Beyond the Couch

This week, Christie, Sam, and Diana get together to continue their discussion of the drama triangle and how to extricate yourself from it. They go into examples of the different roles (victim, rescuer, and persecutor) as they might appear in a hypothetical immigrant/2nd gen family. They share some tactical solutions that can be reached through non-violent communication, self-reflection and -awaren...

This week, Christie and Shelby Remillard, LMHC, discuss how individuals can mend and build healthy relationships through a closer understanding of their interconnectedness to their communities, their pasts, and themselves. They talk about how folks can process their wounds and learn what feels grounding to them within the safety of the therapeutic space, and how therapists can serve as the first m...

This week, Christie and Diana (@therapywithdiana) share their respective paths to their therapy careers and answer questions they’ve received about how to enter into a mental health career. They go into factors to consider when applying to and choosing programs, what accreditation means for schools, and the many career options there are once you have entered into the world of psychology. They also...

This week, Diana chats with Nira Shah about what compassion-focused therapy entails and how practicing mindfulness can cultivate self-compassion and better emotional regulation. They discuss the importance of examining one’s emotions, especially those that are uncomfortable, in order to tend to them. They also talk about the struggles with a harsh inner critic that many people undergo and how to b...

This week, Christie, Sam, and Diana get together to continue their conversation on codependency and people-pleasing. They discuss a common dynamic that can happen in families and other relationships, called the “drama triangle,” in which each individual takes on and/or moves through playing a “rescuer,” “victim,” or “persecutor” role. They walk through an example scenario of how this scene can pla...

This week, Christie is back with Natalie Hung to talk about ancestral healing, how to cultivate a relationship with our ancestors, and how these relationships can help heal us and help us feel a stronger sense of belonging. They dive into the distinction between “well” and “unwell” ancestors, and how ancestral healing fills in some parts of psychology and therapy that are missing. Natalie shares h...

This week, Christie, Diana, and Sam get together to talk about the tension between codependence and independence, and how to get closer to a middle ground, interdependence. They go into the challenges of balancing cultural values, personal values, and family values, and offer ways to maintain your own peace, as well as the peace of the family. They also discuss ways that they themselves have gotte...

This week, Christie sits down with Chi Young Kim and discusses the importance of becoming reconnected with our ancestors. They talk about ways that we can return to direct engagement with our ancestors and how this connection can strengthen our sense of intuition, and heal in a much deeper way than we might realize. Chi Young Kim (she/her) is a ritual facilitator dedicated to helping people reclai...

This week, Christie, Sam, and Diana get together to discuss the recent wave of layoffs that their clients have been experiencing recently and how they’ve been coping with the various levels of anxiety, confusion, and guilt that come with it. They address the scarcity mindset and fear of losing security that, as children of immigrants, many APISA-identifying folks might have. They also go into how...

This week, Christie chats with Dr. Monica Band about the existential process of figuring out who we are, our purpose and fulfillment in life, and, ultimately, our sense of belonging. They talk about the introspection it takes to hone in on the self as social beings and be in tune with our emotional worlds, as well as embracing the anxiety, ambiguity, and vulnerability that naturally comes with thi...

This week, Christie chats with Natalie Hung about healing intergenerational trauma and the power of Internal Family Systems to help us embrace our whole selves. They talk about the different parts of us that can take on “protector” roles in order to help us through hardship or trauma, and the ways in which we can honor those “protectors” instead of denying them as we heal. They also delve into the...

Today, Sam chats with Stephanie Alirkan about how incorporating breathwork into your day-to-day life and therapy can help you move to a place of calm and feel more grounded in your body. They discuss the benefits of breathwork in regulating emotions, decreasing stress, and lowering anxiety, as well as ways to build upon a breathwork practice and making those small changes that can feel more habitu...

This week, Christie chats with Minji (a beloved member of the Bridges team) about her experience starting graduate school to become a therapist. In this first installment of the Grad School Diaries mini-series, Minji reflects upon making the difficult decision to change careers, exploring her identity and connection to Korea in therapy, and what surprised her about her first year in a program.  Af...

