Alisa Wu Yu
Psychotherapist (New York)
A Space to Heal
Compassionate, bilingual therapy for emotional growth and lasting change.
Your Guide to Healing
My Therapeutic Support
Experiential Healing for Emotional Pain
Emotional pain doesn't always respond to insight. Sometimes it needs to be felt, witnessed, and gently moved through. In our work together, we'll go beyond talking about your experience to actually working with it in the present moment. I draw on experiential, emotion-focused approaches (AEDP, EFT, IFS, and EMDR) to help us stay connected to what's happening in your body and heart. Together, we'll turn toward the emotions that have felt too overwhelming to face alone, like grief, shame, fear, longing, etc., and allow them to soften, shift, and transform in the safety of our connection. This is where lasting healing begins.
Insight into Your Patterns
But feelings and emotions are only a part of healing. Maybe you notice you keep repeating the same cycles: pulling away when someone gets close, overthinking every interaction, or trying so hard to please others that you lose yourself. These patterns often have deep roots in early relationships or trauma, shaping how you see yourself and what you expect from others.
Together, we’ll make sense of these patterns, so you can loosen their grip, stop repeating the same old story, and finally feel safe to be yourself in relationships that matter to you.
Attuned to Asian & Cross-Cultural Experiences
As someone who grew up in China, I understand what it’s like to carry family expectations, silence your own feelings, and push yourself to achieve, often at the cost of your own authenticity. Many of us were raised by parents who loved us through sacrifice or criticism, teaching us that happiness had to be earned through hard work, and leaving us with a quiet sense of not being enough. It’s no wonder so many of us carry deep guilt: and a lingering feeling that we don’t quite deserve ease, joy, or love.
If this feels familiar, you’re not alone. We’ve likely survived the same cultural wounds, and we share the same roots. I’d be honored to walk with you as you find your way back to an authentic connection with yourself, and toward a deeper sense of emotional freedom and liberation from these inherited burdens.
I help adults navigate through anxiety, emotional pain, trauma, life transitions, and relationship issues.
Individual & Couple therapy available in English & 中文.
Alisa Therapy
I specialize in helping adults heal from complex childhood trauma, and the marks it leaves on you: a relentless inner critic, the reflex to please, difficulty trusting, recurring emotional pain, and the patterns that leave you feeling stuck in your relationships.
Together, we'll work toward a softer, kinder relationship with yourself, and toward connections with others that truly nourish who you are.
- A warm, safe space for adults seeking individual therapy in NYC
- Support for anxiety, depression, emotional pain, or feeling stuck in life
- Culturally attuned, trauma-informed care for Chinese and Asian clients
- For couples navigating conflict, disconnection, or relational ruptures
- Helping you communicate better and meet each other’s deeper emotional needs
- A space to feel truly known, and to truly know one another
- A harsh inner critic that drives you relentlessly, and punishes you when you rest
- Difficulty accepting compliments or believing you deserve good things
- Fear of being “found out” as not good enough, despite external success
Who I Work With
Struggling with emotional pain, anxiety, or emptiness?
Maybe you feel anxious all the time, overwhelmed by racing thoughts or a constant sense of pressure. Or maybe things feel flat and heavy, like you’re moving through life disconnected, unmotivated, or emotionally numb. Sometimes, the pain is hard to name. It just lives quietly in the background, making everything feel a little harder than it should be.
If any of this sounds familiar, you’re not alone, and you don’t have to keep holding it all in. Therapy can help you make sense of what you’re feeling, connect with what’s underneath, and start finding relief that’s real and lasting.
Stuck in painful relationship patterns?
Maybe you pull away when things get too close, or cling tightly because you’re afraid they’ll leave. You might replay conversations in your head, doubt yourself constantly, or go quiet just to avoid conflict. Maybe you find yourself giving too much, always trying to keep the peace, even when it hurts.
If these patterns feel familiar, you’re not alone. They’re often rooted in earlier relationships that shaped your perceptions about what relationship should look like, and what it takes to keep one. In therapy, we can begin to understand where these patterns come from and gently shift them, so you can feel more secure, connected, and free to be yourself in relationships.
Healing from Trauma?
Maybe you know exactly what happened: a moment, a loss, an experience that continues to live in your body, your sleep, your sense of safety. Or maybe you can’t quite point to any one thing, but you’ve long sensed that something from earlier in your childhood is still shaping how you feel, think, and relate. Maybe you’ve tried to talk yourself out of calling it “trauma”, because others had it worse, because you should be over it by now, because you can’t even fully remember.
Wherever you’re coming from, you don’t have to carry this alone, and you don’t have to push through it to heal. Using experiential, evidence-based approaches like AEDP and EMDR, we’ll process trauma at a pace your nervous system can trust, meeting what’s been carried for so long with the safety, connection, and care it always needed, so it can finally move through and transform.
Navigating cultural difficulties as an Asian/Asian American?
Being Asian or Asian American often means moving between two worlds，and never quite belonging to either. At home, you’re too “American”, too independent, too opinionated. Outside of it, you’re always reminded of your “difference.” When you speak Chinese, certain feelings slip through the cracks, lost in translation. When you speak English, the softest part of you never quite makes it across.
