated to being trendy, never quite knowing which version of public opinion you're going to encounter on any given day.
You know the in-betweenness of being Asian in the U.S.—not quite fitting the American narrative, but also maybe not "Asian enough" by some invisible standard. Not quite seen as individuals, but also hyper-visible as representatives of entire continents.
You already know this. You don't need me to explain it. What you might need is space to process how it affects you.
The Weight You Might Be Carrying
If you're reading this, you might be carrying some combination of these experiences:
The pressure of expectations:
Maybe from family who sacrificed everything for you to succeed. Maybe from a culture that emphasized academic and professional achievement as security. Maybe from yourself, because somewhere along the way you internalized the message that you had to be exceptional just to be acceptable.
The complexity of family dynamics:
Navigating collectivism and individualism—honoring your family and community while also developing your own identity and desires. The guilt that comes with setting boundaries. The grief of cultural or language barriers with parents or grandparents. The challenge of explaining American life to immigrant family members while also feeling like you're always translating your Asian experience to everyone else.
Intergenerational trauma you can feel but maybe can't name:
Your parents or grandparents might have experienced war, political upheaval, poverty, immigration, or profound loss. Even if they never talked about it directly, you felt it in the way they parented, in their fears, in the silences. Research shows that 70% of Southeast Asian refugees receiving mental health treatment meet criteria for PTSD, and their children can internalize that psychological distress even without directly experiencing the trauma themselves.
The exhaustion of being a cultural chameleon:
Code-switching between different contexts. Managing how you're perceived. Anticipating and deflecting microaggressions. Explaining yourself, your culture, your family, your choices over and over again. Being asked "where are you really from?" Being told you "speak English so well." Being treated as either invisible or as an expert on all things Asian.
The specific loneliness of the AAPI experience:
Even in diverse spaces, your specific intersection of identities might feel invisible. The AAPI community includes over 43 distinct ethnic groups with different languages, cultures, religions, and immigration histories. Sometimes it feels like even within Asian spaces, your particular experience doesn't quite fit.
The mental health impact of all of this:
Research consistently shows that AAPI adults are three times less likely than White individuals to seek mental health services, even though rates of depression and anxiety in AAPI communities (especially among young adults) have been rising significantly.
What Often Brings AAPI Clients to Therapy
People come to therapy for all kinds of reasons, and none of them need to be "serious enough" to justify seeking support. Here are some experiences I commonly work with:
Processing the Shifting Landscape of Being Asian in America
You might be processing:
The trauma and hypervigilance from COVID-era anti-Asian violence
Confusion about how to navigate when Asian culture goes from vilified to trendy
Exhaustion from constantly adjusting to how the world sees you
Anger, grief, or numbness about racism and discrimination
The specific weight of anti-Asian stereotypes and fetishization
Navigating Family Expectations and Cultural Values
This might look like:
Feeling caught between family expectations and your own desires
Managing guilt about pursuing paths your family doesn't understand or approve of
Setting boundaries with family while managing the cultural weight of filial piety
Navigating different cultural values around marriage, career, money, or lifestyle
Processing disappointment or frustration from family members
Working through the pressure to be the "perfect" child who justifies parents' sacrifices
Identity and Belonging
Maybe you're exploring:
Who you are beyond your family's expectations or cultural scripts
What parts of your cultural heritage feel authentic to you versus what feels like performance
How to stay connected to your culture in ways that feel meaningful without feeling like you're cherry-picking
Where you belong when you feel too Asian for some spaces and not Asian enough for others
Your relationship with language (whether you speak your family's language or not, and what that means)
How your identity as AAPI intersects with your other identities
Intergenerational and Ancestral Healing
This work often involves:
Understanding how your parents' or grandparents' trauma shows up in your life
Processing grief about cultural knowledge, language, or connections that were lost
Making sense of family patterns that don't make sense until you understand the context of what previous generations survived
Deciding how to honor your ancestors while also breaking cycles that no longer serve you
Developing compassion for family members while also protecting your own well-being
Collectivism, Individualism, and Finding Your Own Path
You might be working through:
The guilt of prioritizing your own needs when you were raised to prioritize community
How to make choices that feel authentic to you while honoring your family and culture
The internal conflict between wanting to make your family proud and wanting to live your own life
Learning to develop your own relationship with your cultural heritage—taking what feels valuable and relevant while leaving what doesn't
Professional and Academic Stress
This could include:
Perfectionism that feels impossible to manage
Imposter syndrome in professional or academic settings
The pressure to represent your entire community
Navigating workplace microaggressions and discrimination
Questioning whether you're on the "right" career path or if you're just following what was expected
Relationship and Dating Experiences
Many AAPI clients work on:
Navigating family expectations around who you should date or marry
Processing experiences of fetishization or exoticization in dating
Exploring what it means to date within or outside your cultural community
Managing family reactions to your relationships
Working through internalized beliefs about desirability
The Mental Health Impacts
The cumulative weight of all these experiences can show up as:
Anxiety and depression
Chronic stress and burnout
Difficulty trusting yourself or making decisions
Feeling disconnected from your body or emotions
Perfectionism and self-criticism
Difficulty setting boundaries or advocating for yourself
Grief and loss that feels complicated
My Story: Why This Work Matters to Me
I'm half Chinese—my mom immigrated as a child with her family, my uncle, my Abu and Gong Gong (grandparents). Growing up, I felt connected to my Chinese heritage through them, through the food my family made and ate, through the stories they would occasionally share, through watching my mom navigate between two cultures.
