My Background

I am a licensed clinical psychologist (PSY 36410), trained in the PhD program in Clinical Psychology with an emphasis in Depth Psychology at Pacifica Graduate Institute. My work is grounded in psychoanalytic and Jungian traditions—two lineages that share the recognition that much of psychological life unfolds outside conscious awareness, while each illuminates dimensions of the psyche the other does not fully reach. My psychodynamic orientation was further deepened through pre-doctoral internship and post-doctoral fellowship training at the Wright Institute Los Angeles.

Before entering psychology, I spent most of my adult life in the business world. I operated a cottage resort at Lake Tahoe for nine years. One of the cottages also at times served as a temporary safe residence for women in vulnerable transitions, offering an early, lived encounter with emotional suffering, fragility, and the need for containment.

From this period, I transitioned into real estate development and repairing fixer-upper houses. That work—attending to damaged structures with patience, strengthening what had been destabilized, and reorganizing what no longer supported the whole—became an embodied metaphor for tending the House of the Psyche. This sensibility continues to shape how I approach clinical work: attending to what supports, what has been compromised, and what can be restored.

Alongside my work in construction, I remained engaged in music and creative production, while continuing a lifelong exploration of Eastern and Western philosophical and spiritual traditions. My clinical orientation is grounded in a psychodynamic, depth-oriented understanding of the psyche. Through formal study and mentorship, I have developed an integrative understanding of the psyche-soma's many layers. My training in holistic modalities such as chakra work, voice work, and Qigong support this perspective, particularly in attending to how psychological distress is communicated through the body.

Presenting voice work at the University of Oxford and other professional societies brought me into dialogue with elders and teachers from diverse traditions. What struck me was a way of knowing that is embodied, intuitive, and relational—one not organized around the Cartesian split between mind and body that underlies much of modern clinical thinking. These encounters continue to inform how I listen and how I attune to the depth and complexity of my clients’ experience.

Having lived in California for over four decades since leaving Taiwan, I have inhabited multiple cultural worlds—negotiating language, belonging, and identity across diverse environments. I am a contributing author to Transdisciplinary Migrations: Science, the Sacred, and the Arts (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2024), where I explore ancestral calling, intergenerational trauma, Indigenous therapeutics, and what I term the Transcultural Unconscious—the multilayered psychic field constituted by plural, intersecting, and sometimes conflicting ancestral, cultural, and historical inheritances, wounds, and unfinished transmissions that continue to live within and express through the psyche.

Therapeutic Orientation & Process

My work is grounded in psychodynamic and Jungian traditions, with EMDR woven in when appropriate to support emotional processing and psychosomatic integration.

In practice, we attend both to present experience and to deeper patterns shaping it—what has been inherited, defended against, dissociated, or left unspoken. The process is collaborative and responsive, guided by what is emerging in your inner life at a given time.

Change often unfolds as a shift in your relationship to experience, allowing for new ways of responding where there were once automatic defenses, and a greater capacity to hold complexity, ambiguity, and emotional depth. Over time, what once felt isolating may begin to reconnect with broader layers of meaning—symbolic, relational, and cultural.

Learn more about this work on the My Approach page.

Working Together

I provide online psychotherapy through a HIPAA-compliant Zoom platform in both English and Mandarin. 

I offer LGBTQ+ and neurodivergent-affirming care, supporting individuals in navigating their inner worlds. 

I have worked with individuals across corporate, entertainment, and academic fields, and also support psychotherapists in their clinical development. Additionally, I provide clinical supervision for PsyD students at a graduate school in California. 

For individuals outside California or internationally, I may offer depth-oriented consultation focused on inner exploration and personal growth rather than psychotherapy. We can determine together whether this format is appropriate during the initial consultation.

If you would like to explore whether this work may be helpful for you, the first step is a free 15-minute Zoom consultation. To schedule, please email me at akasa@drakasatseng.com with your availability. Email is my preferred initial contact, as it allows for more efficient coordination.

Degrees & Credentials For

• PhD in Clinical Psychology with an emphasis in Depth Psychology — Pacifica Graduate Institute

• MA in Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness — California Institute of Integral Studies

• 2-year Certificate Program in Advanced Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy — Wright Institute Los Angeles

• Certificate of Completion — EMDR Basic Training by EMDR Professional Training (EMDRIA-approved program)

• Certificate of Completion — Trauma-Informed Cognitive Behavioral Therapy