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Since career-changing to study clinical psychology, one thing I’ve been surprised by is how much my sense of myself as an immigrant has shifted. And I realized that I’ve actually become an immigrant twice over: once to the United States, and now to the field of therapy.

I was born and raised in Canada by Chinese parents who ventured to create a new life for themselves at the tender age of 30. Whether due to shared nature or nurture, I myself also ventured out to create a new life for myself after college, immigrating to the US for work. But at the time I didn’t really identify as an immigrant. I had grown up on the border of Canada and the US, and I had moved back and forth between the two a dizzying number of times during college. Maybe it was that I was always surrounded by people like me; my tech career was in a bubble, where many of my peers were Canadian, Asian, and/or fellow engineer-y types. Or maybe it was because I was living life on a fixed track, and moving to Silicon Valley was just the next Thing To Do.

But then the track ran out. I reached the end of my first career, burnt out, and didn’t know where I was headed next. I was still an engineer at heart, interested in how systems work and how to solve problems. But I realized I was also a creative person, pulled to capture and express some unknowable beauty and depth of experience. And I also wanted to be of service to others.

Losing my way led me to reflect on where I came from. I think this is when I realized that, while I’ve called SF home for 10 years now, I wasn’t from here. Or maybe it’s more accurate to say: I no longer fit within the life I had constructed. I was this odd collection of experiences and ideas, looking for a new path that aligned better with these parts. Maybe this is at the core of my immigrant experience.

I enter the field of psychology from this same frame of reference. On one hand, I love what I’ve experienced so far in school and in my clinical training last year. Psychodynamic work feels aligned with how I want to be in the world (e.g. sharpening myself as the tool of attunement, and learning to navigate emergent intersubjectivity with the ultimate goal of helping patients), and I want to go deeper.

On the other hand, I also feel like an outsider, entering this field from a sort of strange wilderness, equipped with tools I previously cobbled together (like motivational interviewing, IFS, meditation, Hinduist philosophy of mind, and TPOT philosophies and theory of mind). But how will these tools fare in this new place? Can they be integrated into what I’m learning now, or will I eventually let some of them go?

Another thing about the field of psychotherapy is that it’s strange too. My first year has felt like witnessing a flower bud bloom, only to find an onion laying within it (and who knows what the onion might contain). Or like I’m exploring a vast house with many rooms, and just when I think I’m familiar with the layout, I suddenly discover a new door (that had actually been there this entire time) that leads to a whole new set of rooms.

In sum, things feel good but also confusing. I don’t know yet if I’ll ever feel fully at home in this field. And maybe that’s just how the field is. There is some shared language (e.g. psychodynamic), but beyond that it seems like mostly open water, and everyone seems to navigate it in their own idiosyncratic way. Maybe that’s just how life is, when you choose to venture to a new place.

Thanks to Sam for the draft feedback, as always.