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Heart In Mind

Contact information, map and directions, contact form, opening hours, services, ratings, photos, videos and announcements from Heart In Mind, Mental Health Service, 11461 San Pablo Avenue #125, El Cerrito, CA.

Therapy for addressing estrangement, especially among those who identify as young adults, Asian Americans, and/or caregivers

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06/04/2026

Hi all! This post is a little different than my usual content. A colleague of mine/PsyD student is currently looking for people to participate in her research study.

The research study is seeking to understand the experiences of individuals whose parents divorced during their childhood and who currently have little to no relationship with their father.

Additional details about participant eligibility and the study are included here.

If you personally do not meet the study requirements, you are welcome to share the flyer with someone you know who might qualify and be interested in participating.

05/31/2026

It’s the last day of May today and before the month is over, I wanted to honor Mental Health Awareness Month which is in May.

This year on Mental Health Awareness Month, I’ve been thinking a lot about how mental health/mental health care has been increasingly commodified, devalued, and treated as a luxury all at the same time.

Mental healthcare is increasingly treated as something that’s “nice” to have rather than essential…and I can’t help but think of how this is tied to the fact that our perceived value as human-beings has been stripped down to mostly/only what we can produce/serve to the richest, select few in our world.

Optimal mental health and optimal mental health care is essential though. It’s what makes us go from just being alive to living. It’s what allows us to feel and think freely and deeply. It’s what allows us to connect with other people.

Honoring mental health/mental healthcare should not just be artificially honored through fluffy, assuring words during one month. If we want to truly honor it, I think our world would benefit from wider, systemic changes that actually show that we value the full richness of a person’s being, which includes their mental well-being. Towards that end, one immediate thing we can each do is take care of ourselves and one another in whatever way we are able.

What could that one thing be for you?

05/15/2026

It's Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Heritage month again!

This year, this month: I wanted to highlight the feelings of "in-between, not enough, not fitting in, of being different" that many AANHPI may relate to.

Historically, these groups have been casted as the "Perpetual Foreigner" in many parts of the world, including the United States. It can seem like no matter what you do, it's never enough...you don't belong anywhere. The pull towards doing anything/everything to fit in can be especially enticing.

It's no wonder that many people from the AANHPI community struggle with issues related to their identity, self-esteem/self-worth, burn-out, and relationships. How can you feel solid in who you are and your value if you're constantly being told implicitly or explicitly that it's not valid or not important? How can you build relationships when you don't know who truly values you for all of who you are?

As a therapist for AANHPI folks, these are questions I often help my clients navigate. You don't have to shrink in order to sustain community.

P.S. Each of our lived experiences deserve to be seen and heard by their own right and so honestly, it feels weird to jumble all of these different groups into one/to celebrate them all in one month. It feels impossible actually. I'm referencing it as such to encourage inclusivity, but definitely not at the expense of visibility.

P.P.S. This photo was taken at the Takashi Murakami exhibition within the Asian Art Museum in SF.

05/06/2026

When you tend to the parts of you that have been hurt, one of the things you might notice is wavering been feeling overwhelmed or feeling nothing...or in other words, wavering between rumination and repression.

Both responses make sense; both reflect inherent responses that we all have built into our nervous systems to help us survive. Both reflect responses that are attempts to complete the stress response cycle. This is how they make sense:

- If you were hurt (whether physically, emotionally, etc.) and you couldn't do anything to stop it, you might have instinctively tried to fight back...and when that didn't stop the hurt, you might have shut down/numbed out. When you shut down/numb out, the hurt is dulled/maybe even absent for awhile...

- At the same time, another part of you knows/feels the built up tension from being hurt and not being able to do anything about it. And so, your body and mind goes on repeat/tries to replay and complete what was unfinished by ruminating.

One of the hardest parts about both of these responses is that they can feel very tiring/stressful to be with for very long.

In therapy, I work with people who are estranged from their loved ones in developing the tools/practices so that they can be present with these responses without feeling overwhelmed. In this way, you can make space for all Parts of you--past and present, without being consumed by any one Part.
*P.S. There is an "in-between."
Between repression and rumination, is presence.

04/24/2026

Being estranged from your family can be prompted from an acute event/change or can be prompted from chronic, unaddressed harmful family relationship dynamics.

