Irene Velasco, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist
Vallejo, California
VerifiedTelehealth Available
My Approach to Therapy
You have been holding a lot for a long time. Maybe it's the weight of a family that loved you in ways you couldn't always receive. Maybe it's the exhaustion of living between two cultures and never feeling fully at home in either. Maybe it's the quiet voice that keeps asking — is this all there is?
You don't have to translate yourself here.
I am a multilingual Filipino-American Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist with sixteen years of experience, and an official external provider for faculty and staff at UCSF and UC Berkeley. I specialize in helping adult children of immigrants navigate anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, and intergenerational conflict — with a multicultural framework that honors your cultural context rather than measuring you against Western-default standards of emotional expression.
My approach is trauma-informed and grounded in evidence-based practices including CBT, psychodynamic therapy, and solution-focused work. But more than any technique, what I bring to every session is the deep conviction that you deserve to be met exactly where you are — without judgment, without condition, and without having to explain yourself.
I come to this work not just as a clinician but as someone who has lived it. I am a Filipino immigrant who has navigated two countries, two cultures, and the particular complexity of loving a family across a language gap. I understand firsthand what it means to carry things that don't have easy words in either language — and what it costs to keep carrying them alone.
My clinical and academic work reflects a commitment to expanding how the mental health field understands empathy across cultures. In April 2026, I presented "Empathy in Therapy: The Foundation of Cure" to licensed psychologists and postdoctoral fellows at UCSF. My paper on multicultural empathy frameworks is currently under peer review at the Journal of Multicultural Counseling and Development.
In our sessions, you can expect honesty, warmth, and a space that is genuinely yours. We will work at your pace, toward goals that are meaningful to you — not a generic version of wellness, but the specific, particular life you actually want.
I do not believe in fixing people. People are not broken. I believe in sitting with someone long enough, and honestly enough, that they begin to remember who they were before the world told them who to be.
If that sounds like the kind of work you are ready for, I would be honored to hear from you.
My Practice & Services
Beyond individual and couples therapy, Irene offers a monthly consultation group open to both clinicians and the general public. She also presents on multicultural empathy frameworks to clinical and academic audiences, including her presentation "Empathy in Therapy: The Foundation of Cure," delivered to psychologists and postdoctoral fellows at UCSF in April 2026. Speaking engagements and group inquiries are welcome.
On the Fence About Going to Therapy?
If you are on the fence about therapy, I want you to know something: that hesitation makes complete sense.
Maybe you grew up in a family where struggling in silence was not weakness ? it was just what you did. Where you handled things yourself, leaned on your community, prayed, worked harder, moved forward. Therapy was not part of the vocabulary. And the idea of sitting across from a stranger and talking about your feelings might still feel foreign, unnecessary, or even a little embarrassing.
Maybe you are telling yourself that your problems are not bad enough. That other people have it worse. That you should be grateful for what you have and stop overthinking.
Maybe you are worried that a therapist will not understand where you come from ? that you will spend half your session explaining your culture, your family dynamics, your particular brand of complicated love, only to be met with a framework that was never designed with you in mind.
These are not small concerns. They are real. And they deserve a real answer.
Here is mine: you do not have to earn the right to struggle. You do not have to be in crisis to deserve support. And you will not have to translate yourself here.
I understand the world you come from ? not just clinically, but personally. I know what it means to love a family that expressed that love in ways that took years to recognize. I know the particular exhaustion of carrying two cultures inside you and never feeling fully at home in either.
Therapy is not about deciding that something is wrong with you. It is about finally giving yourself the same care you have been giving everyone else.
You have been strong for a long time. You are allowed to let someone sit with you in it.
How My Own Struggles Made Me a Better Therapist
I grew up in a family where love was expressed through action rather than words ? where showing up mattered more than saying the right thing. My father attended every event, without exception. He told me consistently that he believed in my abilities and my talents ? not effusively, but steadily, in the way that mattered. He made sure I had community around me, and he modeled what it meant to be part of one by living it himself. He was present in every way except the one that Western psychology tends to measure.
For a long time, I didn't have language for what I felt ? or for what my family felt. I knew we loved each other. I just couldn't always find the words that fit, in any of the three languages I spoke.
Learning to find that language ? and to sit with the places where language still falls short ? is what brought me to this work.
As an immigrant who has navigated two countries, two cultures, and the particular complexity of belonging fully to two worlds while sometimes feeling at home in neither, I understand what it means to carry things that don't translate easily. I understand the exhaustion of being asked to explain yourself. I understand the specific loneliness of growing up in a family that loved you deeply in ways you spent years learning to recognize.
That understanding is not something I learned in a textbook. It is something I lived.
And it is why, when a client sits across from me and struggles to find the words for what they feel, I am not waiting for the right clinical term. I am sitting with them in it ? because I know that space, and I know that it is survivable, and I know that on the other side of it is something that finally makes sense.
That is what my struggles gave me. Not answers. Presence.
Expertise & Specialties
Age Groups I Work With
AdultsElders
Groups I Work With
Filipino-Americans, Tagalog-speaking clients, vegan clients, immigrants, Asian-Americans
Therapy Services & Specialties
Concerns & Challenges Addressed
Adjusting to Change / Life TransitionsAnxietyAttachment IssuesBlended Family IssuesBody ImageBreakupCaregiver Issues / StressCodependency / Dependency
Therapeutic Approaches & Evidence-Based Methods
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)Humanistic Psychology (humanism)
Industries & Communities
BIPOCUnion First