Let's take a moment to acknowledge you being here! Thank you for finding your way to me, and I hope we can work together to help you make meaningful change in your life. I'm Albert Xiong (he/him/his), and I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist with 6 years of experience providing affirming therapy services to a wide variety of clients across multiple settings. As a gay, Chinese American, myself, I get what it's like to navigate facets of our identities that can sometimes feel at odds. After a career of providing services to disenfranchised folks on Medi-Cal, students in a high-achieving high school in the Bay Area, and a small agency, I've found that fostering trusting and supportive relationships goes a long way in being a therapist. In the (virtual) therapy room, you can expect me to be an animated and relatively lighthearted therapist; I pride myself on bringing my genuine self into our therapeutic relationship, and my genuine self is someone who's curious and playful. Milton Erickson said, "patients have grim enough lives, let's not give them grim therapy, too." And while I resonate deeply with this quote, you can expect me to always supply the respect and compassion you deserve when you decide to share about something grim.

What can clients expect to take away from sessions with you?

During our first session, you can expect me to be curious about you. I don't want to only know about your problems, I want to know about what you're doing right. How did you successfully get into my therapy room today? What made it more likely that this happened? What difference did it make for you to come? These are all questions you can expect me to ask. I tend to ask much more questions in this initial session than any other, and that's because I want to understand you as much as I can so I can get a better idea of how I can help you.

Explain to clients what areas you feel are your biggest strengths.

I strive to be an understanding, gentle, yet direct therapist. There are times when I've found it helpful for clients to hear something new, or to help them hear what others have been saying to them time and time again. My intention, though, is for clients to hear them in new ways. Being direct does not equate to being blunt and rude. You can expect me to follow these moments with a check-in about how you're marinating what you just heard. There are also times where I may draw upon my knowledge of psychology, neuroscience, or something else that I think could be helpful for you to hear. In these moments, I will always ask you for your permission if you're open to learning something new in that moment; I'm not in the business of assuming what a client "needs" to learn, so you're always free to decline when I make an offer!

Describe the client(s) you are best positioned to serve.

I notice that clients find a lot of meaningful work in processing their identifies with me. I, myself, find a lot of meaning in working with clients who are Asian American (or people of color), second-generation, having trouble getting along with parents, and queer. I chose to complete my clinical internship working in a community mental health clinic that offered low-cost/pro-bono services to LGBTQ+ clients in Southern California. I've also attended several trainings on working with queer, trans, and non-binary folks, including trainings on writing letters of support for clients seeking gender-affirming surgeries. Of course, not all of my clients share every single one of these identities, but if even a few of these sound like something you'd love to discuss, we may be a good fit. Regarding clinical concerns, I have experience working with folks who find it challenging to coexist with anxiety. I can't get rid of your anxiety and I can't even change it, but I can help you change the way you relate to your anxiety. I also find that the clients who have the most success in therapy with me are those who are open to the process of being in the driver's seat, and those who are consistent. In my work, I do my best to give as much power and autonomy to the client as possible, and the most obvious way this manifests is in the way I open sessions. "Let's say that by the time this session is over, we talked about or did something that made this a good use of your time; what did we talk about?" Many find it odd at first for an "expert" to flip the script, but I want our work to maximize your ability to trust yourself, and that starts with trusting that you know what we should talk about! You are too important to simply have me tell you what to do; instead, my experience has helped me observe that something much more transformative happens when clients start fostering their own acceptance and confidence. Of course, I'll be right next you as you navigate this journey.

About Albert Xiong