How Therapy Actually Works: What South Asian Clients Need to Know Before Starting
Therapy Isn’t About Being “Fixed”
If you grew up in a South Asian household, you probably learned early on that strength meant staying quiet. Maybe you were taught to push through discomfort, focus on gratitude, and not “make things a big deal.” For me, growing up Indian American meant that expressing my emotions wasn’t encouraged. When I cried, my mother would tell me that one day she’ll die, and I’ll have no tears left to cry…effectively guilt-tripping me from ever expressing my sadness. When therapy was recommended to me as a teen, my dad would say, “You don’t need therapy. I don’t think that’s what will work for you”. Therapy, for many of us, wasn’t even part of the conversation—it felt unnecessary, indulgent, or maybe even shameful.
But here’s the truth: therapy isn’t about being “broken.” And it’s definitely not about someone else swooping in to “fix” you. I’m not here to save you from yourself. Therapy is about collaboration—a partnership between you and your therapist that helps you see yourself more clearly, understand where your pain comes from, and learn new ways to move through life with self-trust and compassion. YOU are the expert of your own life; I”m just a guide.
When you work with a South Asian therapist who understands both the beauty and the complexity of our cultures, therapy can feel like a breath of fresh air. It’s a place where you don’t have to explain your background, translate your values, or justify why family guilt feels so heavy. Instead, we work together to explore your story and make space for healing on your terms.
What a Partnership Means in Therapy
When people first come to me for therapy, they often expect me to have all the answers. They might say, “Just tell me what to do,” or “I want to make my bad feelings go away”, or “I need you to help me communicate my boundaries to my parents so that they respect them”. I completely understand why—it’s what we’re taught to expect from professionals and authority figures, especially in our culture.
But therapy doesn’t work like that. I’m not the expert on you—you are. My role is to help you see the patterns, beliefs, emotions, and family interactions that might be hard to see on your own. Together, we make sense of them.
Therapy is most effective when it’s collaborative. That means we’re in it together. You bring your lived experiences, your family stories, your questions about identity and belonging—and I bring clinical tools, psychological insight, and cultural awareness. You get to choose what works for you, and what doesn’t.
Let’s talk for a moment about what culturally-sensitive therapy really means, because it’s often misunderstood.
Culturally-sensitive therapy isn’t about reinforcing harmful traditions or saying, “That’s just how it is in our culture.” It’s not about compliance—it’s about compassionate curiosity. We’ll explore how cultural norms shape your emotions, behaviors, and sense of self—but we’ll also question the ones that no longer serve you.
For example, if you’ve been taught that setting boundaries with family is “selfish,” we’ll unpack where that message came from and whether it’s still helping you today. Together, we’ll discover how you can honor your family and honor yourself.
True culturally-sensitive therapy celebrates what’s beautiful about South Asian cultures—our resilience, our capacity for connection, our deep empathy, the way that family is always there for each other, our celebrations, our faiths, our food, and our style—while also holding space to gently challenge what’s caused harm to you. That’s where collaboration lives: in the honesty, the exploration, and the courage to ask, “What do I actually believe?” Healing begins when you acknowledge the truth.
What You Bring as the Client
You might not realize this, but you bring so much to therapy. You don’t need to show up with everything figured out or know exactly what to say. You just need to bring your willingness to be open and curious about yourself. That’s where the magic begins. Your patience and consistency with your journey is key, even when the journey is difficult.
Many South Asian clients come in carrying a lifetime of unspoken questions—about belonging, identity, self-worth, and how to hold love for their cultural community and family while also creating space to breathe within it.
You might find yourself wondering:
Why do I feel suffocated when I’m around my family?
Why do I feel guilty for wanting more independence?
Why do I feel pressure to be perfect even when I’m exhausted?
Why do I feel like I don’t fully belong anywhere?
These are great questions. They show that you’re ready to step into your healing journey.
As a South Asian American seeking out therapy for the first time, you also carry incredible cultural strengths into therapy:
The resilience of ancestors who rebuilt their lives again and again.
