About meI am the daughter of Chinese immigrants who grew up during the Cultural Revolution and came to the United States in search for education and opportunity. I was born and raised in Texas around very few people who looked like me, which was challenging but also helped me understand the complexities of feeling like an outsider. In my high school years, I was drawn to avant-garde art movements, like Dada, because I was all about questioning the seemingly arbitrary rules that governed how things were.
Shortly thereafter, I followed the dreams of my immigrant parents and took the pragmatic route of studying business and engineering. I put myself through college, moved to San Francisco, and worked in marketing and product management at technology companies. I rediscovered radical politics through racial justice movements, which challenged me to confront the ways I hold privilege and am oppressed. Over time, I started to rethink my values and embrace my weirdness. I became interested in how the workings of power in society define what is normal, valued, and other... and how these sociopolitical factors impact our relationship with ourselves and other people. As a practitioner of Buddhist meditation in the Samatha and Vipassana traditions, I also have a lot of experience sitting around and paying attention to things in my body. Basically I am a nerd who learned about feelings and is still trying to figure it out. In no particular order, I enjoy art, gardening, dance, fiction, following complicated recipes, thinking about the unconscious, watching things unfold over time in context, and spending time with loved ones. |
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Reflection is resistance.
Beyond self-care and the ability to (really) listen, the practice of doing nothing has something broader to offer us: an antidote to the rhetoric of growth. In the context of health and ecology, things that grow unchecked are often considered parasitic or cancerous. Yet we inhabit a culture that privileges novelty and growth over the cyclical and regenerative. Our very idea of productivity is premised on the idea of producing something new, whereas we do not tend to see maintenance and care as productive in the same way.”
- JENNY ODELL
Education and Training
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License
Associate Marriage and Family Therapist #118203 under the supervision of Dr. Angie Branham, PhD (PSY 28850) and Ricardo Peña (LCSW #80473) at Homeless Children's Network. Education 2018 - 2019: Master of Arts in Counseling Psychology with a concentration in Community Mental Health, California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS). 2005 - 2009: Bachelor of Business Administration in Business Honors Program and Engineering Route to Business with a concentration in Finance and Operations Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin. Professional Affiliations
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Training
Clinical Work Experience
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