Then there’s the language thing. God, the language. It’s not just fluency. It’s the landmines. Ji-eun, a 1.5 gen in LA, came to me after two disastrous attempts with non-Korean therapists. \”They kept asking me to \’explain\’ why calling my mom every single day felt suffocating. Like I needed to justify oxygen!\” The frustration vibrated through the screen. The assumptions! The therapist suggested setting boundaries, a simple \”I need space.\” Ji-eun laughed, a bitter sound. \”Try telling a Korean mother who survived the war and worked triple shifts in a dry cleaner so you could go to UCLA that you \’need space\’. It’s not a conversation; it’s a declaration of war.\” We spent weeks just untangling the word \”hyo\” (filial piety). It’s not a concept; it’s the bedrock of her identity, cracked and causing earthquakes. Online? It meant she could finally swear in Korean when describing the latest guilt-trip phone call, without having to translate her rage into polite, palatable English that stripped it bare. The relief in her eyes when she could just say \”Aigoo, jinjja!\” and I got the sheer, exhausted frustration in those syllables? Priceless. And exhausting. Because feeling that cultural echo chamber resonate so deeply takes its own toll.

Burnout? Yeah, it creeps in. Especially with the time zones. My 7 PM is someone’s 9 AM in Seoul, someone else’s midnight in Sydney. You learn to read the exhaustion in the set of a jaw, the slight glaze over eyes that have been awake too long wrestling with thoughts best kept hidden. There was Soo-yeon, a new mom in London, utterly isolated. Her husband worked long hours, her in-laws were back in Korea, her British friends didn\’t understand why she wasn\’t just \”enjoying motherhood.\” Our sessions were often late my time, her baby finally asleep. She’d whisper, terrified of waking the child, describing the bone-deep loneliness, the intrusive thoughts she was too ashamed to voice in Korean to anyone else. \”Na neomu himdeureo… I\’m so tired,\” she’d murmur, tears silently tracking down her face in the dim light of her phone screen. Holding space for that whispered despair, across continents, while fighting my own yawns? It’s a specific kind of emotional labor. You absorb that silent weeping. It lingers. You log off, but the weight of their \”himdeulda\” (it’s difficult/hard) sits with you. You make more coffee. You stare at the ceiling. This license? It doesn\’t shield you from the shared cultural fatigue. Sometimes, it feels like it amplifies it.

And the expectations! Oh, the expectations. Because I’m Korean, licensed, online – some clients arrive expecting a sage halmeoni dispensing instant wisdom, or a cultural fixer magically resolving generational trauma in six sessions. Sorry to disappoint. I’m just a human with training, sitting in a chair, often just as bewildered by the complexity of it all as they are. Young-ho, a grad student in Chicago, was furious when I didn\’t immediately tell him how to make his traditional father accept his non-Korean fiancée. \”You\’re supposed to know the Korean way to handle this!\” he snapped. Truth? There is no one \”Korean way.\” There\’s his father’s specific trauma from rapid industrialization, his own immigrant compromises, the fiancée’s cultural blind spots, a swirling mess of pride and fear. My job isn\’t handing out cultural cheat codes. It’s wading into that messy swamp with him, validating the anger, the fear, the love tangled up in it all, and helping him find his own path through the muck. It’s slow. It’s unsatisfying for those craving quick fixes. It involves sitting with uncomfortable silences where the only sound is the hum of our respective computers, the weight of centuries of expectation hanging in the digital air. Real therapy, especially this kind, is rarely Instagram-worthy breakthroughs. It’s more like chipping away at concrete with a plastic spoon. Grueling. Necessary.

Is it worth it? On days when the screen feels like a prison and the collective han (that deep-seated Korean sorrow/resentment) threatens to pull me under? I wonder. Truly. But then… there’s the moment. Like with Hae-won. Years of carrying her father’s alcoholism like a dark secret, the shame poisoning her relationships. One session, after months of tiptoeing around it, she finally said the words aloud in Korean: \”Appa-nun suljung-i-yeosseo. My father was an alcoholic.\” The sheer, trembling relief that washed over her face when she heard herself say it in her mother tongue, to someone who understood the cultural magnitude of that admission without explanation… that silence afterward wasn\’t heavy. It was light. Cracked open. That moment doesn\’t fix everything. But it’s a spark in the long dark. That’s why I keep the camera on, why I navigate the time zones, why I listen to the whispered confessions and the frustrated cries. Not because I have answers, but because sometimes, just being witnessed – truly, deeply, culturally witnessed – in your own language, across the digital void, is the first, fragile step out of the isolation. It’s not grand. It’s barely a step. But it’s real. And right now, with my cold coffee and stiff shoulders, real feels like enough. Maybe.

【FAQ】

Q: Okay, so you\’re licensed and Korean. But are you actually culturally competent? Like, will you get why I feel guilty for not sending more money home?

A> Look, \”competent\” feels like a test I\’m constantly taking, not a badge I wear. But the guilt? The hyodo pressure? Yeah, I get it in my bones. Not just as a concept, but the knot in your stomach when your mom sighs on the phone, the spreadsheet you maybe keep (or avoid) tracking the remittances. I\’ve sat with that specific flavor of anxiety more times than I can count. I won\’t magically erase it, but I won\’t act baffled by it either. We can unpack where it comes from (often generations deep) and how it\’s tangling you up right now.

Q: Video therapy feels weird. How can we build trust just through a screen? Especially talking about… family stuff.

A> Honestly? Sometimes it does feel weird. Awkward pauses hit different on Zoom. But weirdly? That screen can be a shield, a safety net. I\’ve had clients finally whisper secrets they\’ve held for decades because they weren\’t in the same physical room, because they could close the laptop and be instantly \’away\’. It\’s not the same as in-person, no. It\’s its own thing. The trust builds slower, maybe, pixel by pixel, in the shared glances at frozen screens and the mutual sigh when the internet glitches during something heavy. It\’s imperfect. Real connection often is.

Q: My parents in Korea would lose it if they knew I was in therapy. Is this actually confidential?

A> Short, legal answer: Yes, bound by strict confidentiality laws like any licensed therapist. Real talk? I understand the visceral fear. That generational stigma is real and terrifying. We can talk about that fear too – the logistics of keeping it private (using headphones, finding a secure space/time), and the heavy emotional burden of hiding something meant to help you. The hiding itself is part of the work, sometimes.

Q: I\’m fluent in English, but my deepest pain… it\’s in Korean. Can we switch languages mid-session?

A> Please, do. It’s not just allowed; it’s encouraged. That sudden switch when a memory hits? The curse word that only lands right in Korean? The untranslatable concept (jeong, nunchi)? That\’s where the real stuff often lives. Don\’t force it into English for my sake. This space is for your language, however it flows. Code-switching is welcome here. The emotional truth often resides in the mother tongue, even if your daily life is in another.

Q: How do you handle the time difference? I\’m in Australia, and evenings are my only quiet time.

A> Rubs eyes Schedules are… a negotiation. My calendar looks like a time zone warzone. Early mornings, late nights – I\’ve done sessions at what feels like all hours. We find a slot that works, even if it\’s unconventional. Your quiet time in Sydney might be my pre-dawn grogginess here. We make it work. Bring your coffee, I\’ll bring mine (strong). Just know I might squint a bit more at 5 AM my time. The important thing is finding that pocket of relative peace for you to actually talk. The exhaustion is part of the shared reality.