ABOUT LAI

Warm, Compassionate, Agency-Promoting Mental Health Counselor

Lai (lie) T. Moy is a licensed professional counselor in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, a nationally certified counselor, and a certified clinical trauma professional. She works with adults (18+) from diverse backgrounds, with a particular focus on supporting individuals of diasporic and intersectional identities, including members of the AANHPI community.

Her work is relational, depth-oriented, and trauma-informed, grounded in the belief that healing unfolds through safety, presence, and meaningful connection. She approaches therapy not by asking “What is wrong?” but “What has happened?”—creating spaces where stories can be witnessed, honored, and gently integrated.

Lai’s own story shapes her work. She is a daughter of Chinese immigrants, navigating life between intersecting cultural and social spaces. Central to her understanding of identity is talk story, a Chinese oral tradition that weaves together family history, lived experience, cultural values, and myth. This tradition nurtured her curiosity about others’ stories and her appreciation for the ways relationship, context, and shared presence shape meaning and identity.

Before becoming a therapist, Lai earned a BA in English with a concentration in Asian American literature and spent over two decades as a development editor in higher education publishing. During that time, she stayed engaged in community, volunteerism, and mentorship while quietly exploring her true path. At midlife, she chose to follow it, earning her MA in Clinical Mental Health Counseling and obtaining licensure and certification as a professional counselor.

Outside of therapy, Lai enjoys traveling, reading poetry, visiting gardens, attending cultural events, and filling her home with flowers and houseplants. She and her partner are married and devoted to their two cats. When possible, she wanders outdoors to soak in the sun, kayak, commune with trees, and marvel at birds in flight.

As a child, Lai’s mother once said she had “sprouted wings to fly long before she grew her legs to walk.” To this day, she’s still testing those wings.