Ivy Chim Psychotherapy · New York City
My Approach
Somatic, relational, and experiential
Therapy is most effective when it goes beyond what we think and what we say. When it reaches into the body, where so much of our experience actually lives.
How I Work
At the heart of this work is undoing aloneness
I bring my full self and a warm, attuned presence to support you in fully feeling your emotions without judgment, so that healing can happen from the inside out, not just from the outside in. So much of what we carry was shaped in the moments we were too much, not enough, or simply unseen. And so much of it heals in relationship too. Being truly seen, having your experience met with curiosity and care rather than distance or correction, is itself part of the healing.
The body is where we begin. Everything you’ve ever lived has left a trace: the way breath shortens before you can name what you’re feeling, the tightness that arrives before the thought does, the impulse toward movement or stillness your nervous system learned long before you had words for any of it. By gently building somatic awareness and capacity, we create the conditions for something your body already knows how to do: settle, release, and come back to itself. The more connected you are to your body, the more regulated you feel, and the more regulated you feel, the more present and alive you become.
And within all of this, we work with the many parts that live inside you: the anxious one, the protective one, the younger part still waiting to be held, the one who learned to disappear. Every part has a reason for being there. Rather than trying to silence or override them, we approach each with compassion and curiosity. As the parts feel heard, your grounded self has more room to lead, and you have more access to the aliveness, connection, and depth that are already yours.
Embodiment and connection are not two destinations. They are the same homecoming. To feel at home in your body, held in relationship: this is where healing lives.
— Staci Haines
The Work
Three threads woven through the work
These are not techniques applied from the outside — they are the texture of how we work together. You’ll feel them in how we move, how we pause, how we meet difficulty.
One
Safety & Connection
Building a trusting relationship where you feel genuinely seen and heard. The therapeutic relationship is not a backdrop — it is the medium through which healing happens.
Two
Embodied Awareness
Tuning into the body’s sensations to understand and gently release what has been stored. Not as a technique, but as a way of listening more deeply to your own experience.
Three
Parts & Self
Exploring and gradually healing different parts of yourself — the ones that protect, the ones that grieve, the ones that longed for something they never received — with compassion and curiosity.
What to Expect
What a session actually looks like
Sessions often begin with a grounding moment to help you reconnect with yourself. From there, we gently explore your inner landscape — your emotions, your body, your nervous system, and your relational patterns.
Expect a mix of laughter and tears, movement and stillness, play, imagination, and meaningful dialogue. Our work is a collaboration. I support you in understanding how your emotions and patterns have served you — and in accessing a fuller range of experience, and beginning the process of coming home to yourself.
My goal is to help you reconnect with who you truly are, to feel genuinely alive and engage with life more fully.
Though every person’s path is different, I hold a framework that honors the sequence your nervous system actually needs: stabilization, regulation, emotional processing, connection, and integration. We don’t move to processing before there’s enough safety to feel. We don’t push for integration before there’s been time to grieve, to metabolize, to rest in what has shifted. The framework is a container, not a timeline. We follow your body and your readiness.
I practice with a culturally humble, anti-oppressive, and intersectional lens. My work is informed by my own experience as a first-generation immigrant, and by a deep awareness of how culture, identity, and systemic context shape our inner worlds. Your full context is welcome here, and already held.
Clinical Foundations
The modalities I draw from
My approach is integrative — I draw on several evidenced-based frameworks and weave them together in service of what each person needs. These are the primary modalities I’m trained in.
Modality
Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy (AEDP)
Focus
Emotional processing and healing through secure therapeutic attachment.
How I use it
Actively engaging with emotions as they arise to transform painful experiences into growth — staying with the feeling, rather than managing or avoiding it.
What it offers
Strengthened resilience, a felt sense of safety, and the experience of not being alone in your pain.
Modality
Somatic Experiencing (SE)
Focus
Addressing trauma stored in the body through awareness of physical sensation.
How I use it
Gently tracking bodily sensations (warmth, pressure, tightness, movement impulses) to release stored tension and complete interrupted defensive responses.
What it offers
Restored nervous system balance and reduced symptoms of trauma and anxiety, without requiring detailed retelling of what happened.
Modality
Parts Work (IFS-Informed)
Focus
Understanding and integrating the different, often contradictory aspects of our inner world.
How I use it
Identifying parts that hold pain or protective roles — the inner critic, the anxious part, the one who learned to disappear — and meeting each with curiosity rather than judgment.
What it offers
Greater self-compassion, reduced internal conflict, and the experience of your grounded self leading with more ease and presence.
Modality
Breathwork Facilitation
Focus
The breath as a somatic gateway — a direct path into the nervous system and the body’s stored experience.
How I use it
Within sessions, I may invite conscious breath patterns to help regulate your nervous system, access emotional material that words don’t always reach, or create a felt sense of expansion and safety in the body.
Dedicated breathwork
For those drawn to breathwork as its own practice — 1:1 sessions and group breathwork are available through Osmanthus Moon — a space for somatic breathwork, embodied practice, and community.
Ready to Begin
Curious whether this approach is the right fit?
I offer a free 20-minute video consultation: no pressure, no commitment. Just a conversation about what you’re carrying and whether this feels like the right fit.
Begin with a free consultation