Therapy for Bicultural and Multiracial Individuals in Oakland, CA and Online
You don’t have to choose between where you come from and who you’re becoming
Making sense of yourself, your choices, and your path forward.
When You Feel Caught Between Two Worlds
Growing up between cultures, you learned how to adapt, translate, and navigate expectations. Maybe you thought this was just life—constantly shifting, balancing, holding everything together. But over time, that weight adds up. The pressure to succeed, to honor your roots, to show up in the right way. Even when things look fine on the outside, something inside might feel off.
Balancing between cultures can feel like balancing between selves.
These tensions aren’t just intellectual—they live in the body, in the moments you hesitate before speaking, in the way you shrink yourself to fit. They can be confusing, isolating, even painful. But they are also the source of deep perspective, richness, and strength.
You don’t have to untangle this alone. Therapy can offer a space to explore these questions—not to force an answer, but to help you sit with the contradictions, understand their roots, and begin to move with more ease.
A Space to Be Seen, Understood, and Truly Yourself
Therapy isn’t about choosing between different parts of yourself—it’s about creating space for all of them. Together, we’ll explore the emotions, expectations, and patterns that have shaped you, not to define you by them, but to help you step into a fuller sense of who you are.
In this work, something shifts. The pressure to always adapt can soften. The questions of belonging can feel less like burdens and more like invitations. You can begin to trust your own voice, your own needs, your own way of moving through the world.
Over time, therapy can help you:
- Feel more at home in yourself, without constantly shifting to fit in
- Untangle the push and pull between honoring others and choosing yourself
- Move through the world with greater ease, clarity, and confidence
Therapy is a Space to Explore, Reflect, and Grow
Hi, I’m Dr. Elizabeth Stuart—you can call me Elizabeth. I’m a psychoanalyst and psychiatrist, in Oakland, offering depth-oriented therapy for bicultural and multiracial individuals navigating identity, belonging, and the emotions that surface in between.
I help people who feel:
Finding Home in All Parts of You
You’ve spent so long moving between worlds that it feels automatic—shifting how you speak, what you share, even how much space you take up. Maybe you’re the one who translates, smooths things over, keeps the peace.
At times, you may wonder:
- Who am I, when I’m not adapting to everyone else?
- Do I belong anywhere fully, or am I always caught in between?
- How do I honor my family and where I come from—without losing myself?
For many bicultural individuals, identity is wrapped up in responsibility. Success, stability, even happiness may not feel like yours alone—they are part of something bigger. But what happens when your needs and theirs don’t align? When choosing yourself feels like letting others down?
Therapy offers a space where you don’t have to choose between honoring your past and stepping into your future. Instead of constantly shifting to belong, you can begin to feel at home in all of who you are.
Creating Space for Something More Grounded
Maybe the anxiety has always been there—a quiet unease, a need to stay alert, prepared. You might not even know exactly what you’re afraid of, only that it’s hard to let go, to trust, to rest.
These fears didn’t start with you. They were shaped by generations before you—by struggle, sacrifice, and unspoken trauma. They are part of your story, but they don’t have to control your choices, relationships, or sense of self.
Therapy offers a space to sit with this anxiety—not to push it away, but to understand where it comes from. To loosen its grip. To make space for a sense of stability that isn’t just survival, but something deeper.
How Can I Support You?
In our work together, you don’t have to explain or justify your experience.
Therapy offers a space to make sense of the contradictions, to hold both your history and your growth with understanding, and to explore what it means to fully be yourself. And because the forces shaping identity don’t just live in the past, but show up in real time—in relationships, in unspoken dynamics, even in the therapy room—I encourage and support these conversations. What may feel difficult to name or too complex to bring elsewhere can be explored here, in a way that feels honest, supported, and freeing. Over time, we create space for relief, ease, and a way of moving through the world that feels more whole and more yours.
Frequently Asked Questions
Psychoanalytic therapy offers a space to explore the deeper emotional layers of living between cultures. Rather than focusing solely on coping strategies, we look at how cultural expectations, family dynamics, and personal identity shape your inner world. You don’t have to choose between where you come from and who you’re becoming—therapy helps you hold and make sense of both.
That feeling of being “in-between” can be deeply unsettling—like no matter where you are, something always feels slightly out of place. Therapy can help you make sense of this experience, not just by looking at how you consciously define yourself, but by exploring the deeper layers—your family’s history, unspoken expectations, and the messages you’ve absorbed about belonging. Understanding these influences can create space for a more grounded and integrated sense of self, one that isn’t about choosing a side, but about embracing your full complexity.
For many people from immigrant backgrounds, success isn’t just personal—it feels like something bigger. You may carry a deep sense of responsibility to honor your family’s sacrifices, to achieve, to make them proud. But that pressure can also feel heavy, leaving little space for your own desires, uncertainties, or even rest. Therapy is a space to explore where these expectations come from—not to reject them, but to understand them in a way that gives you more freedom. You can respect your family’s hopes while also making room for your own.
Experiences of racism, exclusion, or microaggressions don’t just happen in the moment—they can shape how you see yourself, trust others, and navigate the world. Therapy isn’t about learning to “brush it off” or cope in isolation. Instead, it’s a space to process these experiences, acknowledge their emotional impact, and explore how they might be playing out in relationships, self-perception, and unconscious beliefs. Understanding these dynamics can help loosen their grip, making space for a deeper sense of self-worth and resilience.
If therapy feels unfamiliar—or even in conflict with cultural values—it makes sense that seeking support might bring up mixed feelings. Maybe your family believes struggles should be handled privately, or that emotions shouldn’t be dwelled on. But therapy isn’t about choosing between your culture and your well-being. It’s about creating a space where you can reflect, process, and understand yourself more fully—so that you can move through life in a way that honors both your heritage and your individuality.
While no therapist can fully be inside your lived experience, a psychoanalytically trained therapist is deeply attuned to the role of culture, history, and unconscious influences in shaping identity. When looking for a therapist, you may want to find someone who expresses a commitment to cultural humility and depth-oriented exploration, rather than simply “checking a box” of cultural competence. Therapy should be a space where all parts of you—your history, your questions, your contradictions—are welcome.
