Principal Investigator

Aya Inamori Williams, PhD

ウィリアムズ彩

Assistant Professor

Department of Counseling Psychology 

Santa Clara University 

Licensed Clinical Psychologist (35656)

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My favorite Japanese words are 以心伝心.
It means similar souls communicate souls.

Languages I work with

English

Japanese 日本語

Spanish Español

Learning American Sign Language (ASL)

  • Dr. Aya Inamori Williams (ウィリアムズ彩) is an assistant professor in the Department of Counseling Psychology at Santa Clara University. She earned her BA in Linguistics and Psychology at Stanford University and PhD in Clinical Psychology at the University of California, Berkeley.

    Raised as a Japanese daughter in an expat family, she has always been passionate about the use of multiple languages (i.e., code-switching) across cultural contexts. As a mental health clinician, she is excited about how to use multiple languages as a way to understand and express our feelings and selves fully, and to heal.

  • Dr. Williams is passionate about the intersection of language and emotion - in particular, the study of emotional conversations. She examines how multilingual speakers switch between languages to express, manage, and communicate feelings. She views language as a finite set of symbols that humans use to organize internal and external worlds in infinitely creative ways. Psychotherapy is just one example. She hopes to support broadly the psychological health of children and families who belong to multilingual, multicultural communities. 

  • Williams, A., Rochanavibhata, S., & Marian, V. (In Press). Language-dependent symptom expression of depression in bilingual mental health. Clinical Psychological Science.

    Williams, A., Liu, C., Zhou, Q., Wu, J., Meng, L., Deng, X. F., & Chen, S. H. (2024) Parental expressions of love in Chinese American immigrant families: Implications for children’s attachment security. Developmental Science, e13549.

    Williams, A., Haack, L., Hawkey, E., Chung, S., Ly, J. & Pfiffner, L. (2023) Academic competence, organizational skills, and treatment response among bilingual and monolingual children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. Translational Issues in Psychological Science, 9(4):433-443.  

    Williams, A., Srinivasan, M., Liu, C., Lee, P., & Zhou, Q. (2020). Why do bilinguals code-switch when emotional? Insights from immigrant parent-child interactions. Emotion, 20(5): 830-841.

    Williams, A., Uchikoshi, Y., Bunge, S., & Zhou, Q. (2019). Relations of English and heritage language proficiency to response inhibition and attention shifting in dual language learners in Head Start. Early Education and Development, 30(3): 357-374.

  • At Santa Clara University, I currently offer these courses:

    CPSY 315 - Family Therapy

    This course reviews major theories and evidence-based techniques of family therapy. We view family as the unit of treatment and symptoms as part of the systemic matrix of relationships. Family assessment, diagnoses, and interventions will be grounded in this perspective. In addition to building clinical skills, the course aims to increase awareness of your own family-of-origin. Changing definitions of family roles, forms, and sociocultural norms will be discussed throughout the course.

    CPSY 317 - Therapeutic Interventions with Children

    This course covers a broad range of theory and practice related to children and adolescent mental health care. The course will focus on clinical interventions for children, adolescents, and their parents/grandparents/caregivers. Clinical conceptualization, assessment, diagnosis, treatment planning and needs or challenges related to treatment will be covered. Additionally, we will cover providing mental health services that are human – culturally and contextually responsive, inclusive, strength-based and competent.

    CPSY 327 - Working with Parents in Child & Adolescent Therapy

    Working with Parents in Child & Adolescent Therapy course will provide an overview of parent and family dynamics, parent-child relationships, diversity of family forms and structures, best practices in parenting, and psychosocial theories that address working with parents and children in clinical settings. We will cover the complexities of being a caregiver and the evolving nature of this role throughout the child’s lifespan (e.g., infancy, toddlerhood, early childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood). Students will develop an evidence-based framework for parent-child relationships and gain experiential knowledge related to working with parents and caregivers in various therapeutic settings.