Healing the Adult Child of Immigrant Parents: How EMDR and Parts Work Can Help
Written in collaboration with Patricia Parra Moreno
Growing up as the child of immigrant parents often comes with a unique set of challenges. While many children of immigrants deeply value their parents’ sacrifices, they may also struggle with complex emotions tied to cultural expectations, family dynamics, and unprocessed trauma. These challenges can show up in adulthood as anxiety, perfectionism, difficulty setting boundaries, or feelings of guilt and shame.
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy, when combined with parts work, can be a powerful way to process these experiences and move toward healing. In this blog, we’ll explore common themes that adult children of immigrants face in therapy and how EMDR with parts work can help.
Common Therapy Themes for Adult Children of Immigrants
These themes have been written in collaboration with Patricia Parra Moreno, LCSW, who specializes in working with adult children of immigrant parents.
Photo by Lucas George Wendt on Unsplash
1. Balancing Two Worlds
Many adult children of immigrants feel caught between two cultures—the one of their parents and the one in which they grew up. This can create feelings of not fully belonging anywhere, leading to identity struggles, self-doubt, and difficulty finding a sense of home.
2. High Expectations and Perfectionism
Immigrant parents often have high expectations for their children, driven by their desire to protect their children for security and success in a new country. This pressure can lead to perfectionism, fear of failure, and a deep sense of unworthiness when one doesn’t meet these standards.
“Many of my clients share a feeling of responsibility for making their parent’s sacrifices ‘worth it’.” - Patricia
3. Guilt and Obligation
Many adult children of immigrants feel a strong sense of duty toward their families. Whether it’s supporting parents financially, prioritizing family over personal desires, or fulfilling dreams their parents couldn’t. If such actions are driven by a sense of obligation rather than by a sense of gratitude, people can feel deep guilt when they want to pursue their own path or feelings of resentment when choosing otherwise.
4. Emotional Suppression and Unprocessed Trauma
In many immigrant families, survival took priority over emotional expression. Some parents endured war, poverty, or displacement and have never gotten the opportunity to process such traumas, unintentionally passing it down to their children. As a result, adult children of immigrants may struggle to acknowledge their own pain, believing their struggles are “not bad enough” compared to what their parents went through.
5. Difficulty Setting Boundaries
“A large part of the boundary work I do with my clients who are adult children of immigrant parents involves exploring which parts of their culture they want to keep and which parts they would like to challenge, update, or release.” - Patricia
For many, the collectivist culture or the emphasis on community over individualism aligns with their authentic values. This value is central to our boundary exploration process.
“Even though boundaries may not drastically change, my clients no longer act from a place of anxiety or people-pleasing, and therefore, their resentment also reduces over time.” - Patricia
How EMDR and Parts Work Can Help
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) is a therapy designed to help people process distressing memories and reframe negative beliefs about themselves. When combined with parts work, which is based on Internal Family Systems (IFS) or Ego States, EMDR can be even more effective in addressing the inner conflicts that adult children of immigrants often face.
Photo by Annie Williams on Unsplash
Understanding Parts Work
Parts work helps us recognize that we are made up of different “parts” that have developed over time to protect us. For example:
A perfectionist part that pushes you to succeed to gain parental approval
A guilty part that stops you from setting boundaries for fear of disappointing your family
A child part that feels abandoned or misunderstood when navigating cultural differences
Rather than trying to suppress or ignore these parts, parts work allows us to acknowledge them with compassion and understand their deeper needs.
How Using EMDR with Parts Work Leads to Healing
1. Identifying Core Wounds and Negative Beliefs
EMDR helps pinpoint past experiences that shaped beliefs like “I’m not good enough,” “I have to prove my worth,” or “I can’t let my family down.”
Parts work helps recognize which parts of you are holding onto these beliefs and why.
With the help of later phases of EMDR these negative beliefs can eventually be transmuted to more adaptive adult beliefs.
2. Processing Memories with EMDR
EMDR uses bilateral stimulation (eye movements, tapping, or auditory tones) to help the brain reprocess painful memories.
By doing this, distressing experiences—like being shamed for not being “successful enough” or feeling rejected for being “too American” or “too foreign”—become less emotionally charged.
3. Healing and Developing New Relationships with Parts
Instead of fighting or rejecting the parts of you that struggle with guilt, perfectionism, or fear, you learn to listen to them with self-compassion.
You begin to recognize that these parts developed to protect you in childhood, listen to any concerns they have, but they don’t have to control you anymore.
4. Building New, Empowering Beliefs
Once old wounds are processed, EMDR helps install new beliefs like “I am enough,” “I can set boundaries and still love my family,” or “I am allowed to live life for myself.”
Parts work ensures that all aspects of you feel heard, helping to create an internal sense of harmony and self-trust.
Moving Toward Healing
Healing as an adult child of immigrants doesn’t mean rejecting your heritage or resenting your parents. It means honoring their sacrifices while also giving yourself permission to live authentically. EMDR with parts work allows you to break free from limiting beliefs, heal emotional wounds, and find balance between cultural expectations and your own needs.
If you’ve been struggling with these themes, therapy can provide a space to explore them with compassion. You don’t have to carry the weight of unprocessed trauma, guilt, or self-doubt alone. Healing is possible, and you deserve it.
If working with a therapist who specializes in working with adult children of immigrants sounds like the right fit for you, you can schedule a free consultation here.
More Reading:
Healing Attachment Wounds: How EMDR And Parts Work Can Help
Authorship: This blog was written by Morgan Levine, LCSW in collaboration with Patricia Parra Moreno, LCSW.
Morgan Levine (licensed in MD, DC, VA, PA, CO, and FL) specializes in using EMDR and IFS-Informed EMDR to help her clients heal from attachment wounding, perfectionism, overworking, and people pleasing.
Patricia Parra Moreno (licensed in MD, DC, and VA) specializes in working with adult children of immigrants and adult children healing from attachment wounding using EMDR and Ego States.
Disclaimer: The information in this blog is provided for educational and informational purposes only. It is not intended to be a substitute for mental health care nor a recommendation or endorsement for any particular treatment plan, organization, provider, professional service, or product. The information may change without notice. No claims, promises, or guarantees are made about the completeness, accuracy, currency, content or quality of information linked. You assume all responsibility and risk for any use of the information.
IFS EMDR Therapy Group is an outpatient therapy group founded by Morgan Levine. We specialize in helping adults struggling with the effects of living in dysfunctional systems move toward healing and wholeness. We provide therapy to address symptoms such as anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, grief, obsessive and compulsive thoughts and behaviors including but not limited to using work, perfectionism, substances, relationships, food, etc. We offer ongoing support as well as EMDR intensives; both of which are informed by IFS, EMDR, DBT, CBT, Polyvagal Theory, trauma-informed yoga, attachment, and other recovery principles. Our therapists work virtually with clients living throughout Maryland, Washington D.C., Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Colorado. Morgan Levine also provides trauma-informed consultation to therapists worldwide.
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