This week, Sam, Diana and Christie share their unique stories about becoming therapists. They talk about career changes, the experiences that shaped their paths, as well as both the weird and mundane parts of being therapists in private practice.    Bridges Mental Health  connects Asian, Pacific Islander, South Asian Americans (APISA) with culturally responsive mental health professionals and reso...

This week, Christie chats with Marianne Ferguson about the common reasons for communication failures in interpersonal relationships and how techniques of nonviolent communication (NVC) can mitigate these conflicts. Marianne shares her learnings from reading about and listening to seminars by Dr. Marshall Rosenberg, the psychologist who developed the process of NVC for resolving conflict. They disc...

This week, Sam chats with Anjali about how she incorporates dreamwork in her practice and the importance of seeing people as a sum of all of their parts. Anjali dives into how powerful it can be to use dreams and the imagery we recall from them as vehicles for conversation and deeper understanding of oneself and one another. They discuss how, especially in interpersonal relationships, being aware...

This week, Christie, Sam, and Diana get together and talk about the meaning behind the Year of the Water Rabbit and how its foretelling of rest, thoughtfulness, and creativity resonates with them. They muse about their own zodiac signs and think back to how each of them celebrated and related to Lunar New Year growing up. Christie shares what she learned from getting her aura read, and Sam recalls...

This week, Christie chats with Kim about the challenges that therapists themselves face when seeking mental health support. They discuss how difficult it can be to take their own advice about self-care and processing their emotions that they give to their clients. Kim shares how working through her own journey as a Korean adoptee has given her the courage to face vulnerabilities, embrace the unkno...

Happy 2023! This week, Diana welcomes back Alena Kwong, LMSW, to discuss different forms of holistic healing and wellness. As a holistic healer herself, Alena shares how her former career as a pastry chef led her down a path toward wellness including reiki, nutritional counseling, and yoga. Together, Alena and Diana discuss the messiness of cultivating a wellness practice and being gentle with you...

This week, Sam chats with Snehal Kumar about recovery and prevention of burnout, and the ways in which it especially shows up for those in marginalized communities. They talk about how to notice burnout creeping up on you, especially while living in NYC, and the consequences of long-term burnout. They also discuss the importance of challenging our own perceptions of work, seeking community, and le...

This week, Christie chats with Melissa Soong about becoming more attuned to natural patterns to better care for ourselves and our mental health. Melissa shares how eastern medicine, such as acupuncture, can help us explore root causes of maladies and addiction, observe and treat our bodies through a holistic lens, and achieve sustained health and balance in our lifestyles. They also discuss the wa...

This week, Sam chats with Chrissy Chua-Ly van Manh about the importance of a therapist’s role in helping clients with trauma overcome the fears and triggers that they have accumulated through their experiences. They discuss the hurdles that therapists face when seeing trauma clients, as well as the particular challenges that a survivor of trauma must overcome in an often non-linear process of reco...

This week, Diana and Dr. I-Ching Grace Hung chat about the integration of Buddhist philosophies into therapy, living in a resting state rather than a grind state, and how to make life work for us in unconventional ways. They talk about what traveling and living abroad have taught them about savoring life and living with more ease, as well as the surprising adjustments that have come up along the w...

This week, Christie sits down with Angela Kerrigan to examine impostor syndrome through the lens of racial identity and chat about ways to challenge these feelings of inadequacy. They discuss how stereotypes and microaggressions keep people of color in cycles of self-doubt by questioning their belonging or imposing unrealistic standards. Angela shares how she worked through her own feelings of imp...

This week, Christie, Sam, and Diana reflect on how far they’ve come since recording their very first podcast episode a year ago! They muse on how quickly time has passed, the amazing people they’ve been able to have on the podcast, and how much they’ve grown and learned in the process. They also answer some questions that have come in from listeners. Thank you everyone for listening over the past...