Financial Psychologist | Certified Financial Therapist™ | Consultant
As the eldest daughter of Vietnamese refugees, I grew up with a deep understanding of how survival can shape a family’s relationship to achievement, security, and what it means to feel safe.
For many people, success is not just about ambition. It is tied to protection, belonging, and responsibility.
That understanding is part of what drew me to this work. Again and again, I noticed the same thread running through clients’ stories: money. Not just income, budgeting, or spending, but the deeper meanings attached to money, including safety, pressure, obligation, success, guilt, and self-worth.
Dr. Huong Diep
pronounced Hong Depp
Why this work matters to me
My work is grounded in rigorous training, but it is also shaped by lived experience.
I understand cultural pressure, migration, reinvention, and the ways we learn to carry responsibility long before we have language for it.
I understand how outward success can coexist with inner tension. I understand how people can look highly capable while still feeling deeply stuck.
What I care about is helping people move out of old survival patterns and into a life that feels more honest, more intentional, and more fully their own.
“If you are free, you need to free somebody else. If you have some power, then your job is to empower somebody else.”
— Toni Morrison
Training and credentials
Licensed and Certified
Licensed Psychologist in California, Nevada, New York, South Dakota, and Washington, DC
Board Certified in Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, American Board of Professional Psychology
Certified Financial Therapist™, Financial Therapy Association
Education and Training
BA Psychology/Spanish, UCLA
MA and PsyD, Clinical Psychology at the University of Denver, with an emphasis in International Disaster Psychology
APA-accredited predoctoral internship and two-year postdoctoral fellowship at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles
