In the first session, I’ll invite a conversation about what brings you in. I’ll ask about your emotional state, social supports, and relevant history, and I may use screening tools like the GAD-7 or PHQ-9 when helpful. If needed, we’ll also discuss safety and develop a plan together. I believe in being transparent about expectations—what you hope to get from our work and what we can realistically move toward. From there, we’ll identify a few initial directions, though the space is always open to go where it needs to.

I grew up in China and came to the U.S. as a teenager through a high school exchange program that placed me in a family of a different racial and cultural background. I’ve now lived and worked in the U.S. for a decade. These experiences taught me that humility is non-negotiable—humility toward clients, toward culture, and toward knowledge itself. You are the expert on your own life. My job is not to take over, but to walk alongside you and offer a different angle, a new way of seeing. Give a person a fish and you feed them for a day; teach them how to fish, and you feed them for a lifetime. The same applies here. Our sessions are a space for you to practice autonomy, and over time, that practice can expand into the rest of your life.

I regularly attend professional conferences/training and genuinely enjoy conversations with people outside the mental health field—I believe life experience and perspective shape the work as much as any training. I consult with experienced colleagues, value group supervision, and organize local peer support gatherings for other therapists. I’m very much in favor of telehealth for the access and consistency it provides, especially since so much of my early career unfolded during the pandemic. That said, I’m deeply cautious about the growing push to bring AI into mental health care, particularly in high-risk situations. Some things simply require a human presence. I’m most drawn to the quieter, often avoided topics—the invisible traumas we’ve learned to rationalize away, the unspoken grief after losing a relationship or a loved one, the weight of death that so few people know how to sit with. I try to create a space where those conversations can happen safely, where what was left unsaid can finally be spoken.

I’ve accompanied clients through high-risk suicidal periods, and I’ve learned that healing sometimes arrives in small, tangible forms. Once, I gave a suicidal client a tiny plant, a piece of one I had been growing. That plant traveled with them in their car to the bridge they would sometimes drive to when they thought about ending their life. Over time, they chose to stand on the ground and feel the life in that plant instead of acting on the urge to disappear. Ethical dilemmas don’t always come with clear answers; sometimes you make the best decision you can in that moment, with the person in front of you. In the therapy room, I intentionally keep "invisible". I usually don’t wear makeup, I dress simply, and I try to let my own presence recede so the space can be about the client. I also believe that unconditional validation isn’t always the most helpful thing. When there’s a meaningful gap between what you say and what you do, I’ll gently but honestly point it out. That kind of challenge, offered with care, can be a powerful turning point.