“I tend to understand my clients through a multigenerational, systematic, and holistic lens.”
What was your path to becoming a therapist?
My path of becoming a therapist is rooted in the personal experience of challenging schooling, the loss of a parent, and migration throughout my childhood and youth. The idea of healing first appeared in my adolescence, which ignited my interest in psychotherapy. I have developed tremendous expertise since 1994 from multicultural settings, working with individuals and families in offices, school-based sites, medical facilities, and client homes.
What should someone know about working with you?
I have conducted over 2,000 intakes in a family counseling program for two decades and encountered a few more thousand individuals and families for psychosocial assessments. I tend to understand my clients through a multigenerational, systematic, and holistic lens. I believe that ultimate change is a progressive process that requires consistent self-growth and positive belief. Clients who like working with me usually appreciate my empathetic understanding, multifaceted knowledge, practicality, and humor.
How do your core values shape your approach to therapy?
I believe that everyone is resilient and capable of change. My therapeutic goal is to assist clients to discover their inner strengths and resources. I want to see my clients achieve a balanced and peaceful relationship with themselves, others, and systems. I was born in Hong Kong and immigrated to the United States as a young adult. I have maintained my cultural practices and am constantly mindful about the differences and similarities of other cultures.
Have you done any research-based work that you found particularly exciting? How does it inform your practice today?
I developed a parenting curriculum in 2017 that has become a three-year research subject for two social work school professors from Columbia University and Fordham University. The clinical methodology and therapeutic intervention from my group summarize my decades-long experience as a practitioner. My clients will find my core ideas of self-development in psychotherapy.
“Clients who like working with me usually appreciate my empathetic understanding, multifaceted knowledge, practicality, and humor.”