Culturally Responsive Therapy For Women
Online Therapy in Delaware, Pennsylvania & Virginia
Compassionate Support For Healing Generational Trauma As You Navigate Family, Culture & Your Own Path Forward
When Therapy Needs To Understand Your Whole Story
Navigating life at the intersection of race, gender, family, and culture is powerful and heavy. At AWA Counseling Services, we provide culturally responsive therapy for Black and Brown women who are tired of being “the strong one,” holding it all together while feeling unseen, misunderstood, or emotionally exhausted.
If you’ve ever felt like you had to explain racism, colorism, microaggressions, or code-switching to your therapist, you know how tiring that can be. You might have grown up with messages like:
“We don’t talk about our business outside this house.”
“Be grateful. Other people have it worse.”
“You have to work twice as hard.”
These messages can shape how you see yourself, your worth, and your right to rest or ask for help. Our work starts with listening to your whole story; not just your symptoms. We make space for identity, faith, gender roles, migration or diaspora experiences, and the ways you’ve learned to survive.
How Can Therapy Help With Cultural Expectations?
Cultural expectations can feel like invisible rules: be strong, don’t complain, put family first, don’t rock the boat. Therapy gives you a space to look at those rules without judgment and decide which ones you want to keep, rewrite, or release. Together, we can:
Explore how expectations impact your anxiety, depression, and burnout
Practice boundaries that still honor your values
Build language to talk to family or partners about your needs
Challenge internalized beliefs like “rest is lazy” or “my needs don’t matter”
Learn tools to cope with racial stress and racial trauma in everyday life
We use evidence-based approaches (CBT, mindfulness, self-compassion, trauma-informed care) while staying grounded in your lived experience as a woman of color.
If Your Story Includes Cultural Complexity, We See You
Maybe you hold multiple identities—Black and Afro-Caribbean, Afro-Latina, biracial, first-gen, immigrant, or navigating multiple cultures at once. Maybe you’re deconstructing beliefs around faith, gender roles, or sexuality that you were taught growing up.
In our work together, there’s room for all of it:
The pride you feel in your culture
The pain of being misunderstood by family, community, or even yourself
The confusion of wanting closeness and distance at the same time
You don’t have to shrink, translate, or sanitize your story here. Your complexity is welcome.
Why Cultural Context Matters In Therapy With Us
Context changes everything. The same “symptom” can look different when you factor in racism, sexism, financial stress, church or community expectations, and being the first in your family to “make it.” When therapy ignores context, it can accidentally blame you for the very systems you’re surviving.
With us, cultural context is not an afterthought—it’s a core part of how we:
Understand your stress and coping
Set realistic goals that fit your life
Choose strategies that honor your values and responsibilities
Help you find balance between family, culture, and your own mental health
How Therapy Can Help You Heal Generational Trauma
Generational trauma can show up as constant vigilance, never feeling “good enough,” fearing failure, or carrying emotional roles that started long before you were born.
In therapy, we work to:
Name the patterns that have been passed down
Understand how they’ve protected you and how they’re now hurting you
Learn new ways to respond to stress, conflict, and guilt
Practice small, meaningful shifts that break cycles and create healthier paths for you (and those who come after you)
Healing generational trauma doesn’t mean rejecting your family or culture. It means choosing to carry forward the strength and wisdom, while gently releasing the patterns that keep you stuck.
This is your space to breathe, unpack, and rebuild. And you don’t have to do it alone.
Therapy Questions We Hear A Lot:
Review our most commonly asked questions about therapy for burnout. If you are still unsure about therapy, you can book a free 15-min consultation call with us today.
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Yes, most insurance plans cover therapy for mental health related issues. While "race and cultural burnout" itself isn't a diagnosis, the anxiety, depression, and trauma conditions that accompany these issues are covered by insurance.
We accept:
· Aetna
· Cigna
· Independence Blue Cross (IBX)
· Blue Cross Blue Shield (BCBS)
· Optum
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Our therapists are culturally responsive and trauma-informed, with a special focus on working with Black and Brown women and women of color. While no therapist can share every identity or experience, we are intentional about:
Naming and validating the impact of racism, sexism, colorism, and microaggressions
Making space for faith, spirituality, immigration, first-gen experiences, and family roles
Staying curious instead of assuming, and letting you be the expert on your life
You won’t be asked to minimize your experience or “translate” everything. We work to understand your specific cultural context, not just apply a one-size-fits-all approach.
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This is very common. Many of our clients grew up with messages like “we don’t tell our business” or “just pray about it.” You can still choose therapy even if your family doesn’t fully understand or agree.
You’re not disrespecting your family by getting support. You’re taking care of yourself so you can show up more grounded and whole.
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Yes. Therapy can be incredibly helpful if you’re navigating an intercultural or interracial relationship or you’ve married into a family with very different norms, expectations, or traditions.
We can work together to:
Name the cultural clashes and unspoken rules you’re bumping into
Explore how race, language, religion, gender roles, or immigration stories shape your marriage
Support you in setting boundaries with in-laws while staying true to your values
Whether you’re feeling pulled between families, cultures, or expectations, therapy offers a grounded space to sort through it.
Ready To Stop Translating Yourself?
Schedule a free 15-min consultation call to discuss your goals and concerns to determine if we’re the right fit.