The ability to start something new from scratch, even when you’ve experienced loss.
The capacity to be loyal to family and friends, even when things are painful.
The empathy and deep capacity to care for others, even when it hurts.
The ability to find meaning, connection, and creativity even in hardship.
Therapy gives you permission to question the rules you’ve lived by without losing love or respect for where you come from. It helps you say, “I can appreciate my culture and still make space for myself.” That balance, honoring your roots while embracing your individuality, is one of the most powerful parts of the healing process.
What I Bring as the Therapist
As a therapist who is also South Asian American, I don’t sit across from you with a clipboard full of answers. I see myself as a guide, partner, and safe container for all the parts of you, especially the ones you’ve been told to hide.
My job is to create a space where you can finally take off the mask. You don’t have to be the “good daughter,” the “strong one,” or the “perfect example.” You get to just be human—curious, messy, uncertain, and still completely worthy.
In our work together, I draw from several evidence-based approaches to help you reconnect with your truth and release what’s weighing you down:
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) helps you identify and challenge self-defeating beliefs that often come from cultural messages like “Don’t disappoint anyone” or “Your worth comes from how much you give”, and “You’re selfish for wanting something different for yourself.”
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) helps you clarify which values actually belong to you and find ways to live by them, instead of the ones imposed by family, culture, or society.
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) helps you process deeper layers of intergenerational trauma—those emotional echoes of pain, fear, or silence passed down through generations.
Through this process, we explore how cultural guilt, shame, and perfectionism have shaped your self-image—and begin to loosen their grip.
I see my role as someone who holds up a mirror, gently reflecting back the truth that you might not yet see: you are already whole. You are enough. You are not broken for feeling conflicted or for wanting something different. You’re simply learning to listen to yourself in ways you weren’t taught before.
How Collaboration Leads to Transformation
When therapy with a mental health professional who gets it becomes a true partnership, healing happens faster and deeper. You don’t have to explain all the details the way that you would to someone outside of the culture!
You start to notice shifts that feel both subtle and profound. Maybe you begin speaking up more with your family, or you stop apologizing for needing rest. Maybe you start feeling a quiet pride in your identity, rather than shame.
That’s the power of collaboration. It’s not about me giving you the answers—it’s about us uncovering them together.
As you grow more connected to yourself, you start building what I like to call cultural resilience: the ability to honor your heritage while creating a relationship with it that feels healthy and empowering. You begin to rewrite the story you’ve inherited, keeping what’s sacred and releasing what’s heavy.
In time, therapy helps you develop a relationship with your culture that feels like home, not something you have to constantly perform or defend. You start to see that you can love your roots deeply and still expand beyond them.
That’s what transformation looks like. It’s not about becoming someone else; it’s about becoming more you.
Ready to Begin Your Healing Journey?
If you’ve been thinking about starting therapy but haven’t taken that first step yet, I want you to know that you don’t have to have it all figured out. You don’t even have to know what your goals are. All you need is the willingness to start.
If you’ve been looking for a South Asian therapist who:
Understands both your cultural roots and your longing for authenticity
Helps you appreciate your family’s strengths and set boundaries with their limitations
Can hold space for your complexity without judgment
I’d be honored to walk with you. Our work together will be about partnership, not perfection. You’ll bring your truth, and I’ll bring presence, tools, and care. Together, we’ll explore what healing means for you.
Let’s find out if we’re the right fit. Book your free intro call today, and let’s start your healing journey—one conversation, one realization, one act of courage at a time.
You deserve to feel at home in yourself. You get to dream bigger!
Let’s Work Together!
Hi there! I’m Tracy Vadakumchery, LMHC, LPCC, LPC and I’m known as The Bad Indian Therapist. I have over 8 years of experience supporting South Asian American clients in New York with navigating cultural guilt and shame, overcoming intergenerational trauma, and setting boundaries that actually work. I’m committed to providing compassionate, effective, and culturally-sensitive care to South Asian Americans online across New York state. Book a call with me and let’s see if I’m a good fit for what you’re looking for! You can also learn more about me here.