Intercultural Therapy in New York
Culture doesn't stay at the door when you enter a relationship — or a therapist's office.
The way you were taught to handle conflict, express affection, relate to family, think about sex, understand gender roles — these aren't just personal preferences. They're deeply cultural, often unconscious, and they shape almost everything that happens between people in intimate relationships. When two people come from different cultural backgrounds, or when someone is navigating between the culture they grew up in and the one they live in now, these differences can become a source of real friction — even when both people are trying hard.
This is the work I'm most at home in.
Who tends to come to intercultural therapy
My clients are often people who carry more than one cultural identity — immigrants, expats, third-culture kids, bicultural individuals who have spent their lives code-switching between worlds. They may be in relationships with partners from different cultural backgrounds, or they may be working through something more internal: the tension between what their family and community expect of them and who they actually are or want to be.
Some specific situations that bring people in:
You're in an intercultural relationship and keep hitting the same walls — around communication style, family involvement, gender expectations, or what intimacy is supposed to look like
You've immigrated or relocated and are navigating a cultural environment that handles sex, relationships, or gender very differently from where you grew up
You carry conflicting cultural messages about what you're allowed to want — sexually, romantically, professionally — and the contradiction has become hard to hold
Your family's expectations and your own sense of self are pulling in opposite directions
You feel like you don't fully belong anywhere, and that sense of in-between-ness is showing up in your relationships
Why cultural context matters in therapy
Most therapy models were developed within a Western, individualistic framework that treats the self as the primary unit of analysis. That works reasonably well if you grew up in a culture where individual autonomy is the baseline assumption. It works less well if your sense of self is more relational, more communal, or shaped by cultural contexts where family, community, and honor carry real weight.
I don't treat cultural background as something to overcome or assimilate away from. I treat it as the actual material of the work — the lens through which your experiences make sense, and the place where we look to understand what's really happening.
This matters especially when it comes to sexuality. The messages people receive about sex — what's permissible, what's shameful, what a body is for — are among the most culturally loaded of all, and among the hardest to examine precisely because they were absorbed so early and so completely. For many of my clients, making these messages visible is the most important thing we do together.
My background
I came to this work partly through research — I've published on sexuality and cultural context, including the experience of women navigating honor and virginity narratives across cultures — and partly through lived experience. I grew up across multiple countries and cultures, speak four languages, and have spent my career working at the intersection of psychology, sexuality, and cultural identity. I'm not a neutral observer of this territory. I know it from the inside.
What we work on
Understanding how your cultural background shapes your relationship patterns, communication style, and experience of intimacy
Navigating cultural differences with a partner — in expectations, values, family dynamics, and approaches to conflict
Working through the tension between cultural inheritance and personal identity
Addressing shame, guilt, or confusion around sexuality that is rooted in cultural or religious messaging
Supporting the process of integration — not assimilation, but finding a way to hold multiple cultural identities without losing yourself
Sessions are available in English and Turkish. I work with individuals and partners. Telehealth is available for clients in New York, Vermont, and Florida.
If you are navigating these with a partner, you can also learn more about relationship therapy in New York.
If cultural differences are showing up specifically around intimacy or sexual connection, you can read more about sex therapy in New York.
If desire or intimacy is part of what's strained, I also work with desire mismatch and sexless relationships in New York.
I also work with clients in non-traditional relationships in New York.
I provide Turkish-speaking therapy for clients who prefer to work in Turkish.
Sessions are available in English and Turkish. Licensed in New York. Telehealth is available for clients in New York, Vermont, and Florida. 15-minute consult.