Mixed & Multiracial Belonging Therapy
You do not have to divide yourself to belong.
Being mixed or multiracial can hold connection, pride and a deeply layered sense of self. It can also mean navigating other people’s expectations about who you are and where you belong.
Perhaps your identity has been questioned, or you have felt too much of one thing in one space and not enough in another. You might find yourself explaining your background, holding parts of yourself back, or adapting to feel accepted. You may feel certain about who you are and still feel hurt or exhausted by having that repeatedly questioned.
In our work together, there is space to explore what these experiences mean to you: your relationships, family histories, experiences of racism, cultural connections and sense of belonging. We can pay attention to the ways you have learnt to fit in, what those adaptations have offered you, and where you would like more choice.
As a psychotherapist of Nigerian–Filipino heritage, I bring lived experience alongside professional understanding, while remaining curious about what is particular to you.
Book a free 15-minute introductory call to talk about what brings you to therapy, ask questions and explore whether working together feels right.
You have often been asked, “What are you?” or “Where are you really from?”
Other people make assumptions about your identity based on how you look.
You feel too Black, not Black enough, too Asian, not Asian enough—or caught between other imposed categories.
Different sides of your family recognise some parts of you while overlooking or rejecting others.
Your identity seems to shift depending on who you are with.
You have become skilled at adapting your language, behaviour or appearance to fit different spaces.
You feel pressure to choose one culture, race, nationality or community over another.
You experience both privilege and marginalisation, sometimes at the same time.
You feel grief about a language, culture, ancestry or family history that was not passed down to you.
Racism, colourism, shadism or anti‑Blackness have affected how you see yourself.
You feel responsible for explaining race or acting as a bridge between different groups.
A bereavement, family gathering, marriage, birth or return to an ancestral place has stirred questions about who you are.
You want to feel more rooted without having to create a simpler version of yourself.
You might be in the right place if…
There is no single correct way to be mixed
Mixed and multiracial experience cannot be reduced to one story.
It may include pride and loss, connection and exclusion, visibility and erasure, privilege and marginalisation. You may feel deeply connected to more than one culture while also experiencing distance from each. These realities can exist together.
You may have become a bridge‑builder, carrying knowledge between families, cultures or communities. You may have learnt to shape‑shift: reading what a space requires and adjusting yourself so that you can enter it safely. These abilities can hold creativity, perception and strength—and become exhausting when you are always translating, mediating or adapting but rarely feel received as a whole person.
Your mixedness is not a problem to resolve. The work is not to determine which identity is most authentic. It is to understand how your experiences have shaped you and create room for the full complexity of who you are.
When an experience has no language
Mixed people are often left without language for experiences that are psychologically real but difficult to name.
You may have sensed exclusion without knowing whether you were “allowed” to call it racism. You might have been told that your proximity to one culture means another part of your experience does not count. Family members may have denied differences in colour, treatment, power or belonging.
Without language, it can be difficult to recognise an experience as real. Confusion can become self‑doubt:
Was I imagining it? Am I making too much of this? Do I have the right to feel hurt?
Therapy can help you name what happened without forcing your experience into a rigid category. Finding language is not about fixing your identity; it can be a way of gathering previously separated parts of the self back together.
Mixed heritage, loss and life changes
Bereavement, migration, marriage, having a child and all the other life events that happen to us can bring your relationship with your mixed heritage into sharp relief. You may start to ask yourself questions about which traditions feel like 'yours', how the various strands of your heritage are acknowledged and what you actually want to take forward.
When a parent dies you can find yourself in a state of fear at the thought of losing the person who was the conduit through which you were known to the wider culture. You can be left wondering whether your culture will still be recognised, whether your kin will still include you or whether you will now have to go through the exercise of having to explain or justify your place. All of that can come up even if you are quite clear in your own mind about who you are.
Funerals, wakes and all the various cultural and religious rituals can be a way of reconnecting with your ancestry, your faith and your traditions. They can also be a way of bringing to the surface some of the more difficult relationships and expectations you may have with your family. You may be very much in tune with the ceremony and yet feel completely misunderstood or only partially acknowledged by the family around you. You can be familiar and yet estranged at the same time.
Grief may reach beyond the person who has died. You may also be grieving:
Languages, traditions or histories which weren't passed down.
Cultural connections you long for but find it very difficult to access.
Family stories that were hidden, buried, silenced or lost.
Parts of yourself which you learned to hide in order to feel safe or accepted.
The understanding or the recognition you were hoping that someone would eventually come to give you.
Love, hurt, loyalty, anger, tenderness and relief can all be present at the same time. You can acknowledge one emotion and still have another. Your grief doesn't have to be in line with what your family want.
In therapy we can allow space for those experiences without the need for forgiveness, the need for reconciliation or any particular way of grieving. We can look at what your relationships and your heritage mean to you, what you'd like to remain connected to and what you'd like to have boundaries around or to change.
You can value your ancestry and still be in doubt about the expectations that have been passed down to you. You can grieve the loss of the past and still be in a position to decide which of the patterns you wish to carry on with.
Remembering who we are
The philosophy of Remember Who We Are Therapy is that healing is not simply about becoming someone new. It can also be a process of remembering who we are beneath trauma, shame, cultural expectations, family roles and inherited stories.
Remembering is not an attempt to return to an idealised past, nor does it require you to accept every part of your cultural or family inheritance uncritically. It begins with reality:
What happened? What was lost? What sustained you? What was silenced?
What belongs to you and what were you taught to carry for other people?
The process may involve:
Remembering → Acknowledging → Healing → Clearing → Integrating → Knowing → Choosing
We remember what has been forgotten or pushed aside, acknowledge the reality of our experience, attend to what has been wounded, begin to clear what no longer belongs to us, integrate different parts of our story, deepen our knowledge of ourselves and make more conscious choices about how we wish to live.
Remembering makes freedom possible because it allows you to choose what you carry forward.
How therapy can support you
Explore your identity without being asked to choose one part of yourself.
Understand how race, culture, family and belonging have shaped your emotional life.
Find language for experiences that have previously felt confusing or invisible.
Process racism, colourism, shadism, anti‑Blackness and identity‑based exclusion.
Recognise when shape‑shifting protects you and when it disconnects you from yourself.
Explore the emotional cost of being a bridge, translator or mediator.
Grieve cultural disconnection, lost language and fragmented family histories.
Work with complicated feelings towards parents, family, culture and community.
Explore how bereavement or other life transitions have changed your sense of identity.
Develop boundaries that do not require you to abandon connection or cultural values.
Build a more internally rooted sense of belonging and decide which values, traditions and stories you want to carry forward.
The aim is not to arrive at a final, fixed definition of who you are. Identity can remain living, relational and evolving. The work is to become more able to inhabit your complexity without shame.
How I work
I offer integrative, transpersonal, trauma‑informed and transcultural psychotherapy.
Our work may explore present relationships, childhood and family experiences, attachment patterns, cultural histories and the ways identity is experienced within the body. We can also attend to dreams, imagery, spirituality, ancestry and questions of meaning where these are relevant to you.
I understand mixedness as more than a demographic category. It can be an internal and relational experience of moving between worlds, holding different realities and searching for somewhere that does not require you to fragment yourself.
My role is not to define your identity or decide which community you belong to. I offer a reflective relationship in which your experience can be recognised, questioned and understood at your own pace.
Sessions and fees
Sessions are 50 minutes and usually take place weekly at a regularly agreed time.
Weekly online psychotherapy: £80 per session, available across the UK. In-person psychotherapy: £90 per session (spaces are currently full).
My in-person spaces are full at the moment, and I'll update this page if they reopen.
Working days: Tuesday to Friday.
Begin with an introductory call
If you are considering weekly psychotherapy, you can book a free 15‑minute introductory call. We can briefly discuss what is bringing you to therapy, what you are looking for and whether my approach and current availability are a suitable fit.
Book a free 15‑minute introductory call
You do not need to arrive with a clear definition of who you are. We can begin with the parts of your experience that are asking to be recognised.
If your experience of belonging is connected to people‑pleasing, self‑silencing or difficulty saying no, you may also wish to read about Boundaries, Belonging and Self‑Trust Therapy.