My Background
Originally a Californian, I studied Economics at MIT and spent the first decade of my career on Wall Street as an investment banker, investment analyst, and trader. As a second generation Asian American, I was shaped by the immigrant experiences of my family, the broad and deep effects of intergenerational trauma, and the pervasive but often subtle challenges of race and class. To paraphrase author Stephanie Foo, I felt I had to achieve the American Dream because I had no other choice. As I entered adulthood, I became more conscious of how mental health issues had shaped both me and others in my life. This gradual waking up process eventually motivated me to pursue both a life and work focused on healing. Being a psychotherapist is my career, but it is a deeply personal calling as well.
I work with clients in California, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Florida. I am licensed in the first three states because I have personal and professional communities in each of them. I have lived in, been educated in, or worked for significant periods in each of these states. It is my wish to serve and remain integrated into each of these communities. I am registered in Florida in order to improve access to underserved populations, including people of color and those seeking CBT-I (insomnia psychotherapy).
My Approach and Philosophy
My approach is relational at its core, and it is my role is to provide an empathic and curious space in which you can explore your experience. One of my core beliefs as a therapist is that experiences of aloneness, attachment wounds, and traumas frequently underlie adult mental health struggles. I have focused my career on working with people with struggles born of such experiences - including depression, anxiety, PTSD, relational struggles, problematic substance use, and eating disorders. In addition to providing a relational space, I integrate multiple “bottom-up” models of therapy, including Internal Family Systems (IFS), Somatic Experiencing (SE), Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy (AEDP), and mindfulness based approaches. These approaches are experiential, more body-based, and more emotion-focused than traditional talk therapy. My therapeutic work has intentionally become more experiential over time in order to promote more rapid exploration of core issues. Informed by my personal experiences in therapy, I hope to minimize long periods of “looping” in fixed, intellectualized discussions which can appear to be about important content but are often disconnected from underlying emotional experience. Although ultimately transformative and liberating, inner healing is an intensive undertaking and can be a long-term process, so to whatever extent possible, I would not like to make the psychotherapy portion of your healing journey longer than it needs to be. It requires taking meaningful risk to even contemplate healing rather than just subsisting. I consider the pursuit of wholeness an expression of hope and courage which resides in all human beings.
Sally
This is my best friend and trusted colleague Sally. She focuses her work on a single client (me). She’s been influenced by relational therapists Irvin Yalom and Snoopy.
Training Highlights
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
-Bachelors of Science in Economics, 2009
Rutgers University
-Masters in Social Work, 2020
-Addiction Counselor Training (ACT) certification
-Opioid Workforce Expansion Program federal grant (HRSA-19-085)
Somatic Experiencing International
-In 3 year advanced training to become Somatic Experiencing Practitioner (SEP)
-BIPOC scholarship recipient, 2022
-Year 1 training, 2022
-Year 2 training, 2023
-Year 3 training, 2024 (current)
Internal Family Systems (IFS)
-Treating Complex Trauma with Internal Family Systems – Frank Anderson, June 2022
-Internal Family Systems Therapy: Experiential Workshop, November 2022
-Internal Family Systems Level 1 training, 2024
Psychedelic assisted therapy and psychedelic harm reduction
-Polaris Insight Center: Training and Practice of Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy, December 2022
-PESI: Psychedelics in Therapy, July 2022
-Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS): MDMA Therapy Training program (100 hours), 2021
Various
-Dialogic practice: Open Dialogue training series
-Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-I)
Substance use counseling & harm reduction
-Motivational Interviewing beginner and intermediate levels, 2022
-Ellenhorn: Shifting the Addiction Paradigm conference, 2019 & 2022
AEDP Institute
-Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy (AEDP) Immersion, 2023
-AEDP Level 1 clinician
Trauma focused trainings
-Boston International Trauma Conference, 2020 & 2021
-Cognitive Processing Therapy training, 2021
-Bessel van der Kolk and Licia Sky’s the Body Keeps the Score workshop, 2020
-The Center for Great Expectations: Trauma at the Core: Building Resiliency Across the Lifespan, 2019
Racial justice, racial trauma, and cultural competency
-MAPS: Psychedelic Medicine & Cultural Trauma Workshop, 2019
-Rutgers School of Social Work: Challenging Racial Disparities conference, 2019