Welcome, and thank you for taking the time to learn about me and how I might help you move toward a place of healing. Last year I moved to Seattle after spending most of my life on the East Coast. Over the years, it has become clear to me, personally and professionally, that therapy heals. As a queer Chinese-American transnational adoptee woman, I’ve learned how to move through the world as someone who is different. I understand the complex experience of living within both marginalized and advantaged identities. These experiences have emphasized how important QTPOC visibility and representation are, including uplifting the voices of those who have been adopted and have had to learn how to navigate two racial worlds.
There is so much inherent power in who you are as a person, and I am here to bear witness to your process of becoming, with, and for you, to help you embrace ways of being that fit with who you want to be and how you want to live. I seek to affirm what you experience now and what you carry with you from the past from an attuned, compassionate, nonjudgmental place. I am committed to my own continuous learning and growth, and firmly believe in the wisdom that you hold as an expert on your own lived experiences.
My approach
I seek to meet you where you are at in your life, and through our working relationship built on trust, help you move through whatever your struggles and sources of pain might be. I operate from a person-centered, strengths-based perspective, as well as an anti-oppressive, anti-racist, and liberation health model orientation. I work relationally with people and offer an intentional mix of curiosity, empathy, and levity into the space. Attachment and self-psychology are paramount to the way that I practice, as early relationships create a roadmap with deep grooves for future relationships. Learning your narratives, noticing patterns, and gently offering insights into them have been my psychodynamic focus.
Professional experience
As of August 2021, I received my Master of Clinical Social Work degree from Smith College School for Social Work. I am a Licensed Associate Clinical Social Worker (LSWAIC) #SC61264239. Prior to my graduate education, I worked in museum education as a School Programs and Education Associate, as an AmeriCorps VISTA engaging in anti-hunger work, and partnered with a social service agency to help provide barrier-free services to individuals experiencing problems related to homelessness, housing, hunger, and poverty. Working with youth and their families in school-based social work and adults in individual outpatient therapy has underscored to me the value of serving clients and my communities with consciousness around an active and intentional anti-racist and social justice lens, as well as a knowledge of the impact of systematic marginalization and oppression on mental health practice. It’s been so important for me to recognize the ways in which one’s mental health is not simply an individual problem, and that considerations of how our systems, environments, and intergenerational trauma play a role in mental health.