I am an Asian therapist that helps Asian American individuals and couples who heal from relational traumas that take many forms in our lives.

Relationship traumas can show up as conflicts that you experience between your family values and your own, childhood where your parents did not express their love for you emotionally, or socially constructed narratives that harm your relationship with yourself (eating disorder, low self-esteem due to appearances, relationship status, or childless life), and intergenerational hustle culture that slowly kills your body and mental health.

Many of my clients are:

• 1st generation immigrants who migrated from overseas as adults

• 1.5 generation adult children of immigrants who migrated as children

• 2nd generation children of immigrants who were born in the United States

• International students, scholars, and expats

• Adult Third Culture Kids (A-TCK) who grew up in countries that are not their passport or their parents’ passport country, such as children of diplomats, children of missionaries, children of military personnel, and children of expats.

Some of the Common Asian American experiences are:

You feel conflicted between cultures

You go back and forth between wanting to choose a life that you picture for yourself and following the paths that have been set for you by your family. You feel confused about what is your hope vs your family’s hope for your life.

You feel like you are an imposter.

You are a high-performing professional and a recovering perfectionist, and you often feel like you fall short.

You don’t feel beautiful or seen.

According to statistics, 1 in 4 AFAB (Assigned female at birth) individuals receive cosmetic/plastic surgery in South Korea. Growing up in South Korea, I learned from a young age how devastating the eurocentric beauty standard is for our hearts and souls. Many Asian AFAB individuals (particularly East Asian folx) struggle with eating disorders and self-loathing due to constantly comparing themselves to others based on appearances.

You feel like you are a perpetual foreigner.

Whether you were born in the U.S. or moved from Asia as a young child or adult, people in many parts of America see Asian Americans as foreigners. This stems from the racist history of immigration that prohibited Chinese nationals from immigrating to the United States and forced the Chinese railroad workers out of the country, and the fetishization of Asian people as sexual objects that dehumanizes Asian American experiences.

You have experienced religious trauma or spiritual abuse.

Many Asian American adults come from religious upbringings, and experiencing religious trauma and spiritual abuse is common, especially in the queer, Asian American communities.

Religious trauma is experienced by many adults who grew up in organized religions that seek to control people’s minds by repeated teaching.

You may be experiencing religious trauma if you:

• have a hard time making decisions about your life. This often comes from the beliefs and teachings that your life is only for God to decide, leaving little to no agency in making autonomous decisions about your life.

• Have a low sense of self-worth. Many queer individuals who grew up in religious environments experience a low sense of self-worth due to the teachings that God hates queer people and social interactions with their religious community that may be okay with a queer person identifying as queer but reject any meantingful, romantic relationships that a queer person wants to enjoy.

• Struggle with black-and-white thinking. One of many reasons why religious folx have a hard time thinking for themselves is that they have been systematically taught to choose one thing or the other constantly (e.g. God vs money, God vs queer relationships, and God vs divorce, etc).

I help those who have experienced religious trauma heal by:

• Honoring your story, first and foremost

• Helping you deconstruct faith, religious beliefs, and values and rebuild your values and spirituality

• Helping you take a stance on your faith, religious teachings, and values so that you can decide what values you want to live by

• Co-creating your preferred narrative/story about your life, instead of one that has been assigned to you by religious parents, pastors, or any religious organizations.