You were the translator, the buffer, the proof it was all worth it. This space is for the person underneath all of that.
Being the child of immigrants can mean carrying your family's hopes in one hand and your own in the other, and never feeling allowed to put either down. Therapy is somewhere to set the weight down long enough to ask: what do I actually want?
I offer online therapy for adult children of immigrants — first-generation and 1.5-generation — in New York, Florida, and Vermont. Sessions are $200 for 50 minutes, with in-network insurance accepted in New York and Florida through Headway.
Guilt that hums under every decision that's yours instead of theirs. Achievement that became the way love was measured, so rest feels like falling behind on a debt. Being the translator, the form-filler, the family's bridge to a country your parents crossed an ocean for — and learning to be a child second. Anxiety that reads as ambition from the outside.
Maybe you can't point to anything "wrong." Your parents worked hard. You were fed, housed, pushed to succeed. And still, something in you is tired in a way a vacation doesn't fix.
What gets passed down isn't only recipes and language. It's also what your family survived — and what they never got to grieve. Immigration involves real losses: places, people, versions of themselves your parents left behind. When that grief goes unspoken, it doesn't disappear. It shows up a generation later as pressure, silence, or loyalty binds that are hard to name and harder to question.
Understanding that context isn't about blaming your parents. It's about finally seeing the water you've been swimming in.
I was raised by Chinese immigrants — I know this terrain from the inside, and you won't spend sessions teaching me the basics. We work at your pace: sometimes that's untangling a specific relationship, sometimes it's learning where your family's story ends and yours begins. When inherited or early experiences keep driving present-day anxiety, I may bring in EMDR to work with what talking alone doesn't reach.
And to be clear: this page is for you whether or not you're Asian. Children of immigrants from every part of the world carry versions of this weight, and all of it belongs here.
Weekly 50-minute video sessions, from wherever you are in New York, Florida, or Vermont. In New York and Florida I'm in-network with several plans through Headway; otherwise sessions are $200 with a superbill provided. Details on the Fees & Insurance page.
No. Most of my clients love their parents and feel the weight of what they sacrificed — both things are true at once. This work is about understanding your story honestly, not assigning blame.
Yes. You don't need a dramatic story to deserve support. Much of this work is with quieter inheritances: pressure, guilt, unspoken expectations, and the exhaustion of living between two sets of rules.
Online sessions for clients in New York, Florida, and Vermont.