Oliver Ip (Therapy Brooklyn)

Oliver Ip offers individual therapy for adults using a trauma-informed person-centered approach and also utilizes elements of narrative, psychodynamic, and solution-focused therapy. All of these serve the core work he and his clients do together in therapy: honoring clients’ unique stories, strengths, needs, and goals; building up their capacity to heal and grow; empowering them to challenge an oppressive world; and co-creating a life they can love.

Born in the UK to a Malaysian mother and Hong Kong-Chinese father, Oliver has lived across three continents and multiple cultures; he identifies as a second-generation immigrant, an adult third-culture kid (TCK), and a cultural in-betweener. He is deeply passionate about engaging the ways our mental health is affected by issues of belonging, transience, family, language, heritage, gender expectations, acculturation/assimilation, intergenerational trauma, colonization, and the experience of holding multiple identities as we try to find or build a home in this world.

In Oliver’s clinical work so far he has worked primarily with women of color in the NYC shelter system experiencing persistent mental health issues, substance use issues, and extensive trauma histories. Before this, he worked as a pastor in Hong Kong, which guides his interest in both positive and adverse experiences with spirituality/religion as well as religious deconstruction/decolonization, queer theologies, and religious community-related trauma where they are important to his clients.

Oliver has an M.A. and Ed.M in Mental Health Counseling from Teachers College at Columbia University with an Advanced Certificate specialization in Sexuality, Women, and Gender in Psychology and Education in which he focused on the experiences and mental health outcomes of queer religious and spiritual folk. He also holds a Master’s of Theology (MTheol.) from the University of St Andrews, Scotland.