Neither Here Nor There: Art Therapy for the Perpetual In-Between

You Don't Fully Belong Anywhere

You're too American for your family back home. Too foreign for the people who grew up here. Too assimilated for some, not assimilated enough for others. Too connected to your roots, not connected enough. Too much. Not enough. Always explaining. Always translating. Always slightly out of place.

You exist in the hyphen. The in-between. The perpetual state of neither here nor there.

And the exhausting part? You've learned to perform belonging in every space—code-switching, adjusting, explaining, making yourself digestible—while never quite feeling at home anywhere, including in your own body.

The Unique Pain of Living Between Worlds

If you're an immigrant, child of immigrants, or part of a diaspora community, you know this experience intimately:

The cultural tightrope:

• Maintaining traditions while adapting to a new culture

• Navigating family expectations that don't fit your current reality

• Feeling guilty for wanting things your family doesn't understand

• Being asked to represent your entire culture

• Never being quite "authentic" enough for anyone

The language of displacement:

• Losing words in your mother tongue

• Thinking in one language, speaking in another

• Dreams that mix languages

• Idioms that don't translate

• The things you can only express in one language but not the other

The family complexity:

• Carrying your parents' unspoken trauma

• Being the translator, mediator, cultural bridge

• Feeling responsible for your family's sacrifice

• Wanting to honor your heritage while building your own life

• The pressure to "make it worth it"

The identity confusion:

• Who are you when you're a hyphenated identity?

• What does home even mean?

• Where do you belong when you're always "other"?

What Therapy Often Gets Wrong About Immigrant Experience

Traditional therapy often approaches identity as something to "figure out" intellectually. As if you can think your way into belonging.

But the immigrant experience isn't just psychological—it's embodied, intergenerational, and nervous-system deep.

You don't just think about displacement. You feel it:

• In the hypervigilance your body learned from watching your parents navigate a hostile world

• In the chronic tension from never fully relaxing

• In the disconnect from your body when survival required you to override its signals

• In the anxiety that mirrors your family's unspoken fears

• In the depression that comes from chronic in-between-ness

Talking about these experiences matters. But for deep healing, you need approaches that work with your body, your creativity, and the unspoken stories you carry.

How Art Therapy Holds the In-Between

Art therapy offers something unique for immigrant and diaspora experiences: a way to express what exists beyond language.

When you're living between cultures, some experiences:

• Don't have words in either language

• Feel too complex to explain

• Carry shame or pain you can't verbalize

• Belong to the realm of symbol, image, dream

• Need to be felt and expressed, not analyzed

In art therapy, we work with:

Visual language that transcends verbal language:

• Creating imagery of what "home" means to you

• Expressing the feeling of in-between-ness through color, shape, texture

• Working with symbols from your culture(s) and what they mean to you personally

• Giving form to the parts of your identity that don't have words

Cultural identity exploration:

• What parts of your culture(s) feel like you?

• What parts feel like obligation or performance?

• Who are you beyond your family's story?

• What does belonging to yourself look like?

Intergenerational patterns:

• What did you inherit from your family—not just trauma, but also resilience, creativity, wisdom?

• What stories need to be acknowledged?

• What needs to be released?

• What wants to be honored and carried forward?

The Parts of You That Navigate Different Worlds

Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy is particularly powerful for immigrant experiences because you literally do have different parts that emerge in different contexts:

• The part that shows up at family gatherings—speaking your mother tongue, following traditions, being the "good" son/daughter

• The part that shows up at work—code-switched, professional, maybe more American

• The part that shows up with friends from your culture—where certain references don't need explanation

• The part that shows up with friends from the dominant culture—where you're always slightly translating yourself

• The part that feels exhausted from all this switching

• The part that just wants to be understood without explaining

• The part that feels guilty for wanting to be "just American" (or just anything)

These aren't fake versions of you—they're real parts adapting to different contexts. But when they're in constant conflict, or when some parts are exiled (hidden away), you end up feeling fragmented.

Somatic parts work helps you:

• Understand what each part needs

• Reduce the internal conflict

• Find the "you" that exists underneath all the code-switching

• Build a sense of internal home even when external belonging feels elusive

What This Work Actually Looks Like

When clients come to therapy struggling with immigrant identity and belonging, we might:

Start with the body:

• Where do you feel the displacement in your body?

• What does "not belonging" feel like physically?

• When do you feel most at home in your body? Least?

Explore through art:

• Create a map of your internal landscape—the parts that feel connected to different places, cultures, identities

• Work with colors and images that represent different aspects of your identity

• Make art about what "home" means when home is complex

• Explore the symbols, rituals, or objects that carry meaning from your culture(s)

Work with your parts:

• The part that carries your family's expectations

• The part that wants freedom to be yourself

• The part that feels guilty for wanting different things

• The part that holds your family's unspoken pain

• The part that's tired of explaining and translating

Address the nervous system:

• How hypervigilance shows up in your body

• Where you hold the stress of existing between worlds

• What helps you feel safe and grounded

• Building capacity to be with difficult emotions (grief, anger, longing)

Explore intergenerational themes:

• What did your parents/grandparents experience that shaped your family?

• What survival strategies did you learn?

• What pain have you been carrying that isn't yours?

• What resilience and strength did you also inherit?

You're Not "Too Sensitive" About Culture—You're Highly Attuned

Many immigrant and diaspora folks are also highly sensitive people (HSPs). This makes sense:

• You've had to read environments carefully for safety

• You've learned to notice subtle social cues and power dynamics

• You feel the weight of representation

• You absorb your family's unspoken emotions

• You carry more than your own story

This sensitivity is not a flaw. It's wisdom. It's attunement. It's what helped your family survive.

But it also means you need:

• Spaces where you don't have to explain

• Therapy that understands the complexity of your experience

• Approaches that honor both your psychological and somatic reality

• Permission to feel the full weight of existing between worlds

When Belonging Feels Impossible, Build It Internally First

You may never find a space where you fully, completely, unconditionally belong externally. That's the painful truth of the in-between.

But you can build a sense of home within yourself:

• A place in your body that feels safe

• An internal core that knows who you are beyond others' projections

• Parts of yourself that can rest from code-switching

• Creative expression that doesn't require translation

• A relationship with yourself that feels like coming home

This doesn't erase the pain of external displacement. But it gives you ground to stand on.

Virtual Art Therapy for Immigrants and Diaspora Communities Across New York State

I offer virtual art therapy throughout New York State. For clients navigating immigrant identity and belonging, virtual sessions can actually feel safer—you're in your own space, surrounded by your own objects, not having to code-switch just to get to the therapy office.

You're Not "Confused"—You're Complex

The dominant culture wants simple stories: "Where are you really from?" as if that's a simple question. As if you can be reduced to one place, one identity, one belonging.

But you're not simple. You're layered, multifaceted, complex. You contain multitudes. And that complexity—while exhausting—is also rich, creative, and deeply human.

If this resonates with you, next read: "Your Nervous System Remembers What Your Mind Tries to Forget: Somatic Therapy for Immigration Trauma" to understand how your body carries these stories of displacement.

Ready to explore? If you're in New York State and want support navigating belonging, identity, and cultural complexity, book a free 15-minute consultation. Virtual art therapy sessions available.