Therapy for Asian-Americans

Supporting Asian-American Professionals in Bellevue and throughout Washington State

You’ve tried to be “Asian” enough and “American” enough, but feel like you’re still not enough of either.

Beneath a polished exterior, you're navigating a complex internal landscape that few people see. The pressure from your family while trying to make your own way. The guilt that seems to come no matter what you choose to do. The exhaustion of code-switching between worlds that don't quite understand each other.

Maybe you've noticed yourself going through the motions—meeting obligations, responding to texts from your parents with careful translations of your life, showing up at work while quietly wondering if you belong there at all. You might feel stretched between identities, unsure which parts of yourself are authentic and which are performances you've perfected over the years.

This tension is real, and it's not a sign that something's wrong with you.

The relationships that shaped you were complicated. Maybe you grew up learning that your needs came second, that success meant making your parents proud, that expressing your own wants might be selfish or disrespectful. You might have translated documents, navigated school and other public systems for your family, or became the emotional support for parents who sacrificed so much. These experiences taught you to be perceptive, responsible, and remarkably capable. They also taught you to set yourself aside.

Understanding Relationship Difficulties

Contact Us Today

Now, as an adult with your own evolving values, you're facing an impossible bind. You want to make choices that reflect who you are—maybe partnering with someone your family wouldn't choose, pursuing a career path that seems frivolous to them, or simply spending your time and money differently than expected. But stepping toward your own life can feel like moving away from the people who helped you get here.

The pull toward family loyalty isn't weakness—it's evidence of how much these relationships matter to you. And the pull toward your own needs isn't selfishness—it's the natural human desire to live a life that feels genuinely yours.

You're not caught between two worlds because you're doing something wrong.
You're caught because you care deeply about both.

But you may have lost touch with your internal compass. When someone asks what you want or how you feel, the answer doesn't come easily. You've spent so much time attuning to others' expectations that your own desires have become background noise.

Change begins with understanding that your behaviors make sense given what you've learned and what you're managing. The way you accommodate others, silence your own needs, or stay vigilant in professional spaces—these aren't character flaws. They're strategies that once helped you navigate complicated systems. The question isn't whether these strategies are "good" or "bad," but whether they're still serving you now.

We start by getting curious about the patterns. What happens internally when you disagree with your parents? What thoughts arise when you consider saying no to a family obligation? What stories do you have about what it means to prioritize your needs? We explore these patterns without judgment, recognizing that awareness itself is a form of change.

From there, we examine the function of your behaviors. When you automatically agree to someone’s plans, what are you trying to avoid—their disappointment, your guilt, the conflict that might erupt? When you downplay your achievements at work, what are you protecting yourself from—scrutiny, envy, being seen as arrogant? Understanding what your behaviors are for helps us consider whether there are other ways to meet those needs.

A Compassionate Approach to Change

Work with Nuance

We also look at the relationship patterns in the therapy room itself. How you show up with us—whether you prioritize our comfort, struggle to express disagreement, or find yourself performing competence—these moments become opportunities to practice something different. The therapeutic relationship becomes a laboratory for trying out new ways of being, where you can risk authenticity and discover what happens when you're fully yourself.

Throughout this process, we work on reconnecting you with what matters. Not what should matter according to your parents or your culture or your industry, but what genuinely matters to you. This isn't about rejecting your heritage or abandoning your values; it's about discerning which values are authentically yours and which you've adopted without choosing them.

What You Can Expect:

Our work together centers on helping you move toward what matters, even when that movement brings discomfort. This is where the real transformation happens—not in eliminating difficult feelings, but in learning to carry them differently so they don't dictate your choices.

We’ll help you to:

Let's Connect

  • You'll learn to notice your thoughts and feelings without being controlled by them. When the thought "I'm being a bad daughter/son" appears, we'll practice observing it as a thought rather than a fact. When guilt arises, we'll explore whether that guilt is pointing you toward something important or simply replaying old programming. This isn't about positive thinking—it's about changing your relationship with your internal experience so you have more room to choose.

  • We'll spend time identifying what you truly care about across different domains of your life—relationships, career, personal growth, community, culture. You might discover that you deeply value family connection and autonomy, that you want to honor your heritage and forge your own path. These aren't contradictions to resolve but tensions to hold. From this clarity, we'll work on translating values into concrete, committed actions, even small ones.

  • Many Asian-American clients need practical strategies for communicating with family members who come from different cultural frameworks. We'll practice how to set boundaries that feel respectful while still being firm, how to express your needs without framing them as attacks, and how to tolerate the discomfort that comes when people you love are unhappy with your choices. This includes recognizing that you cannot control their reactions—only whether you show up authentically.

  • For many high achievers, success has been defined externally for so long that the internal compass needs recalibration. We'll work on helping you identify your own emotions, desires, and needs—not intellectually, but in your body and your experience. What emotions are you actually experiencing? What do you want, separate from what you think you should want?

  • Much of your energy might be going toward anticipating others' reactions, replaying conversations, or worrying about future conflicts. We'll practice anchoring you in the present moment through mindfulness-based strategies, helping you respond to what's actually happening rather than what you fear might happen.

The goal isn't to become someone different. It's to become more fully yourself—to peel back the layers of expectation and accommodation and discover the person underneath.

It's to make space for all the parts of your identity, including the contradictions. And it's to build a life that reflects your values, even when that path diverges from the one others imagined for you.

Moving Forward with Purpose

The patterns you're navigating didn't develop overnight, and changing them takes courage and time. But you don't have to keep living at the intersection of everyone else's expectations while losing yourself in the process.

You've spent your life becoming skilled at reading rooms, managing relationships, and meeting standards. Now it's time to direct that intelligence inward: to understand yourself with the same precision you've used to understand others, and to build a life that genuinely feels like yours.

You deserve support that understands the specific complexity of your experience. We get the cultural context, the familial obligations, the professional pressures, and the identity questions that come with navigating multiple worlds.

The discomfort you feel isn't evidence that you're failing. It's evidence that you're outgrowing patterns that no longer fit. And on the other side of that discomfort is something worth moving toward: a life where you're not constantly translating yourself, where your choices reflect your values, and where you can honor your relationships without disappearing in them.

If you're ready to explore what that might look like, reach out for a consultation. We'll talk about your specific situation and whether this approach feels like the right fit. You've been carrying a lot alone. Let's see what becomes possible when you don't have to.

If you're tired of the exhausting cycle of perfectionism and ready to develop a more balanced relationship with your standards and yourself, we're here to support you on your journey.

Schedule a free 15-minute consultation with Dr. Faraha Hasan or Dr. Diana Hu, licensed psychologists in Bellevue, WA, specializing in working with high-achieving Asian-American professionals.

Serving clients in Bellevue, Seattle, and throughout Washington State via telehealth.

Ready to Explore a Different Way?

Book Your Consultation

Get to know us!