But I also grew up in a less diverse area where being mixed meant constant explaining. It meant people asking invasive questions. It meant not quite fitting in anywhere. When I moved to California, the relief of being around other AAPI and multicultural folks was profound.
As an adult, I took Mandarin classes. It was a struggle—language learning as an adult is hard, and there was grief mixed in too, grief about not growing up speaking my grandparents’ language fluently and now trying to even learn their secondary dialect. But it felt important, like reclaiming a piece of my heritage that I wanted to understand more deeply.
All of this shapes how I show up as a therapist. I understand, from the inside, what it means to navigate multiple cultural worlds. I understand the grief of not having full access to your heritage. I understand the complexity of family dynamics across cultures. I understand the exhaustion of constantly translating your existence.
And I bring that understanding into the therapy room.
How Therapy Can Help: My Approach
When you work with me, you won't have to explain the basics of your cultural experience. You won't have to justify why microaggressions hurt, or why family dynamics feel complicated, or why it's hard to disappoint your parents even when you're making choices that are right for you.
Instead, we can focus on the work you came to do.
Culturally Attuned Therapy
This means I:
Understand the specific context of AAPI experiences, including the diversity within Asian communities
Recognize how systemic racism, immigration challenges, and cultural expectations impact mental health
Create space for you to explore your relationship with your culture authentically
Validate the complexity of navigating collectivist and individualist values
Don't perpetuate the model minority myth or make assumptions about your experience based on stereotypes
Internal Family Systems (IFS)-Informed Work
IFS can be particularly powerful for AAPI clients because it:
Honors the different "parts" of you without pathologizing them (the part that wants to honor your family, the part that wants independence, the part that feels guilty, etc.)
Recognizes that these parts developed to protect you and help you navigate complex cultural expectations
Helps you develop compassion for all the ways you've had to adapt
Supports you in healing from internalized messages that parts of you aren't acceptable
Allows you to integrate different aspects of your identity into a cohesive whole
Trauma-Conscious and Somatic Approaches
Through trauma-conscious yoga methods and somatic therapy, we can:
Address the ways racial trauma and cultural stress live in your body
Work with the nervous system impacts of chronic hypervigilance, especially post-COVID
Develop body-based coping strategies for managing stress and anxiety
Reconnect with your body when cultural expectations have created disconnection
Process traumatic experiences using your body's wisdom
EMDR and Brainspotting
These modalities can be especially helpful for:
Processing specific incidents of racism, discrimination, or hate
Working through complex developmental trauma
Addressing painful experiences related to family or cultural identity
Healing from the cumulative impact of microaggressions
Reprocessing internalized negative beliefs about yourself or your identity
Ancestral and Intergenerational Healing
This work involves:
Understanding how intergenerational trauma shows up in your life
Developing compassion for what your parents and grandparents survived
Honoring your ancestors while also breaking cycles that no longer serve you
Processing grief about lost cultural connections, languages, or knowledge
Finding ways to heal that honor both your lineage and your own wellbeing
Developing Your Own Relationship with Your Culture
One thing I want to emphasize: there's no "right way" to be Asian or to engage with your cultural heritage.
