Ziqiu Yan, LMFT

“Relationships are hard, intimate relationships are even harder.” Do you resonate with this statement? From a young age, I have wished for society to provide more training and education about how to love and be loved. This desire to help people about how to truly love and connect contributed to my decision to become a couples therapist.

What I believe

Most people struggle throughout different stages of their relationship with their partner. Wanting to feel loved and connected with others is an essential need for all human beings. Intimate relationships are one of the most important and fruitful relationships for physical and emotional health, personal growth, and overall life fulfillment. And it is okay that we are not sure how to make our relationship work well right now. Having faith and holding each other accountable, we can learn and make the relationship stronger than ever!

Still, I am not your relationship expert, you are the expert of yourself and your own relationships. I am interested in supporting you and your partner to learn how to be an expert for each other, to have a relationship that makes you feel more connected and fulfilled.

Background

For much of my life, I was deeply influenced by mainstream values and was focused on staying competitive and being successful. I went to business school as an undergraduate, planning to get an MBA to get into the business field for my career. At the same time, I had challenges in my own intimate relationships, and wanting to find solutions and a better way to show up in relationships changed my career trajectory.

Ultimately, instead of pursuing my MBA, I chose to study Integral Counseling Psychology at California Institute Integral Studies. This program draws upon major spiritual traditions of the East and West, applies recent cultural and social sciences research and innovations by contemporary psychoanalytic, humanistic, systemic, and transpersonal psychologies. As a person who has an eastern cultural background, I am influenced by Eastern Philosophy, such as Daoism, Buddhism, Zen, Confucianism, yoga. I believe it is crucial to integrate the wisdom from the eastern and western philosophies in our modern society.

Throughout the program, I engaged in my own self-healing work. I am fascinated by how much information our body carries from our unconscious mind. Also, I am intrigued by the power of mindfulness, the moment to moment awareness.

I chose to study and trained by Gestalt therapy at first. Since graduation, I have worked in community mental health due to my passion and desire to serve in marginalized communities. I have worked with diverse populations, such as immigrants and families from different countries and ethnicities.

I also have training in mindfulness and somatic based therapy (Hakomi) and couple therapy (Psychobiological Approach to Couple Therapy). I am very interested in studying social phenomena and integrating how the intersectionality of our different identities (i.e. family, culture, ethnicity, sexuality, gender, social economic status, roles, etc.) impacts the psyche. Hence, I identify myself as a culturally sensitive therapist.

Besides talk therapy, my approach is also experiential and focuses on how to help couples understand their patterns, cycles and learn skills to handle each other better by trying different experiments. My goal is to help couples to create their own couple bubbles and practice secure functioning in their relationships.

May you be happy and all that comes to your life with joy and ease.