A Jungian, Psychodynamic, Creative, and Spiritual Approach to Inner Work
I grew up moving — country to country, boarding school to boarding school — a third culture kid before I had language for what that meant. I didn't grow up with a "childhood room" or a “hometown.” I grew up learning how to read any room, adapt fast, and perform whatever version of myself a given context required.
That skill made me good at a lot of things. It also meant it took me a long time to ask what I actually wanted underneath all that adapting.
My Clinical Background
I trained as a clinical psychologist — a master's from an Ivy League, a Ph.D. in clinical psychology — and specialized in serious mental illness and early psychosis, working inside large university hospitals with some of the most misunderstood patients in the mental health system.
I loved the depth of that work - the way my patients experiencing hallucinations and delusions held up mirrors to face our deepest human desires, fears, and needs.
I did not love the system around it. Actually, I grew to resent it.
Eventually, I left.
What I Do Now: Jungian-Informed, Psychodynamic Depth Work
I now run a fully online private practice, working with people all over the world. My work today isn't clinical therapy — it's something I built on purpose, outside that system, for people who don't want the clinical frame in the first place.
I believe everyone is an artist — a creator of their own life, whether they've claimed that yet or not.
Psychology, to me, is a tool for self-awareness: a way to access the unconscious, meet your shadow, and stop outsourcing your life to what you were taught a "good citizen" looks like.
Coming to this work — looking honestly inward — choosing to express your truth - is itself a creative act.
It's the beginning of everything else you'll make.
Why Acting Is Part of the Work
I'm also an actor — though I only let myself fully commit to it later in life, while I was in search of a bottom-up approach to healing instead of a top-down one. Acting became part of how I got there, and I bring that identity directly into this work now.
Acting lets you tap into your unconscious somatically — through the body, not just the mind — in a way that talk alone rarely reaches. When it's not about being watched but about being found, it has a way of surfacing truths we've been blind to — buried under who we think we're supposed to be. That's one of the most direct paths I know into a person's real voice, which is why it's central to the women's group I run.
Who This Work Is For
This work is for people who sense there’s more to life than what they’ve been building — whether or not they would call themselves “creative.”
Maybe you’ve spent years doing everything “right,” building a life that makes sense on paper, while something in you keeps asking for a different way to live.
It’s also for people who find conventional psychology too clinical — not spiritual, human, or expansive enough for the questions they’re asking.
At its heart, this work is about hearing your own voice again in a world that keeps handing you someone else’s script.
If this resonates with you, I’d love to work with you.
Explore Dr. Joo’s Shadow Work Podcast!
“Therapy” can be a creative act.
I don't see psychological work only as treating symptoms.
I see it as the process of becoming conscious of the forces already shaping your life.
The relationships you repeat.
The roles you perform.
The desires you dismiss.
The parts of yourself you hide.
The life you secretly imagine.
When we make the unconscious more conscious,
when we look within,
we create possibility,
we create.
And to me, that is where psychology and creativity meet.
Before we can create differently, we have to see what has been creating us.
You may feel at home here if...
You've built a “good” life, but you're not sure it feels like your life.
You're creative—or suspect there's a creative part of you you've neglected.
You are burnt out from your nine-to-five that is draining your soul.
You want to explore your unconscious without turning to psychedelic-assisted therapy.
Your life isn’t going horribly, but you feel restless, trapped, or strangely disconnected from yourself.
You live between cultures, identities, worlds, or versions of yourself and want to somehow integrate.
You're drawn to spirituality, dreams, symbolism, Jung, or questions that don't fit neatly into diagnostic language.
You want therapy that goes deeper than coping skills and symptom management.
You’ve found traditional therapy unhelpful because you can understand everything intellectually — but still struggle to actually feel or change it.
Education
Ph.D., Clinical Psychology
Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy
M.S., Counseling and Mental Health Services
University of Pennsylvania
B.A., Psychology and Religion & Philosophy
Emory University
Clinical Licensure and Training
Licensure: Licensed Clinical Psychologist, California (#36050)
Postdoctoral Fellow
UC Davis Health - Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Psychology Doctoral Extern
Harbor-UCLA Medical Center - Adult Outpatient Program/Trauma Track
Psychology Doctoral Extern
UCLA-Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior - Adolescent Serious Mental Illness Track
Psychology Doctoral Intern
California State Hospitals - Metropolitan
Psychology Research Assistant
Asan Medical Center, Seoul
Interested in working with Dr. Joo?
Fill out this form to schedule a free 15-minute initial consultation.
You can ask any questions and see if her approach matches your needs.
There is no pressure/obligation to work together afterwards.