This interview feature was written by guest contributor Jackie Lee Morrison

Having grown up in Malaysia with her maternal grandparents before eventually moving to New Zealand in 2003 and then Sydney in 2013, Dr. Bee Lim knows firsthand what it’s like to have to deal with cultural dissociation in the Western world. While her cultural background taught her the qualities of a good Asian girl, living abroad and training as a clinical psychologist encouraged her to reject these and be independent and assertive.

Similarly, the Westernised training she went through put emphasis on cutting relationships in the name of healing, but in an Asian context where filial piety and family duty are key cultural cornerstones, this approach didn’t sit right with Lim.

Lim asked herself: what would a more interrelated autonomous approach to therapy look like? How could she integrate her cultural upbringing with her psychological practice, bringing balance to both? The result was the development of a therapeutic practice that prioritised meeting people where they are — both culturally and in terms of accessibility; and that’s exactly what her debut book Welcome Home aims to do, too.

In Welcome Home, protagonist Isabel Meilin goes on a magical realist journey as she returns to her childhood home and journeys through its rooms, meeting fantastical animals along the way, all of whom hold and represent aspects of her. By the time Isabel Meilin has made her way to The Garden of Homecoming at the end of the book, she and her motley crew of animal friends have taken that important first step towards healing: acceptance of themselves as they are, and a willingness to embrace all their parts.

The animals Isabel Meilin comes across in the book have specific deeper cultural meanings for those with Asian heritage — readers meet overly cognitive Crane, hovering and afraid to land and connect with its emotions; strong Ox, weighed down beneath stones carved with words like duty and humility; fierce and angry Wolf, skin scarred from self-flagellation; and timid Rabbit, begging not to be seen. Though you could read them at face value, from a therapeutic perspective, each animal encapsulates the essential EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing) practice of Parts Work, a holistic approach that aims to ensure all parts of the self are aligned and safe while processing trauma, and Lim’s specialty.

Healing, Lim says, should be accessible, but traditional mainstream psychology books are shutting a lot of people out. Her answer to these dense textbooks lay in visual storytelling, believing it would be more compelling as an accessible, good-looking book. However, as she began to think about the book further — or overthink, she says jokingly — it evolved into a more complex idea, one which emulated the therapeutic journey with a cultural lens at its core, inviting readers to walk the journey of healing without going through traditional therapy, and offering a non-threatening way to begin the conversation.

While Welcome Home is not a memoir, it was healing for Lim, and written, she says, for people like her, those who are self-aware but feel alone (I wrote the book I wanted to read, she laughs). Lim’s hope is readers will be able to see themselves in Welcome Home’s pages, in itself a shame reducing act, and create their own stories, then return again and again, using the book as a touchpoint, as well as utilise the reflective questions at the back of the book to help chart their healing journey. In addition, Lim has co-founded BeTuned — a game-based tool for quick nervous-system and emotional-regulation resets that supports trauma recovery and peak performance, with the aim of making mental health accessible to all.

With a book called Welcome Home, I wonder what home is to Bee Lim, a self-confessed nomad. She thinks for a long moment before answering, Integration without abandonment; feeling integrated and at peace. In traditional therapy, she explains, cultural context is often missed, but all the different parts of the self not only work together, they belong in balance, and that includes being connected to the land, to your ancestors and lineage — a concept we’re all too familiar with in Australia and Aotearoa.

While Welcome Home may take the reader through a physical house, it’s a much-needed — and gorgeous — reflection of the house of the body and mind; a reminder that Crane, Ox, Wolf, and Rabbit are not parts of us to be hidden away and ashamed of, but to be accepted and embraced. As Lim says in the dedication, Welcome Home. You’ve always belonged.

Welcome Homeby Dr. Bee Lim, with illustrations by Joel Timpson (Hardie Grant, 2026; AU$39.99).

If you are in Melbourne, you can attend the Melbourne book launch of Welcome Home. Details are all here or go to: https://www.chinesemuseum.com.au/event/book-launch-in-conversation-with-bee-lim

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Jackie Lee Morrison is a British-HK writer and editor based in Te Whanganui-a-Tara, Aotearoa (New Zealand). She is the founder of Marginalia Lit Fest Live, an online international literary festival, and co-host of the PoC-centred Trans-Tasman podcast Served With Rice. When not writing or editing, you’ll find Jackie petting all the pets and eating all the noods. She is represented by Naomi Eisenbeiss at InkWell Management. www.jackieleemorrison.com