Your Harbor in a New World.
Mental health care, community, and whole-person support — built for Chinese international students and new arrivals in the United States. In English and Mandarin
Healing, empowerment, and community for Chinese international students and new arrivals — in English and Mandarin.
WHO WE ARE
Clear Harbor Healing and Empowerment (CHHE) is a virtual mental health and whole-person support organization founded for Chinese international students and new arrivals building their lives in the United States.
We know this journey — because we’ve lived it. The excitement of arriving somewhere new, followed quickly by the loneliness, the pressure to hold everything together while quietly wondering if you’re falling behind. The way you have to perform confidence in a language that still doesn’t always feel like yours. The grief of distance. The exhaustion of constantly translating — not just words, but yourself.
We built CHHE because this community deserves support that truly gets it. Not just clinically competent care, but care that understands where you came from, what you’re carrying, and what you’re reaching toward.
At CHHE, you don’t have to translate yourself.
ABOUT US
Our Story
Almost everyone on the Clear Harbor Healing and Empowerment team has been a Chinese international student. We know what it’s like to land in a new country with a suitcase, a student ID, and a quiet fear that you might not be enough. We know the specific loneliness of sitting in a classroom where everyone else seems to already understand the cultural references. We know the weight of carrying your family’s hopes across an ocean, and the confusion of not knowing whether what you’re feeling is culture shock, burnout, or something that actually needs real support.
Our founder carried all of that too — and then some. She graduated Summa Cum Laude and went on to complete a Master of Social Work at the University of Chicago’s Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice, one of the top programs in the country. She became a licensed clinical social worker with specialized certifications in domestic violence intervention, built a clinical career in addiction treatment and trauma-informed care, and eventually earned a place at the United Nations — working with the Department of Peace Operations on some of the most complex global challenges in women’s wellbeing and community resilience.
It was not a straight line. It was not easy. And she has often thought: if she had had the right support back then — someone who truly understood her cultural context, her pressures, her specific kind of struggle — maybe the road would not have been quite so hard.
That thought became Clear Harbor Healing and Empowerment.
CHHE was built not from a distance, but from the inside — from lived experience, from deep clinical expertise, and from an unwavering belief that Chinese international students and new arrivals deserve so much more than what currently exists. Not just a therapist who speaks Mandarin. But a real home — a place that sees the whole person, walks alongside them, and helps them build a life they’re proud of.
Our Approach
We take a whole-person approach to wellbeing — because for Chinese international students and new arrivals, mental health doesn’t exist in a vacuum.
Why Whole-Person Care
A student struggling with anxiety might also be dealing with visa uncertainty that makes long-term planning feel impossible. A new arrival experiencing depression might also be isolated because they haven’t found community yet, or financially stressed because they don’t yet know how to navigate the American system. A professional feeling burned out might be quietly grieving an identity that no longer fits — caught between who they were at home and who they’re becoming here.
Treating the symptom without understanding the full picture isn’t enough. That’s why CHHE supports our clients across multiple dimensions of their lives.
What We Address
Beyond mental health symptoms, we recognize and actively work to address the broader challenges that shape how Chinese international students and new arrivals are really doing — including:
Academic and performance pressure, including the fear of failure and perfectionism rooted in cultural expectations.
Visa stress and immigration uncertainty, which create a particular kind of chronic anxiety that is often invisible to others.
Career confusion and professional identity, especially for those navigating a job market in a country whose unwritten rules they’re still learning.
Social isolation and loneliness, including the difficulty of building genuine friendships across cultural and language differences.
Bicultural identity strain — the exhausting and often unspoken labor of figuring out who you are between two worlds.
Financial stress, which intersects with family obligation and the pressure to justify the enormous investment of studying or living abroad.
Relationship and family dynamics, including long-distance strain and shifting roles within families navigating immigration together.
Schedule Your Appointment
Secure your personalized counseling session today by booking an appointment with our experienced professionals.
Our team is dedicated to providing you with compassionate and confidential support tailored to your needs.
