Ziqiu Yan
The practice of seeing life with wonder
Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist
Welcome to my site
Inspired by the artist Lhola Amira who travels the world asking, “Where does it hurt, why does it hurt, how does it hurt and what do WE do to our wounded-ness? How can WE move through the wound and gesture of healing?”
I constantly ask those questions to myself as a woman, a therapist, a healer, “What is healing? What needs to be healed?” and try to find a way to bring the true healing to my clients. Of course, each client is unique and so is the healing itself.
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 for undergraduate, planning to get into the business field for my career. At the same time, my own exploration of life meaning and relationships, the eagerness to find answers and a better way to show up changed my career trajectory.
Ultimately, I decided to study Integral Counseling Psychology at California Institute Integral Studies (CIIS). The 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 and Indian Yoga. I believe it is crucial to integrate the wisdom from the eastern and western philosophies in our modern society.
My Approach and Training
Throughout the learning and self exploration, I am fascinated by how much information our body carries from our unconsciousness. Also, I am intrigued by the power of mindfulness, the moment to moment awareness.
I chose to study and trained by Gestalt therapy (Humanistic and Existential oriented) 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 identify myself as a culturally sensitive therapist. I am very interested in studying social phenomena and understanding how the intersectionality of our different identities (i.e. family, culture, ethnicity, religion, sexuality, gender, social economic status, roles, etc.) impacts a person's overall well being from Liberation and Transpersonal psychology perspective.
I also have training in mindfulness and somatic based therapy (Hakomi) and Psychobiological Approach to Couple Therapy (PACT). Client center, mindfulness, non-violence, therapeutic alliance are four pillars in my practice. My way to work with clients is also experiential and try to focus on how to help individuals and couples understand their patterns, cycles and learn skills to explore their relationship with different parts and themes by trying different experiments/exercises.
I think the healing itself in the healer matters. HENCE, I have been putting constant effort into my own healing. I like to practice yoga, Vipassana meditation and connecting with the nature (the sky, mountains and oceans, each trees and leaves, every rain and dew, stones and sand). I am also very interested in learning different cultures and history.
