Janine Cheng

"Everyone assumes I have it handled. Most days I do. I just cannot remember the last time someone asked whether I was all right."

If you recognize yourself in that, you are probably the person your family, your partner, and your colleagues lean on. You may have been managing other people's feelings since childhood or you may have learned that being needed was the safest way to be loved. The habits that follow from this are familiar: saying yes before checking in with yourself, apologizing for taking up space, keeping tabs on everyone else's needs and feeling uneasy in periods of rest.

These habits are adaptive in origin and for many years they served a purpose. Over time, though, the returns diminish while the cost increases. That cost tends to appear first in relationships: a growing resentment toward a partner who contributes less, friendships in which you are consistently the one giving and a regression to an earlier version of yourself that occurs almost immediately upon returning to your parents' home.

I offer a structured, warm, and culturally-attuned space to examine those patterns and to practice something different, both on your own and with the people you love.

Who I Work With

My practice serves women at every stage of adult life, individually and with their partners and families, with particular emphasis on:

• Over-Functioning and Caretaking: Women who carry the emotional and logistical weight of a household or family and cannot set it down without guilt.
• Perfectionism and People-Pleasing: Those who hold themselves to standards they would never impose on anyone else and who avoid conflict at their own expense.
• Eldest Daughters and Cultural Expectation: Women negotiating obligation, filial duty, and the roles assigned to them early, including a particular depth with the Asian American experience.
• Couples in Recurring Conflict: Partners who know find themselves stuck in the same conflict cycle.
• Betrayal and Trust Repair: Couples working through infidelity or other breaches of trust and deciding what rebuilding would require.
• Premarital and Early-Commitment Couples: Partners preparing for marriage who want to address family expectations, money, and cultural differences before they harden into patterns.
• Adult Daughters and Their Families: Women renegotiating adult relationships with parents and siblings, whether that means closeness, distance, or clearer terms.

How We Work Together

My sessions are goal-oriented and active. I will ask direct questions, name what I see, and work alongside you rather than simply reflecting your words back to you. For couples I draw on Emotionally Focused Therapy and the Gottman Method (Gottman Level 2 trained). For individual work I integrate Internal Family Systems, CBT, DBT, somatic practices, and mindfulness, depending on what the work calls for.

I hold a clear position on couples work: I am a champion of marriage and committed relationships. My role is to help you both fight for your relationship well, until one or both of you calls me off.

In practice, our work tends to involve:

• Pattern Mapping: Naming the cycle you keep repeating with your partner or family, and the emotions beneath each move.
• Boundary and Repair Skills: Practicing direct communication, limit-setting, and repair in session so it transfers to the conversations that matter.
• Working With the Earlier Self: Attending to the parts of you that formed in your family of origin and still take over under stress.

Connect With Me

I see clients at my Manhattan office and online across New York and California, with evening and weekend appointments available. I offer individual, couples, and family therapy, along with couples intensives and premarital therapy. You are welcome to reach out for a free consultation call.