You love your family deeply, and you’ve also been wounded by them. You want to step out into the world and build the life that’s truly yours, yet in the quiet moments, you find yourself missing the world they live in. Both feel like home; neither quite holds you.
As a bilingual therapist working in both English and Mandarin, I understand intergenerational trauma, cultural expectations, and the particular grief of loving deeply and grieving at the same time. Here, you don’t have to translate yourself for me. All of you, both languages, both worlds, every unnamed contradiction, can walk through the door together.
Alisa Wu Yu
My Trainings: What Informs My Work
I’ve been trained in a variety of approaches, each offering a different lens on how people grow, suffer, and heal.
These frameworks shape how I listen, understand, and support you—not as fixed techniques, but as ways to meet you where you are and shape a therapy that fits your unique needs.
Psychoanalytic / Psychodynamic
Accelerated Experience Dynamic Therapy (AEDP)
Emotion-oriented therapy (EFT)
Inner Family Systems Therapy (IFS)
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)
Couple therapy
Inclusive & Identity-Affirming Care
As someone who grew up in mainland China, studied in Hong Kong, and now lives in New York, I bring lived experience of navigating different cultural worlds. This has shaped my deep respect for the richness of identity: cultural, sexual, and gender.
I’m committed to creating a space that honors your background, values, and way of being. My work is grounded in experience with clients from diverse racial, ethnic, and linguistic communities, and I offer affirming care to LGBTQ+ individuals. Your full self is welcome here.
Professional Background
AEDP (Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy)
- AEDP Immersion — Diana Fosha, PhD | AEDP Institute | 08/2024
- AEDP Essential Skills | AEDP Institute | 08/2025
EFT (Emotionally Focused Therapy) with Dr. Sue Johnson & Dr. Leslie Greenberg
- Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy – Externship | ICEEFT | 03/2024
- Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy – Core Skills | ICEEFT | 05/2024
- Emotionally Focused Family Therapy – Essentials | ICEEFT | 07/2024
- Working with Emotions in Psychotherapy — Leslie Greenberg, PhD | Greenberg Institute | 11/202
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing)
- EMDR Basic Training | EMDRIA-Approved | March 2026
IFS (Internal Family Systems)
- IFS Trauma Treatment Program — Frank Anderson, MD | PESI | 05/2025
Gottman Method Couples Therapy
- Level 1 Training | The Gottman Institute | 12/2023
CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy)
- Long-Term CBT Training | Ancare Psychology | 04–10/2022
- The University of Hong Kong (2022)
- Bachelor of Arts (BA), Major in Philosophy
- Teachers College, Columbia University (2025)
- Master of Education (Ed.M.), Mental Health Counseling
To learn more about Jonathan, please visit:
https://jonathan-blazon-yee.clientsecure.me
FAQ’s
What is therapy, really? How is it different from talking to a friend?
Therapy is more than just talking. It’s a space where you can slow down, listen to your inner world, and begin to understand yourself in new ways. Unlike a friend, a therapist is trained to notice patterns, ask deeper questions, and hold space for emotions that may feel too much in everyday life. Our relationship is focused entirely on you.
I’m here not to give advice, but to help you connect the dots, heal past wounds, and move toward what feels more alive and true for you.
What do we talk about in sessions? Is there a structure?
Every session will look a little different, depending on what feels most alive or important to you in the moment. My way of doing therapy is not highly structured. I invite you to say whatever comes to mind, even if it feels random or off-topic. Often, the unconscious brings forward exactly what needs our attention, leading us into places that feel unexpected, meaningful, and even transformative.
What if I’m not sure my problem is “serious enough” for therapy?
That feeling is more common than you think. Many people worry they’re being “too dramatic” or that others have it worse. But therapy isn’t just for crises, it’s for anyone who feels stuck, numb, anxious, lost, or disconnected from themselves, or just simply want to understand themselves better. You don’t need to prove your pain or have the right words. If something inside you is quietly asking for support, that’s enough.
I’m high-functioning. Do I really need therapy?
You’re not alone in wondering this. Many of my clients are highly capable, thoughtful, and appear “fine” on the outside. They’re getting things done, caring for others, showing up. But inside, they may feel anxious, overwhelmed, emotionally disconnected, or quietly exhausted.
High-functioning doesn’t mean untouched by pain. Often, it means you’ve learned to cope through perfectionism, self-silencing, or pushing through feelings. Therapy isn’t just for crisis, it’s also a space for you to slow down, reconnect with your inner world, and explore what’s underneath the surface.
If you’ve ever felt like you’re doing everything “right” but still feel stuck, or unsure of what you need, therapy can help you understand those patterns and begin to feel more fully alive. You really don’t need to fall apart to get the support you need.
How can therapy make a change to my life?
Therapy creates change by helping you become more aware of your internal patterns: how you think, feel, relate, and protect yourself. By offering a new kind of relational experience that can reshape those patterns over time. When you feel seen, supported, and emotionally safe, your nervous system can begin to respond differently.
Thanks to neuroplasticity, the brain is capable of change throughout life. Old emotional pathways that were shaped by past pain or disconnection don’t have to define you forever. In therapy, we stay with key emotional moments in a gentle, attuned way, which can help create new pathways for feeling, relating, and being. Over time, you may find yourself reacting differently, connecting with others more freely, and feeling more grounded in who you are.
How long will Therapy last?
Therapy Insights
