This might be for you
You’re probably someone who thinks carefully about things. You can see your own patterns, at least partially — you know something is getting in the way, even if you can’t quite name it yet. Maybe it shows up in your relationships, in a recurring sense of not-quite-enough, or in a feeling that the life you’ve built doesn’t fully feel like yours.
You might come from a background where love and high expectations were tightly wound together — where loyalty meant not looking too closely at what hurt. Or you might be navigating the gap between two cultures, two versions of who you’re supposed to be, two sets of values that don’t quite reconcile.
You might be a woman quietly re-examining the story you were handed — looking back at your mother, your grandmother, the women who shaped you — and beginning to understand their lives, their constraints, and your own with different eyes. That process can feel lonely, even disorienting, especially when it happens inside relationships and family structures that are still very much present.
Whatever brings you here, you’re not looking to be fixed. You’re looking to understand.
About Qian
I’m Qian Yang — a BACP-qualified counsellor based in London. I came to therapy after over twenty years working across finance, technology and startups, a path that looked right from the outside but quietly wasn’t. That experience of building a life that didn’t fit — and finding a way through it — is close to the heart of how I work.
I’m Chinese and have lived in London for almost twenty years. I work with people from all backgrounds, but I understand intimately the particular weight that comes with Asian family dynamics — the love that’s real, the expectations that bind, and the guilt that makes it hard to acknowledge both at the same time. I also know what it’s like to be in a relationship across cultures, and how much can get lost in translation — not just linguistically, but in the deeper assumptions we each carry about what love, family and commitment are supposed to look like.
I’ve also been on my own feminist journey — looking back at the women in my family, understanding their lives and what they carried, and sitting with the complexity of holding feminist values inside the reality of relationships and family. It’s a process that changes how you see almost everything. I know how isolating it can feel to be in the middle of it, and I think it deserves proper space.
My approach is relational and exploratory. I’m less interested in giving you tools and techniques than in helping you actually understand what’s going on — because in my experience, that understanding is what makes real change possible.
I also co-host a Mandarin-language podcast, 妇妇得正, exploring identity, relationships and what it means to be a woman living between worlds. Find more about it here.
Working together
I offer sessions in English and Mandarin.
Regular session (50 mins): £80 online or £90 in person.
In-person sessions are held from The Practice Rooms (near Old Street / Shoreditch / Liverpool Street).
If you’re interested in starting counselling, we’ll first have an initial free 20-minute session to explore what you’d like to get out of it. I may ask some questions to better understand your situation, and you’ll have the opportunity to see what it’s like to work with me and ask any questions you might have. (You may also find the FAQ page helpful).
