Dr. Stella Chow, PhD

Before coming to Crossroads, I was choosing between a 5-star therapist in the area who had tons and tons of great reviews and Dr. Stella Chow. Unfortunately, I went with Dr. Chow, thinking that she’d be able to understand my cultural background better, as we are both Asian-American. For people looking into getting therapy at the Torrance location--Dr. Chow no longer works there, to my knowledge, but she told me that she might work at the DTLA location one day--so be forewarned. At first, I thought she was okay. There were many times I’d leave sessions feeling significantly worse, but I thought that was just part of the process. No pain, no gain, right? Hahahaha. I only wish that were true. As time progressed, she got visibly annoyed and frustrated with me at times. It was my first time in therapy, and so I was unprepared to face the whole reality of “you need to work hard to change your own life.” Instead of being patient (like you know, maybe a good therapist might… be?), her facial expressions and body language would just read, or come off as, “Why can’t you just change yourself? Why can’t you just pull yourself up by your bootstraps and forget what your abusive parents and boyfriend did to you?” I understand that victims of trauma need to change themselves eventually. Trauma sucks, but people do indeed really need to get through it and be better for themselves. However, a therapist is supposed to guide them through that transition and be patient/supportive. She was quite the opposite. She even once told me, “Working with you is like pulling teeth!” Okay, great. I get that not everyone will click with everyone, not even as a therapist/client. Refer me out, then, if you’re not willing to be patient and accept me for who I am. You know, instead of stringing me along for 2 more months and wasting my money on co-pays. This all culminated in a penultimate session in which she told me she was leaving the practice ON THE SAME DAY in which I talked about a severely traumatic family event, to put my big girl panties on and just suck it up and change for myself. I just really don’t think it’s a good idea for a therapist to tell your client you’re leaving on the same day your client has a really overwhelming session that ends in tears, although I don’t have the supposedly “professional” background she has in psychology. I cried a lot during that session and went out into the hallway afterwards to see if I looked stoned or not. She came out of her office shortly after I left and told me to leave because of privacy concerns. Wow. The cherry on top to a terrible session. I did tell her all of these things that I typed above at our very last session. To her credit, she attempted to apologize, but because it was the last session, she could say whatever she wanted and never have to work through anything/change for the better. I really wanted to talk to Dr. Soni Kim, the owner of Crossroads, about this, but decided it wasn’t worth it. However, I wish I did, which is why I’m writing this review. The funny thing is that Dr. Chow told me she had similar cultural concerns and family relations, yet she didn’t seem to understand or care where I was coming from. She was just perpetually annoyed at me not being able to change within the eight sessions I saw her, saying that “Asian clients tend to not stay in therapy very long, so I need to push you as hard as I can.” Wow. Really? You’re going to cause me all this grief because of stereotypes about AAPI and therapy? Wonderful. All in all, I’d say that I emerged from my work with Stella even more traumatized than I was before. She might be a great fit if you’re wanting to get out of therapy in 1-3 sessions and are already high-functioning and can pull yourself up by your bootstraps even before you walk into the therapy room, but not if you’re new to therapy or are in a crisis/have faced severe trauma.