“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I’ll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass the world is too full to talk about.”
Blog #5 October 7th, 2025
Healing for Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: An Asian American Therapist’s Perspective
As a Chinese American who grew up with volatile and unpredictable parents, I know what it’s like to constantly “walk on eggshells,” to worry about authority figures, and to carry those experiences long into adulthood.
My parents ran a restaurant and worked long hours. When they came home, they often argued, and my mother would sometimes threaten to leave. I was never helped to manage my distress while overhearing their fights.
On top of this, my mother was depressed and emotionally explosive. My father was an authoritarian type of parent and would use corporal punishment whenever I didn’t get good grades or misbehaved. I often felt dread, unseen, unsafe, and alone throughout my childhood and into early adulthood.
I would worry about my parents often.
In my twenties, I struggled with persistent anxiety, regulating my emotions, making decisions, speaking up for what I needed, and connecting with others without worrying about rejection or conflict.
My healing journey has made me deeply aware of how an emotionally unsafe upbringing leaves a lasting imprint on how we feel, think, and relate as adults.
Like many children who grew up in emotionally unsafe environments (e.g., households where parents frequently argued and modeled poor conflict resolution skills, temperamental parents, mentally preoccupied parents, self-centered or narcissistic parents, or critical and conditional parents), I developed beliefs and behaviors that helped me survive a chaotic environment as a child but didn’t serve me in my adulthood.
Some of these patterns, which you may resonate with, include people-pleasing, overthinking, subjugating my needs, feeling guilty for resting or not being productive, hyper-independent, chronic indecision, over preparation, procrastination, and perfectionism.
In my healing process—and having been on the other side of the therapist’s chair as a client—I’ve tried different treatment approaches like CBT and EMDR. In my experience, the therapeutic orientation itself matters less in regards to healing & change, and meta-analytic research supports this (1).
What made the biggest difference for me was working with a therapist who could truly empathize with and attune to my upbringing, understand how my limiting beliefs once served to protect me, while also working with me to navigate life as an adult. That experience allowed me to finally feel understood and safe—and from that place, I could begin to change the core limiting beliefs about myself that kept me stuck.
As a psychologist now, I bring that same sense of empathy, attunement, and safety to the people I work with. I understand how deeply early experiences can shape the way we show up in the world, and I believe healing begins when we feel truly seen and accepted. My goal is to help clients not only understand the origins of their pain but also reconnect with their sense of worth, agency, and self-compassion—so they can create relationships and lives that feel grounded, authentic, and true to who they are.
(1) Flückiger, C., Del Re, A. C., Wampold, B. E., Symonds, D., & Horvath, A. O. (2018). The alliance in adult psychotherapy: A meta-analytic synthesis. Psychotherapy, 55 (4), 316–340.
When You Need More Than CBT: How Relational Therapy Helps You Heal at a Deeper Level.
Blog#4 June 4th, 2025
Many of my clients have tried —and made good use of — the short-term therapy offered through their Employee Assistance Programs. Usually this is based on cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), a well-researched and often helpful method that gives you some tools and techniques to use in managing unhelpful thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.
CBT helps you notice your thinking patterns; it challenge the beliefs that aren’t serving you, and replace them with more balanced and realistic ones. For many people, this can bring real relief and practical coping strategies. It’s especially useful when you need something structured, goal-oriented, and time-limited.
However, sometimes we all want something more.
Many of us want to know the therapist we’re sharing our deepest (and scariest) secrets with. I want to talk about cultural experiences and challenges with a therapist who also understands those same cultural dilemmas. For most of us, this takes time and experiences with the person we’re talking to before trust can develop
Insight and Relational Therapy: Healing Through Connection
From my own therapy experience, I learned many helpful CBT techniques to deal with the things that bothered me. But when I found a therapist who invited me to really get to know them, this new kind of therapy offered me a whole new way of relating to someone I considered an authority figure.
Instead of being afraid of saying or doing something “wrong,” for the first time I felt validated, appreciated, and even admired by someone in that role. That experience alone was transformative.
This is where insight-oriented and relational therapy differ from CBT. While CBT focuses on changing your thoughts and behaviors, relational and insight-based work helps you understand the “why” beneath those patterns — how early experiences, family dynamics, and cultural expectations have shaped the way you see yourself and connect with others (e.g., why people pleasing tendencies were developed).
I’ve found that while challenging and reality-checking my negative self-talk and limiting beliefs was helpful, what brought the most depth was the relationship between my therapist and me — hearing their reflections, feeling seen in my struggles and growth, and internalizing a new way of relating that came from the consistency of a safe, human connection.
Over time, this kind of relationship doesn’t just teach you coping tools — it changes how you relate to yourself and others on a deeper level.
Blog #3 May 4th, 2024
A common clinical issue I often see in my practice are clients who grew up with emotionally invalidating parents. Individuals who grew up in such environments as adults often exhibit behaviors of indecision, procrastination, and prioritization of other people’s needs before their own. Conversely, some adults who grew up in such environments, can also exhibit demanding and entitlement attitudes, as an “over corrective” form of coping since they learned that this was only way they could protect their sense of agency by “out aggressing” their parents’ invaliding or critical demands while growing up.
As children who grew up invalidating environments, often they were made to feel guilty or made to feel like they are burden, whenever they expressed their emotional needs. As adults they have a difficult time trusting their intuition because their emotions were often gaslighted. So their sense of self agency is underdeveloped.
Through therapy, I work to help my clients understand all emotional aspects of themselves in a safe environment. It is through this consistent process of self understanding, prioritization of your emotional needs, and grieving, that one can gradually begin to rebuilt and relate to themselves in healthier way.
Blog#2 February 24th, 2024
Perspectives of why you should not do therapy with companies like Betterhelp, as its business framework prioritizes shareholder profits over therapy ethics and the therapist and patient relationship.
https://www.amha-or.com/the-toxic-impact-of-venture-capital-on-psychotherapy
Blog #1 August 27th, 2023
Inner child concept and writings: