“A Western therapist will never understand our culture. They’ll just tell me to cut off my family.”

If you grew up in a country in Africa, the Middle East, South Asia or Latin America , or in a family from these regions, whether you are now residing in the West, or still living back home, you might have had this thought before ever booking a therapy session:

“A Western therapist will never understand our culture. They’ll just tell me to cut off my family.”

People don’t invent this fear. It comes from friends’ bad experiences, from platforms that say they are “for everyone” but mostly show Western faces and stories, and from the kind of mental health content we see every day online: short “toxic family” carousels, “cut off anyone who drains you” posts, and threads about going no‑contact that never mention family and community ties.

Most of today’s psychology research is also based on WEIRD samples, people from Western, educated, industrialised, rich and democratic societies, and then treated as universal. If your life doesn’t look like that, the advice can feel like it’s missing half the story.

Thera exists, in part, because this fear is real, but it doesn’t have to be the end of the story.

When “set a boundary” sounds like “betray your people”

One of the stories that pushed us to build Thera came from a close friend who asked us to share it. We’ll call her Layla, and she is happy for people to know this is not a theoretical case; it’s a reality many live in different versions of.

Layla is in her early thirties, living in Berlin, Germany. Her parents moved from Dhaka, Bangladesh, to Germany before she was born. She speaks German at work, Bangla at home, and English with her cousins scattered across three continents.

On paper, she’s doing well. She works in tech, pays her bills, travels, has friends from different backgrounds. At home, she’s also:

• Translating letters and emails for her parents.

• Taking phone calls from relatives back in Bangladesh who “just need a quick favour.”

• Helping manage money move between countries and generations.

• Showing up at family events because she knows how much it matters to be seen.

By the time she finally books therapy, she’s exhausted. She tells her therapist she feels guilty all the time, guilty when she says yes, guilty when she says no, guilty for even being in therapy talking about this.

Her therapist is kind and well‑trained. But very quickly, the suggestions sound like:

• “You need firmer boundaries.”

• “You’re allowed to put yourself first.”

• “If they don’t respect your limits, you can step back or cut contact.”

Technically, none of this is wrong. But in Layla’s world:

• Saying “no” to an aunt doesn’t just mean one awkward conversation; it might mean being spoken about for months.

• Moving out of the family home isn’t just a personal milestone; it risks being read as turning her back on her parents.

• “Taking space” could mean missing weddings, funerals or Eid gatherings.

She told us she left those early sessions feeling like therapy was asking her to become someone her family wouldn’t recognise. She’s not alone.

The same fear in different languages

This worry, “they’ll tell me to cut off my family”, shows up in many communities.

• A South Asian person might say: “I don’t want some stranger telling me my parents are toxic just because we live together and share money.”

• A North African person might worry: “If I mention how much my mother is involved in my life, they’ll think I’m not independent enough.”

• A Khaleeji person living with their extended family might think: “How am I supposed to be honest in therapy when I have to hide the call, speak quietly in English, and pretend I’m talking to a friend so no one asks questions?”

• An Arab person in the diaspora might fear: “If I talk about how stressed I am by expectations around marriage or religion, they’ll assume my whole culture is oppressive.”

• A Latin American person might hear friends joke: “Go to therapy and they’ll tell you to stop talking to your mamá.”

• A West African person might think: “How do I explain that saying no to an elder isn’t just ‘assertiveness practice’, it has real social cost?”

In all of these cases, the person isn’t against boundaries or change. They’re afraid that therapy will only offer one script: individual freedom first, family second.

What culturally aware therapy does differently

A therapist who understands contexts like North African, Khaleeji, South Asian, Arab or Latin American families will not treat “cutting off family” as the default solution. They know that in many of these worlds, family is a safety net, a source of identity, and sometimes a matter of survival, not just “a relationship you can walk away from.”

Instead, the conversation sounds more like:

• “What does being a good daughter/son/sibling mean to you? What parts of that feel chosen, and what parts feel challenging?”

• “If we assume you want to stay connected to your family, what would ‘less exhausted and resentful’ look like inside that commitment?”

• “Where is there already flexibility in your family, moments when people have adapted or surprised you?”

• “What’s one small change you could make that honours your values and also protects your energy a bit more?”

Boundaries are still there. But they’re shaped around your context, not around an abstract ideal of independence.

Someone like Layla might work on:

• Changing how she says yes and no, rather than flipping from full caretaking to full cutoff.

• Sharing tasks with siblings or cousins instead of carrying every burden alone.

• Setting limits on time, money or emotional labour in ways that still feel respectful.

• Finding outside spaces (friends, community, therapy) where she can say the honest, unfiltered version of how she feels, even if she chooses a different set of words at home.

The goal isn’t to “liberate” her from her family as fast as possible. It’s to help her move from obligation and resentment towards chosen, sustainable connection, or, when necessary, to support her if real distance is the safest option.

Where Thera fits in

At Thera, we hear this worry a lot: “Will a therapist understand my culture, or will they just tell me to walk away from everything?”

We focus on people with roots in regions like MENA, the Gulf, South and East Asia, West and East Africa and Latin America, whether they still live there or have moved abroad. That means we start from a different assumption:

• That many of our people want to stay connected to their families and communities.

• That loyalty, gratitude and duty can coexist with exhaustion, anger and the need for space.

• That your choices live inside real constraints, immigration, money, religion, reputation etc.

Our therapists and cultural consultants come from these regions and their diasporas. Many of them have lived the same tensions you’re bringing into the room.

That doesn’t mean they’ll always agree with you, or with your family. It means they’ll take your context seriously before offering tools or advice.

If this is one of your fears

If you’ve delayed therapy because you’re afraid someone will tell you that the only healthy option is to cut off your family, you’re not overreacting. You’re responding to a pattern many people from our backgrounds have seen.

What we want you to know is that there are therapists, on and off Thera, who can sit with the full complexity of your situation: love and frustration, duty and self‑protection, faith and doubt.

If that’s the kind of support you’re looking for, you can learn more about Thera and our therapists at thera‑online.com.