Dalena Phan

You can know exactly what happened to you and still feel stuck. That's because trauma isn't stored as a story, it's stored in the body. I use Brainspotting, IFS, and somatic tools alongside talk therapy to help clients process trauma at the level it actually lives, so healing can be felt and not just understood.

This matters especially for clients carrying relational, complex, or intergenerational trauma, where the experiences aren't a single event but a pattern that shaped your sense of self. We slow down, build safety in the body, and work through it at a pace your nervous system can actually tolerate.

I work with a lot of first- and second-generation clients, people of color, and folks whose family and cultural context are central to what they're working through. You shouldn't have to spend the first three sessions explaining your background before we can get to the work.

That means holding space for the specific dynamics: filial piety, silence around mental health, the pressure of being the first to do something different, the grief of being understood differently by your family than by anyone else. These aren't side notes. They're often the core of the work.

Most of us were not raised with a model for healthy communication, clear boundaries, or emotional honesty. You can't out-read or out-think your way into these. They have to be practiced, often awkwardly at first, in relationships that matter.

In couples work and individual work, I help clients build the actual skills: naming what you need, hearing what your partner or family member is really saying, and tolerating the discomfort of saying no or being disappointing. Over time, it stops feeling like a confrontation and starts feeling like integrity.