jenn nguyen, lmft

the short version

Here's a secret: therapy was not my first career. I spent years in accounting, climbing toward a corporate ladder I never really wanted to climb. I was good at it. I also spent a lot of time staring at a spreadsheet wondering if this was it.

how i got here

Then I started working as a Registered Behavior Technician, sitting on the floor with kids, completely absorbed in play. I looked up one day and hours had passed. That was the first time work felt like something I would choose again tomorrow. I had finally found my purpose.

what i focus on

My clinical training centered on school aged children in public and private schools across LA and Orange County. These days I mostly work with young adults and adults on the messy business of becoming one: identity, relationships, family expectations, and the pressure to have it all figured out. I feel personally connected to that season of life, because I lived it.

culture and identity

As a first generation Vietnamese American woman, I listen for how your early childhood and cultural experience shaped who you are and how you move through the world. I've learned, in my own therapy and in this work, that underneath everything we are asking for the same few things: to be heard, to be seen, to be understood.