Chao Zhao (she/her)

I support my clients who are struggling with anxiety or feeling anxious with somatic, mindfulness, and art-based approach which means me and my client will explore the body and mind connection/responses, make unknown known, make unseen visible via non-judgmental stances. We will also apply Cognitive Behavioral Therapy techniques to understand the roots of feeling anxious, try to accept healthy level of anxiety, reinforce our coping skills to live with anxious feeling and make peace with it.

I have experience working with people who experience disenfranchised, complex, or ambivalent grief. When you lost a loved one, a relationship, a job, or a feeling of normalcy, it can be damaging to your emotional, mental, and physical health. Grief can be every different from person to person. Allowing yourself to grief differently than "normally" others do is important. I provide a highly structured and effective art-making private group for anyone with grief/loss to connect and process.

Are you struggling with staying or leaving your relationship/marriage? Do you feel your values about marriage are different from the rest of your family? Are you trying to figure out why you feel unable to trust, betrayed, or unworthy in a relationship? A lot of people entering sessions ended up exploring who they are first. Why? In a long term relationship, we tend to reduce the complexity of who we are and search for answers outward instead of inward. Let's find that out.

I will support you to identify and eventually self-monitor your Cognitive Behavioral responses and beliefs--which are based on Ellis's (1979) A-B-C theory--activating events (A) happening that have disturbing consequences (C) after specific interpretations/beliefs given to the events. It's effective for individuals and couples to learn about the unwanted pattern and replace it with a wanted one. When CBT paired with art therapy, issues are visualized and externalized, changes happened naturally.

I will support you to identify and eventually self-monitor your Cognitive Behavioral responses and beliefs--which are based on Ellis's (1979) A-B-C theory--activating events (A) happening that have disturbing consequences (C) after specific interpretations/beliefs given to the events. It's effective for individuals and couples to learn about the unwanted pattern and replace it with a wanted one. When CBT paired with art therapy, issues are visualized and externalized, changes happened naturally.

Each of us has a certain style of attachment developed since when we were little, it has certain level of influence on how we interact and connect with others later on. When you and your loved ones' attachment styles are explored or assessed through questionnaires, you can understand yourself and others better. For example, an anxious attached person with less rigid boundaries might want to "wear the heart on the sleeve." Remember, there is no right or wrong style but only to understand it.

When art therapy is applied in talk therapy sessions, I can collaboratively help people promote freedom of expression, surpass language barriers, reduce feelings of embarrassment, focus on the “here and now”, uncover the unconscious mind, and enhance transformation in a receptive and effective way.