About Me — Vitality LLC - Mental Health Therapy with Si Meng, LCPC

Si Meng 孟斯

MS., LCPC, NCC

Licensed Mental Health Counselor in Maryland

美国马里兰州独立执业双语心理咨询师

I graduated Summa Cum Laude in May 2021 from Johns Hopkins University. I have a MS Degree in Clinical Mental Health Counseling.
Emotionally Focused Individual Therapy (EFIT) Level 2 Certificate Training, online, 2024
Emotionally Focused Individual Therapy (EFIT) Level 1 Certificate, online, 2021
Transforming Trauma with EFIT, online, 2023
Emotionally Focused Therapy training (EFT Externship), Arkansas EFT, 2022
Co-facilitated the online session “De-escalating anger in a crisis situation” at Non-violent communication (NVC) pre-international intensive training, online/Nairobi, 2021
Authentic Communication Training Group (NVC and Internal Family Systems training), online, 2021
NVC Conference 2021, online, 2021
Emotionally Focused Individual Therapy (EFIT) Level 1 Certificate, online, 2021
Transforming Trauma with EFIT, online, 2023
Emotionally Focused Therapy training (EFT Externship), Arkansas EFT, 2022
Gottman Method Couples Therapy Level 1, online, 2022
Brainspotting Phase 1 & 2 training, online, 2022
Peter Levine on Somatic Trauma Treatment, online, 2022
Solution-focused therapy training for the treatment of trauma, online, 2021
EMDR & Parts Work for Treating Complex Trauma: Somatic Techniques to Decrease Defensiveness and Facilitate Trauma Processing, 2023
Grief Treatment Certification Training: Evidence-Based Approaches to Care Across the Lifespan, online, 2021
Certified Autism Spectrum Disorder Clinical Specialist Intensive Training (ASDCS) , online, 2022
Training: Responding to Disasters-Mental Health Crisis Management (University of Washington), online, 2021
Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) training, online, 2021
Mindfulness-Based Acculturation Group facilitation training (Johns Hopkins University), 2021
Buddhism psychology (coursera.com), 2020
57th Annual Symposium on Family Theory and Family Psychotherapy (Bowen Center), online, 2020
Johns Hopkins University LGBTQ “Safe Zone” training, U.S., 2019
National Conference of Marriage and Family Counseling, Beijing, CN, 2019
International Conference of Chinese Applied Psychology, Shanghai, CN, 2018
Relationships and communication; Trauma; Depression, anxiety, and other mood disorders; Social anxiety; Life transitions and stressors; Multicultural counseling; Bilingual counseling (Mandarin and English)
I believe in every human being’s potential to grow, yet I also believe that people grow when they feel safe, accepted, and cared about. A supportive environment makes one feel strong, confident, creative, flexible, resilient, and less worrying about failures or mistakes — to grow is to make more mistakes because we are doing something new. Therefore, I strive to create a safe and warm space for clients and trust that everyone has a unique journey of growth.
I respect my clients’ values, beliefs and cultures, and seek to find psychological resources in them.
Every day, I learn from my clients what work and what don’t work in therapy. That helped to be empathetic, flexible and creative with my approach.
Most people come to therapy for emotional struggles. I find that emotions are also a guide that leads us to freedom. Therefore, my work focuses on processing emotional experiences and creating new and meaningful emotions through an experiential approach.

“Immersed in the social justice field for over a decade before becoming a therapist, my compassion for human suffering brought me to this life-long commitment -- mental health counseling. I integrate various therapy modalities with focuses on emotions, interpersonal dynamics, strengthening of the nervous system, the body-mind connection, and social justice. I value flexibility, continuous learning, and seeking feedback from clients. I also strive to understand and support clients in their specific cultural context.”

More about me:

Before counseling, I worked as an editor and journalist in China for 4 years, a freelance journalist for 2 years, and then I worked in rural community development in China for 4 years. During that 6 years of journalism, I travelled to many countries outside China for work and for personal interest. That experience gave me many opportunities to observe and appreciate cultural diversity, inspiring me to deconstruct culture and reflect on human civilization. As I worked in rural areas in China afterwards, I traveled across almost all the provinces in China, experiencing local cultures and customs, seeing the dynamic between the traditional and modern China, and the struggles and resilience of people who were living in poverty. All my previous real life experiences allowed me to acknowledge the complexity of human experiences in their cultural contexts, have compassion for human’s sufferings, and believe in human’s potential to grow and find love and freedom.

I currently live in Ellicott City, Maryland with my husband and our cat Shuo Shuo. We are a multicultural family. I love rock climbing, reading and writing poems in my leisure time. I also enjoy Chinese tea ceremony which I consider as a wonderful mindfulness practice. I’m an editor and writer for the magazine Chinese Mental Health Professionals. I translated the book A Walk from the Wild Edge: A Journey of Self-discovery and Human Connection into Chinese. I’m the creator and co-host of the mental health podcast 《见怪不怪WW》（“Weird and Wonderful”） on 小宇宙.

Find me on Psychology Today here.

My previous blog posts:

Culture and social justice

Does Receiving a Diagnosis From a Therapist Cause Mental Health Stigma? “我怕被诊断出抑郁症！”心理诊断给您造成更大的心理压力吗？

How to Cope with Foreign Language Anxiety as a Non-Native English Speaker 如何应对说外语带来的焦虑？

Three Common Thoughts and Beliefs That Contribute to Holiday Stress

The Power of Softness: A Lesson from Tai Chi on Mood Regulation

Helpful Strategies to Assist with Tackling Culture-Related Struggles

Understanding Emotional Struggles from a Cultural Lens

Relationships:

Re-Examine Independence and Embrace Healthy Dependency

Repair, Not Re-Traumatize: Beginning to Heal Relationship Wounds