Third Culture Kid and Third Culture Identity Counselling
Third Culture Identity Counselling for Adults
Growing up across cultures can shape identity in profound, complex, and deeply personal ways. Many Third Culture Kids and Third Culture Adults carry experiences that do not fit neatly into one place, one story, or one cultural lens. If you have ever felt like you belong everywhere and nowhere at the same time, you are not alone.
How Counselling for Third Culture Identity Can Help
Understand your cultural journey and make sense of the experiences, transitions, and environments that shaped your identity.
Explore feelings of belonging and not belonging, especially if you feel caught between cultures or disconnected from a single sense of home.
Process grief and loss connected to leaving places, loved ones, and communities throughout your life.
Build a grounded and confident sense of identity, especially if you have always adapted to different cultural expectations.
Improve emotional regulation and self trust, particularly if you learned to mask or shift parts of yourself to fit into different environments.
Navigate family and cultural expectations while honouring your values, needs, and lived experiences.
Strengthen relationships and communication skills across cultures, languages, and differing emotional norms.
Understand how neurodivergence interacts with multicultural identity, including burnout, masking, sensory overload, or emotional overwhelm.
Reclaim parts of your cultural identity that may have been forgotten, blended, or pushed aside over time.
Create meaning and stability after years of movement, change, or cultural transitions.
Feel seen and understood by a counsellor who recognizes the complexity of living across cultures.
My Experience Living Across Cultures
I am Japanese and was born in Japan, and my family moved to Singapore when I was a child. Growing up in Singapore meant being surrounded by many cultures, languages, and communities. At home, I held my Japanese identity, and outside, I often moved between different expectations and ways of being.
Now living in Canada, I understand the unique experiences that many Third Culture Kids and Third Culture Adults carry, the feeling of belonging everywhere and nowhere, the constant adapting, and the questions about identity that follow you into adulthood. I also understand how Third Culture identity can become even more layered when you are neurodivergent, especially when masking, emotional overwhelm, or shifting between environments have been part of your story.
These experiences shape how I show up as a counsellor. They help me connect with adults who have lived across cultures, grown up internationally, or navigated complex cultural expectations. My hope is to offer a space where every part of your story, including every culture, country, memory, and transition, feels welcomed, understood, and valued.
