Asians Do Therapy

Therapy is so stigmatized in the Asian community and it’s so nice to hear Asian therapists talking so openly about their journey. Especially loved Michelle Jung’s episode as it really verbalized the vicarious trauma I was feeling about Israel and Palestine.

I just finished listening to the latest episode with Linda Thai: "Linda Thai, LMSW. Unnameable Losses of Adult Children of Refugees". It really moved me. I'm a second-gen Viet-American trying to make sense of the silence and entrenced arguments in my family of origin. The discussion of how an overfocused on labels, traits, symptoms (i.e. these Asian-American refugees are "codependent", "toxic", "narcissistic", "manipulative") are actually pathologizing, and don't keep in mind the broader history of colonialism, cultural loss, and grief that humanizes these situations more. I'm a massage therapist practicing in Seattle, we get trained to hold space for trauma that sometimes gets inadvertently released from the body. We can't actually do talk therapy since that's beyond scope of practice, but I'm inspired to go back to school later in life to learn somatic therapy like Linda Thai! Thanks for great interview ^_^