ASIAN PSYCHOTHERAPIST IN ONTARIO

Meet Harry Au, the Asian therapist who has lived what you are carrying.

Registered Social Worker. Psychotherapist. 1.5 generation immigrant.

A two-minute introduction, in my own words.

Before you read further, I would like you to hear from me directly. This is who I am, how I work, and what I want for you.

THE STORY

I did not come to this work from a textbook.

I was born in Hong Kong and came to Canada when I was six years old. My family settled in a small Ontario town, and I grew up surrounded by other immigrant children navigating the trickle-down pressures of their parents' lives: the expectations, the obligations, the parentification that comes when your family is still finding its footing in a new country.

In my family, mental health was not something we talked about. Emotions were something to push aside. I spent years doing exactly that until I could not anymore.

When I finally began my own therapy, something shifted. I realised I had no idea what I was actually feeling. I could not name it, not because I did not know the words happy, sad, or angry, but because no one had ever taught me to apply them to myself, or that it was okay to feel them at all.

I became a therapist because I know what it costs to carry things alone. And I know what it feels like when someone finally helps you put them down.

FORMALLY TRAINED

DEEPLY COMMITTED

MSW, Master of Social Work (2015)
Registered Social Worker (RSW), Ontario College of Social Workers and Social Service Workers
BA, Cultural Anthropology
MA, Gender Studies and Feminism
10+ years in practice, 150+ clients helped
Panel speaker and facilitator on Asian mental health at University of Toronto and York University
12+ years of child and youth work experience
Direct work in domestic abuse and intimate partner violence support
Board member: Chinese Canadian National Council Toronto Chapter (CCNCTO), Indigenous Youth Roots (IYR)
Community partnerships: Hong Fook Association, ACAS, 519 Community Services, Butterfly, Big Susie's, Centre for Women and Trans People, Mosaic Institute, Reel Men Project

THE DIFFERENCE

Most therapists offer one lens.

I bring several.

My formal training is in Social Work, but my educational background spans Cultural Anthropology and Gender Studies as well. That is not an accident. I pursued those disciplines because I believed, early on, that you cannot understand a person without understanding the world that shaped them.

The guilt you carry for wanting your own life. The shame that surfaces when you try to set a boundary. The anger that has nowhere to go. These are not character flaws. They are patterned responses to very specific histories. Your family history. Your immigrant experience. The cultural scripts you absorbed before you were old enough to question them.

My approach draws on clinical trauma training, social justice theory, and a genuine understanding of what it means to straddle two cultures and feel fully at home in neither. I have lived a version of what you are living. That changes the kind of therapy I can offer you.

WHO I WORK WITH

If you have ever felt like the life you are living was written by someone else,

this is for you.

I work specifically with 1.5 and 2nd generation Asian immigrants across Ontario.

My clients come in carrying a particular kind of weight. They are often high-functioning on the outside and exhausted on the inside. They feel guilty for wanting things their parents never got to want. They are angry in ways they cannot fully explain. They have spent years prioritizing everyone else's needs over their own and are not quite sure who they are underneath all of it.

If you recognize yourself in that description, you are exactly who I built this practice for.