What impact did the scope and/or focus of your education have on your current work as a therapist?
I believe in providing quality therapy to you and pursuing postgraduate training is a critical part of that. Currently, I am involved in a four-year contemporary psychoanalytic training program. This is an extensive level of training that allows me to address the full complexity of your human experience. I focus on deepening your self-understanding of emotional issues and conflicts that impact significant events and relationships in your life. In addition, I value diversity and am involved in continuing education about integrating multicultural perspectives. As an Asian American therapist, I am sensitive to the ways our genders, ethnicities, sexual orientations, personal and family immigration histories, religions, and body sizes can shape our inner thoughts and emotional life. Sometimes, our psychological issues have some history in inherited pain or intergenerational trauma. Together, we can work through these experiences to help you develop a more cohesive sense of self.
What would be important for someone to know about working with you?
Therapy is a long-term investment in yourself and your self-care. Even though there are no quick fixes or easy answers when it comes to healing, people can experience growth and development as they work through past traumas. Successful professionals struggling with high-functioning anxiety and depression can finally move toward clarity and fulfillment in their inner world. If you’re curious about yourself, want to grow, and want to deepen your self-awareness, let’s talk. With training in contemporary psychodynamic and cognitive behavioral therapy, I am here to gently guide you at your pace toward overcoming what ails you. We will work together to deepen your understanding of the recurring ways in which you feel stuck as well as how past painful experiences may still live on in the present. Through this process, you can begin to find relief, discover new perspectives, and come up with ways to create a more fulfilling and authentic life.
In what ways do your life philosophy and treatment philosophy overlap?
I value freedom and believe that boxes can be confining. This includes the box of a medical model diagnosis. Don’t get me wrong — a diagnosis is a helpful way to conceptualize different issues. It allows us to relate to others who might have similar challenges and it’s of course needed for insurance. At the same time, it can also be reductive and doesn’t account for the full complexity and individuality of each person. How does this shape my approach to therapy? I will want to explore the nuances of your struggles and the specific patterns you get stuck in. You can expect that our journey won’t be linear and that there is no set formula. I also value clarity and self-awareness. Clarity is developed through the process of looking deep within and gaining insight into who you are, who you want to be, and the factors that shape your life and decisions. With clarity comes new possibilities, directions, and the freedom to move through life in the ways that you truly desire.
Specialties
Depression
Depression often causes people to feel sad, empty, or hopeless, and can cause a lack of interest in life. It can also affect a person's thinking patterns and physical health.
Anxiety
Anxiety can mean nervousness, worry, or self-doubt. Anxiety disorder is a mental health disorder that entails excessive, repeated bouts of worry, anxiety, and/or fear.
Race & Cultural Identity
Challenges around race and cultural identity vary enormously, including issues related to discrimination, racism, and intergenerational trauma.
Abuse/Survivors of abuse
Abuse includes any significant mistreatment along the lines of psychical, emotional, sexual, verbal, and neglect. Survivors of abuse may experience negative thoughts and feelings, flashbacks, distrust of others, social withdrawal, self-harm, and increased likelihood of developing mental health and substance abuse issues.
Trauma
Trauma is the result of experiencing a perceived, extremely distressful event. Although the stress threshold for each person differs, meaning that each person considers and experiences trauma differently, it is an event that tops one’s threshold. It exceeds one’s ability to cope or emotionally process. Symptoms may include shock, anxiety, confusion, hopelessness, feeling disconnected, mood swings, nightmares, and intrusive thoughts.
General Expertise
Work Stress
Workplace issues are a common source of stress and can include interpersonal conflict, communication problems, gossip, harassment, discrimination, low motivation and job satisfaction, performance issues, and poor job fit.
Relationship Issues
Refers relationship issues with a partner or spouse. Can include issues related to relationship distress, relationship satisfaction, communication, intimacy, etc.
Self-Esteem
Self-esteem is the degree to which a person feels confident, valuable, and worthy of respect. Feeling low self-esteem can influence overall well-being and be linked to anxiety and/or depression.
Attachment issues
Children that experience parents and/or guardians that are avoidant, ambivalent, or resistant from an early age, may develop attachment issues. This can manifest as difficulty forming or maintaining friendships, romantic relationships and empathetic bonds throughout life, as well as other issues.
Cultural adjustment
Moving to another place or living in a different culture requires a normal adjustment period. This happens at different rates for different people, some adjusting more quickly than others. Can potentially lead to ongoing issues.
Fees
$250
Individual Therapy
Types of Therapy
Individual Session
Clientele
Young Adults (18-24)
Adults (25-65)
Treatment Approaches / Modalities
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
Strength Based Therapy
Attachment-Based Therapy
Culturally Sensitive Therapy
Psychoanalytic Therapy
Psychodynamic Therapy
Relational Therapy
Training / Certifications
Adult Psychoanalysis at the Institute for Contemporary Psychotherapy
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
Licensure
NY, LCSW, 090366
NJ, LCSW, 44SC05998700
DC, LCSW, LC200001194
FL, LCSW, TPSW800
Education
Master of Social Work
BA in Psychology
Work History
I have worked with diverse adult clientele throughout my experience as a therpist. Some of the areas I have helped clients navigate include perfectionism/high expectations, anxiety, immigration/acculturation, trauma, self-esteem, social phobia, body image issues, dissociative disorders, and relationship issues. Additionally, I have advanced training in contemporary psychodynamic and evidenced-based therapies.
Location
Teletherapy, Washington, 20004, DC