Dr. Jacob Ham

Quick Facts

• Role: Clinical psychologist; director of the Center for Child Trauma and Resilience at Mount Sinai; final and most effective therapist for Stephanie
• First Appearance: Chapter 37
• Key Relationship: Therapist, mentor, and corrective parental figure to Stephanie Foo
• Approach: Modern, relational therapy focused on curiosity, repair, and experiential healing tied to Complex Trauma and Its Lifelong Impact

Who He Is

Boldly relational and disarmingly direct, Dr. Jacob Ham is the therapist who finally meets Stephanie at the level of her core wounds and stays there with her. He rejects detached expertise in favor of a collaborative, sometimes confrontational partnership that teaches her to feel, make repairs, and trust her own experience. Part guide, part sparring partner, he becomes a steady attachment figure who models what safety, accountability, and care feel like in real time.

He also enters the story with a vivid, almost cinematic presence:

He was smiley and slim, with glasses and good Korean skin. Was he thirty-five or fifty? No way to know. He moved gracefully around his office, as if everything were made of glass. (Chapter 37)

Personality & Traits

Dr. Ham’s methods look unconventional, but they’re grounded in precision and empathy. He pairs rigorous micro-analysis with warmth and humility, showing Stephanie that healing is both disciplined work and deeply human connection.

• Insightful and Perceptive: In their very first session, he spots her “hypervigilance” and habit of “jump[ing] in pre-emptively,” naming the defenses that keep her safe—and stuck—in seconds.
• Direct and Challenging: He refuses to coddle. He tells her self-regulation is “not enough” (Chapter 37), and even jokingly calls her “stupid” to interrupt self-punishing spirals—a shock tactic that breaks shame’s grip and creates playfulness where judgment once lived.
• Collaborative and Humble: He flattens hierarchy by recording sessions and co-annotating transcripts in a shared Google Doc. He names power dynamics explicitly—“keep surrendering your power” (Chapter 38)—and admits his own missteps, modeling accountability.
• Deeply Empathetic: Even as he challenges her, he tears up when she speaks her longing to be loved, validating anger and grief as rightful, human emotions.
• Relentlessly Curious: He embodies the stance he teaches: observe, wonder, ask. Curiosity replaces judgment in the room, giving Stephanie a safer way to meet her feelings—and herself.

Character Journey

As a real person, Dr. Ham doesn’t “change” so much as our understanding of him sharpens. He begins as “weird,” “perplexing,” and almost too granular in his micro-analyses; Stephanie often feels lost in his minute attention to ruptures and repairs. But as she engages the shared transcripts, her perspective shifts: the oddness reveals itself as precision. The collaboration becomes its own therapy, offering distance from shame and a map back to the body. Over time, he transforms from puzzling technician to trusted attachment figure—exactly the presence she needs to complete The Journey of Healing and Recovery. His consistency, attunement, and skill turn the therapy room into a training ground where repair is learned and then exported to the rest of her life.

Key Relationships

• Stephanie Foo: The relationship is the engine of the memoir’s final act. As therapist, mentor, and “anti-mother,” Dr. Ham replaces the internalized critical voice with permission and curiosity. Through co-editing transcripts and practicing “interpersonal dueling,” he gives Stephanie both agency and structure: she can name needs, tolerate conflict, and practice repair—all while staying connected to herself and to him.

Defining Moments

Dr. Ham’s impact crystallizes in a handful of scenes where his method becomes legible—and transformative.

• The First Meeting (Chapter 37): What starts as a journalistic interview flips as he reads her despair in real time and proposes free treatment in exchange for recorded sessions. Why it matters: It reframes therapy as a collaborative experiment and gives Stephanie data-driven distance from shame.
• The First Session (Chapter 37): He challenges self-regulation as “not enough,” slows conversations to track ruptures, and insists on feeling over intellectualizing. Why it matters: He targets the core pattern—thinking instead of feeling—and shows her how safety is built moment-by-moment.
• “Repairs, Not Fights” (Chapter 39): After a painful fight with her fiancé, Joey, he says, “It’s not the fights that matter. It’s the repairs.” Why it matters: This principle reframes conflict from proof of failure to an opportunity to build trust, changing how Stephanie understands intimacy.
• The Circle Exercise (Chapter 41): He has her draw a circle of “allowed” versus “not allowed” feelings, then names her stance as “tiger-childing your recovery.” Why it matters: She recognizes perfectionism as a trauma echo, and learns that healing means allowing all emotions, not policing them.

Symbolism

Dr. Ham symbolizes the possibility of secure attachment as treatment—curiosity plus attunement plus repair. He stands in stark contrast to pathologizing or distant care, embodying an evidence-informed, human approach that is both tough and gentle. As a “good enough” parent, he can hold her pain and her potential at once, teaching her she isn’t broken but, as he later reflects, a “fucking wonder” (Chapter 42) capable of loving and being loved.

Essential Quotes

The essence of what trauma does to a person is it makes them feel like they don’t deserve love. (Chapter 37)
This distills the treatment target: not just symptoms, but the core shame belief. By naming it plainly, he relocates the “problem” from who Stephanie is to what happened to her—and what can be repaired.

Make friends with the Hulk. (Chapter 37)
His metaphor recasts anger as an ally rather than a threat. Befriending the Hulk means harnessing protective energy without dissociation or explosion—integrating power with self-regulation.

It’s not the fights that matter. It’s the repairs. (Chapter 39)
This line reframes intimacy as iterative trust-building. Conflict becomes the doorway to connection when both parties can name harm, take responsibility, and restore safety.

You’re tiger-childing your recovery—you’re telling yourself you have to be perfectly happy all the time. And if you’re feeling sad, you’re fucking up. You’re not really recovering. (Chapter 41)
He exposes perfectionism as a trauma survival strategy turned self-punishment. By naming the pattern, he gives Stephanie permission to have bad days without interpreting them as failure.

Being healed isn’t about feeling nothing. Being healed is about feeling the appropriate emotions at the appropriate times and still being able to come back to yourself. That’s just life. (Chapter 41)
Here he defines functional healing: emotional accuracy plus self-return. The goal isn’t numbness; it’s flexibility—feeling fully without losing the thread of self.