Family reunions, like the Chinese New Year reunion dinners, are often framed as meaningful traditions. But what if you attend even when you don’t want to? For some people, saying “yes” in these situations goes beyond cultural or familial respect and may reflect deeper patterns of people-pleasing — a behaviour in which one prioritises other people’s needs, comfort, or approval over their own.  What Is People-Pleasing? People-pleasing refers to a pattern of behaviour where a p

For many people, family gatherings can feel warm and nostalgic. But for others, especially those with histories of trauma, these events can evoke intense emotional, physical, or nervous system responses that feel disproportionate to what is happening in the moment. Understanding why this happens requires looking beyond surface interactions to how trauma lives in the body and nervous system, and how family dynamics can unconsciously reactivate past survival responses. Trauma

Respecting our parents and feeling anger toward them might seem like conflicting experiences, especially in cultures where filial piety is a core value. But these two emotional realities don’t have to cancel each other out. In fact, understanding the nature of filial piety and the dynamics of emotional experience can help us hold both respect and anger simultaneously, and therapy can be a powerful space to make peace with that complexity. What Is Filial Piety—and What It Isn