With family being such a formative source of influence/potential care and security, this can take a major toll on your emotions, thoughts, identity, relationships, and more.

In my latest blog, I discuss the factors/causes that can lead to family estrangement, as well as the impacts it can have in more depth.

04/16/2026

Parents/caregivers are often assumed to be the primary and most importance source of care, love, and security for their children.

This can make it very confusing when children become adults and actively choose to distance or cut off their relationships/contact with their parents/caregivers.

In my latest blog, I address why adult children become estranged from their parents.

The link is the bio.

04/07/2026

Hi! I wanted to come on here and say welcome to my newer followers and also say hello again to my followers from before. I appreciate each and every one of you for your support!

I am a licensed therapist with a background in clinical social work, based in the Bay Area, California, working with adults all across California. I specialize in supporting individuals who are navigating the difficulties of estrangement, especially among those who identify as young adults, Asian Americans, and caregivers. This specialty is rooted in my lived and professional experiences. I know that for many people, estrangement from loved ones has been at the core of many of their related struggles: self-esteem, identity, relationship challenges, burn-out, etc.

I recently re-launched my website, which includes a new blog I wrote, reflecting on what exactly is meant by "estrangement" and the complexities of navigating it (the link is in the bio).

I've included a quote from it here (see the next page >>)

03/20/2026

Like many others, I've been thinking a lot about the recent news about Cesar Chavez; reports of his long history of sexually abusing children and sexually abusing/raping his fellow civil rights/labor rights activist and co-founder of the United Farm Workers Association, Dolores Huerta.

As a therapist for estrangement, a topic that comes up a lot is:
how to heal from harm that is caused by someone one loved/cared about/was told loved them/cared about them...or
Deciding whether or not one wants/needs to keep a relationship where they've been repeatedly hurt/harmed/misunderstood/unseen...or how they want to remember the person who hurt them...who might have also helped them at other times.

No one can decide these things for any other person...and honestly, it is harmful for any person, including a therapist, to make that decision for someone. It's harmful because not only will I/nor anyone ever know all of you and your life to make a fully-informed decision, but also, if I told you what to do, it would replicate a dynamic that is seen within abusive relationships: Someone telling you what to do/making decisions for you/gaslighting you into thinking you don't know what you're seeing/experiencing with your own own senses.

In this post, I expand upon some of the other thoughts/questions that have come to mind as I've thought about this recent news. I'm hoping that they offer a starting point for greater reflection among us all so that we can address the underlying factors that breed abusive behaviors.

03/12/2026

Many of us may have played the roles of the "strong one," the "bigger person," the "peacemaker," and other roles of this nature.

And while these Parts of us are valuable, necessary, and genuine, there are other Parts of us that may have fallen by the wayside in the process. The Parts of us that yearned for a break from frequently carrying others through their problems, carrying others through their distress, carrying others through unresolved/long suppressed familial/historical/generational trauma.

We all need experiences where we get to be the ones who are held, where we can fall or even collapse...knowing that someone will be there to catch us.

If you find yourself often exhausted or burnt-out, perhaps it may be the result of this constant giving, holding...compromising even...your own needs over others. (And admittedly, I know these sentiments are influenced by Western/individualistic cultural values. What I'm proposing however is how can we balance all of what makes us us...all of what we need to feel whole.)

03/11/2026

Awhile back, I made a post on here and wrote a blog about "Non-finite grief/Ambiguous grief: Intangible, living losses."

That's a whole mouthful that in summary, references the experience of grieving things that are still technically within reach, but are not for different reasons. This is in essence, the experience of estrangement.

In this post, I reflect a bit more on one of the losses many of us may have experienced: the loss of joy in experiencing/doing something just for the sake of experiencing/doing it. For many, especially among those who grew up in more collectivist cultures, we might have been discouraged from doing much outside of what we were "good" at. Hobbies/interests may have become performative; they may have become a source of pride OR a source of embarrassment for our families and subsequently, ourselves.

As always, I welcome your own thoughts/reflections/questions.

*The link to the blog can be found in my bio.

Address

11461 San Pablo Avenue #125
El Cerrito, CA
94530

Opening Hours

Monday	9am - 6pm
Tuesday	9am - 6pm
Wednesday	9am - 6pm
Thursday	9am - 6pm
Sunday	9am - 6pm

Website

http://www.heartinmindmh.com/

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