WELCOME

My name is Alison Chou and I am a bilingual, depth-oriented psychotherapist with Blue Oak Therapy Center. Welcome! 

My fundamental objective as a therapist is to help clients find and deepen connection – with others as well as with themselves. I seek to co-create warm and authentic relationships with clients that are grounded in safety, healthy attachment and non-judgement. 

MY APPROACH

I take an integrative and tailored approach to each client, which takes into account both my own clinical impressions as well as the client’s unique issues & personality. My psychodynamic practice is informed by tenets of attachment theory, existential-humanistic therapy, Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), Internal Family Systems (IFS) as well as mindfulness and somatic techniques. 

Working within a strengths-based perspective is important to me. This means that we’re not just focusing on challenges or “problems”, but also working together to identify and affirm your strengths, resilience and inner resourcing. I also work within a systems-oriented and trauma-informed lens.

MY BACKGROUND

I identify as a cisgender Asian-American woman and am the daughter of Taiwanese immigrants. I graduated from Boston College with my BA in Psychology and Hispanic Studies in 2009. In 2014, I obtained my MA in Spanish Applied Linguistics from New York University in Madrid, Spain, where I lived for five years. In 2019, I returned to the US to pursue my MSW with Columbia University School of Social Work. I am fluent in both English and Spanish.

Having straddled multiple cultures myself since childhood, I find exploring the question of multicultural identity with my clients to be deeply gratifying. There are numerous ways in which we grapple to navigate different environments and cultures in our everyday lives. I strive to help clients process the dissonance of their experience, while simultaneously finding grounding in their own intersectional identities. 

While I welcome people from all backgrounds, I specialize in working with BIPOC clients (Black, Indigenous & People of Color), particularly those who are immigrants or children of immigrants. I consider myself an ally to the LGBTQ+ community and to people with disabilities. I am also sex/kink-positive and poly-affirming. 

I have specialized experience working with:

• Identity issues particularly around (multi)cultural and (multi)racial identity

• Intergenerational, family and attachment-related trauma

• Anxiety and depression

• Stress, particularly as related to health, life transitions or immigration/displacement

• Relational challenges (feeling authentic in relationships, healthy boundary-setting, "people-pleasing")

• Domestic and interpersonal violence

• Aging and end-of-life issues

• Exploring life meaning & other existential themes

• Grief and loss