Maybe you're deeply connected to your culture of origin. Maybe you're exploring it for the first time as an adult. Maybe you're navigating complicated feelings about parts of your cultural heritage that don't align with your values. Maybe you speak your family's language fluently, or maybe you don't speak it at all. Maybe you're first generation, second generation, third generation, or more. Maybe you grew up immersed in your culture, or maybe you're learning about it now.
All of this is valid.
Part of what we can work on in therapy is helping you develop YOUR authentic relationship with your cultural heritage—not the relationship you think you're supposed to have, but the one that actually feels meaningful and relevant to you. This isn't about cherry-picking the "easy" parts and discarding the rest. It's about thoughtfully engaging with your heritage, understanding what resonates with you and why, and making conscious choices about what you want to carry forward.
Sometimes this means embracing practices your family has maintained for generations. Sometimes it means discovering parts of your heritage your family lost or never had access to. Sometimes it means adapting traditions to fit your life now. Sometimes it means holding grief about what was lost alongside gratitude for what remains.
There's no single way to do this, and you get to figure out what feels authentic for you.
What to Expect in Therapy With Me
When you work with me, you can expect:
To be understood without explanation:
You won't have to provide cultural context for your experiences. I already understand the complexity of being AAPI in America, the weight of family expectations, the exhaustion of navigating shifting public opinions about Asian people.
Space for ALL your feelings:
You can be angry about racism and also appreciate trendy Asian aesthetics. You can love your family and also be frustrated with them. You can feel connected to your culture and also feel constrained by it. You can grieve what you've lost and celebrate what you have. All of it makes sense.
Support in navigating between worlds:
Whether you're navigating collectivism and individualism, honoring your family while also developing your own path, or figuring out how to maintain cultural connections while living your own life. We'll work through it together.
Healing that honors your whole story:
We'll address the racism and discrimination you've faced, the intergenerational trauma you carry, the pressure and expectations you navigate, and the specific experiences of being AAPI in this particular moment in history.
Tools and skills that actually work:
Beyond just talking, you'll develop practical strategies for managing anxiety, setting boundaries, making decisions, regulating your emotions, and building the life you want.
Respect for your family and your culture:
Therapy with me isn't about blaming your family or rejecting your culture. It's about understanding your full context, developing compassion for everyone's experience (including your own), and making choices that honor both your heritage and your wellbeing.
You Don't Need to Have It All Figured Out
You don't need to come to therapy with a clear plan or specific goals. You don't need to have reached a crisis point. You don't need to apologize for taking up space or "not having it bad enough."
Maybe you're just tired. Maybe you're confused about who you are outside of your family's expectations. Maybe you're processing the whiplash of how the world sees Asian people. Maybe you're carrying grief you didn't know how to name. Maybe you're just curious about what therapy could offer.
All of that is reason enough.
Who I Work With
My practice welcomes:
AAPI individuals across the diaspora including East Asian, Southeast Asian, South Asian, and Pacific Islander communities
All generations including immigrants, first generation, second generation, third generation, and more
Anyone navigating cultural identity regardless of how connected you feel to your heritage or how you identify
Folks working through family dynamics including those with immigrant parents, those navigating acculturation gaps, and those processing complex family relationships
People at any point in their healing journey whether you're just starting to explore these issues or you've been working on them for years
The Work Is Worth It
Being AAPI in America comes with specific challenges that many people don't see or understand. The pressure, the expectations, the racism, the cultural navigation, the intergenerational trauma has an impact on you, and that’s totally normal.
But here's what I've learned both personally and professionally: healing is possible. Understanding yourself more deeply is possible. Developing your own authentic relationship with your culture is possible. Breaking cycles while honoring your ancestors is possible. Living a life that feels true to you while also maintaining meaningful connections to your family and community is possible.
It takes work. It takes time. It takes support. But it's worth it.
You deserve to feel at peace with who you are. You deserve to live a life that feels authentic to you. You deserve to process the complexity of your experience with someone who understands. You deserve space to be fully yourself without explanation or translation.
If you're in California and navigating the AAPI experience—whether you're dealing with family expectations, processing racism and discrimination, working through intergenerational trauma, exploring your identity, or just feeling overwhelmed by all of it—I'd love to support you.
You don't have to keep carrying all of this alone.
Schedule a free consultation today to get started.
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