Author: Hieu Tran
Not knowing who you are: Finding yourself without losing your connection
To resolve a quarter-life identity crisis while respecting family expectations, you must shift from silent compliance to chosen connection. Overcome this struggle by practicing inner reflection, exploring personal beliefs, and engaging in group therapy. This untangles your authentic self from external pressure, honoring your cultural roots while establishing individual purpose. Not knowing who you are…
Fixing relationship problems: A guide to reconnecting with your partner
To fix relationship problems and reconnect, you must break destructive communication cycles, address underlying emotional needs, and rebuild trust through consistent honesty. Couples therapy, including intercultural counseling, helps partners navigate life transitions and cultural differences. Additionally, practicing active listening and small daily connection exercises restores intimacy while maintaining individual identities. Fixing relationship problems often starts…
Struggling to get ahead in your career and relationships
Struggling to get ahead in your career and relationships is caused by prioritising technical skills over emotional and social intelligence. To overcome these barriers, you must address past psychological blueprints and emotional dysregulation. Engaging in group therapy builds vital relational skills, reveals blind spots, and reduces anxiety, unlocking long-term professional and personal growth. Struggling to…
Healing childhood family wounds and finding peace in your adult relationships
To heal childhood family wounds, you must recognise trauma, process emotions through therapy, and reconnect with your body using mindful movement. Engaging in supportive communities, sharing your story, and practicing daily grounding exercises helps rebuild trust, allowing you to establish secure adult relationships and break cycles of generational pain. Healing childhood family wounds often feels…
Recovering from work burnout: How to find your energy again
To recover from work burnout, you must reset your nervous system by establishing strict workload boundaries, practicing a strategic no, and ensuring deep sleep. Calming chronic stress requires deliberate changes, such as taking regular screen free breaks, adjusting daily routines for energy optimization, and reclaiming control over your environment to restore depleted power. Recovering from…
Understand What Makes You Feel Unsafe After Traumas
Chronic hypervigilance after trauma is caused by a rewired fear network in the brain. An overactive amygdala continuously signals danger, while a weakened prefrontal cortex and impaired hippocampus fail to regulate emotions or recognise safety context. This autonomic nervous system dysregulation keeps your body in fight-or-flight, but it can be recalibrated through targeted therapy. Understanding…
The Price of Success: Why High Performers in HCMC Struggle with Loneliness
High performers in Ho Chi Minh City struggle with social isolation because achievement-contingent self-worth drives them to prioritise self-validation over vulnerable connections. Urban stressors and a lack of bonding social capital worsen this loneliness. Overcoming it requires adopting learning goals, taking relational risks, and seeking spaces like group therapy to foster unconditional acceptance. High performer…
Feeling lonely in Ho Chi Minh City, late at night
Loneliness is the gap between the connection you have and the connection you need, which is why a full calendar does not close it. What happens to that gap after midnight, and what the research says actually helps.
Beyond the Monad: The Evolution of Group Analysis
The evolution of group analysis shifted psychotherapy from treating the isolated individual to healing people within an interconnected social matrix. Pioneered by S.H. Foulkes, this framework integrated sociology and Gestalt psychology. It expanded over decades to address severe personality disorders via mentalizing techniques and macro-social trauma through large-scale civic dialogue. For a long time, psychoanalysis…
The “Mentalizing” Workout: How to Build Stronger Connections Through Group Therapy
Mentalizing is the capacity to understand the underlying thoughts, emotions, and intentions driving human behaviour. To build stronger connections and heal strained relationships, you can strengthen this mental muscle through group therapy. Utilizing structured approaches like DBT and MBT provides a safe practice ground to regulate sudden emotions, cultivate epistemic trust, and restore your social…
