Pim Vongkhamchanh LCSW

Hi, I’m Pim (she/her) and I’m really glad you found your way here!

I’m a first-generation Lao American, a daughter of immigrant refugees who is passionate about working with women of color, specifically Asian women, and especially Southeast Asian women who have struggled to validate and understand their feelings and inner world.

More broadly, I love working with BIPOC clients, immigrants and first-generation folks, and people navigating systems that were never designed to support them. I enjoy working with “emerging adults” trying to figure out who they are outside of their family’s story, their culture’s expectations, or the pressure to have it all together by now. People pleasers and boundary beginners, I see you. Do you feel like you’re exhausted from over-giving, from saying yes when you mean no, or making yourself small so others can be comfortable? Well, come on through. We can work through that too. Are you maybe dealing with relationship conflict, whether with romance, family, friends, or the complicated in-betweens? We’ll learn how to want things, say things, and stay in relationships without compromising ourselves. I also love working with people who are in the middle of something hard or when life is life-ing and you’re at a standstill.

I’m passionate about working with other adult children of immigrants because I understand how difficult it is to learn how to name our own inner worlds, especially when we come from families that see mental health and honest conversations about feelings and struggles as taboo. Trying to have honest conversations with a family who literally didn’t have the words for what I was trying to say was painful and difficult. Not just because of the language barrier, but because feelings weren’t discussed in my home. I like to say I’m receptively bilingual in Lao. I grew up understanding it but lost the opportunity to speak it as English took over at school. I was caught between two languages, two cultures, two versions of myself. Nobody taught me how to name what was happening inside. I know many others resonate with this experience and need a therapist who understands from their own lived experience. Because of my own personal experiences, I will never rush you to find the words before you’re ready.

I also have a passion to work with caregivers for aging parents along with those who were given heavy responsibilities as children in immigrant families. This is some of the most invisible, underacknowledged work a person can carry. The role shift of becoming the one who manages the appointments, the medications, the groceries, the quiet grief of watching a parent age. I know how much it asks of you, how little it gets acknowledged, and how much support you deserve in it.

You don’t have to code-switch in here. You can tell me how you actually feel, in whatever words you actually use. I know what it’s like to need time to find the words; to feel something deeply but not quite know how to say it out loud. That’s welcome here too and we can sit in that together. My style is soft, calm, curious, present, and genuinely non-judgmental. Once you feel safe, I will challenge you to grow beyond your comfort zone.

I know what it’s like to need time to find the words; to feel something deeply but not quite know how to say it out loud. That’s welcome here too and we can sit in that together.

Relational therapy is at the core of how I work, which means our therapeutic relationship itself is part of the healing. The trust, safety, and honesty we build together is the work. Research shows that the quality of the relationship between therapist and client is one of the strongest predictors of meaningful change and I take that seriously. What we build in this space becomes a model for what’s possible outside of it.

I also draw from Internal Family Systems (IFS) which is a way of understanding that we are all made up of different parts. IFS helps us get curious about those parts instead of fighting them. We’ll do the kind of inner child healing that gets underneath the patterns of the people-pleasing or self-abandonment. We will also utilize mindfulness! Not as a buzzword, but as a genuine practice of learning to be present with what is, without immediately judging it or trying to fix it, which is really hard! Breathwork, noticing, feeling without attaching are practices I genuinely believe in, partly because of how I grew up. I was raised in a Buddhist (Theravada) household, so Buddhist philosophy has shaped how I think about life and healing in ways I carry with me. The understanding that nothing is permanent–not your thoughts, not your feelings, not your pain, not your suffering–can help us learn to find acceptance along the many ups and downs of life. To me, that’s not just a clinical framework, it’s something I try to live by.

When we’re able to observe the way you learned to make yourself small or the way you navigate carrying your family’s survival story alongside your own, we’re also able to notice that it has roots. It has context. It has history. All of that belongs in the room with us. I practice from an anti-oppressive, equity-centered framework because ignoring those factors would mean not really seeing you. I will be there alongside you, learning in collaboration with you. My goal is to co-create a space where your whole self shows up. Not just tolerated, but truly welcomed, affirmed, and celebrated.

Outside of sessions, I find joy in going back to the things that I took a slight break on, such as reading, knitting, crocheting, and hot yoga. I love trying new hobbies like sewing! On weekends, you’ll find me at the park with my two dogs: Sully, a distinguished senior husky who is quite aloof and carefree, and Boo, a one-year-old German Shepherd-Husky mix who is obsessed with Sully. What’s unusual about having two dogs is that I am actually a cat person. I love to travel and I am fully unashamed about being a tourist. Where will you find me? Probably doing novel things like horseback riding in the Tetons or snorkeling to find sea turtles, even though I don’t know how to swim.

If something here felt like it was written for you….it probably was. I’d love to connect!

Pim Vongkhamchanh received her Master of Arts in Social Service Administration (MSW), University of Chicago, 2018 Bachelor of Science, Human Development and Family Studies, Michigan State University, 2015

To schedule an appointment: info@mindfullifechicago.com