Belle Bocal
WellSpace Clinician
“Sau cơn mưa trời lại sáng.”
After the rain, the sky clears.
Belle is a Vietnamese American clinician, first-generation scholar, and community builder, born and raised here in Maine. Belle’s work is shaped by her immigrant family, the quiet stories and sacrifices that raised her, and a deep belief in the healing power of relationship.
For Who:
Belle provides therapy to individuals and couples who find themselves in the in-between—grieving what has been lost, questioning who they are becoming, and carrying stories shaped by migration, culture, attachment, and intergenerational histories. The struggles that bring people to therapy—conflict, distance, anxiety, or emotional fatigue—are often less about what is “wrong” and more about what has been carried quietly for a long time.
Specialization/Training/Background:
Experience In Area of:
Specialization: Belle’s practice is relational, culturally responsive, and trauma-informed. Her work is collaborative from a person-centered lens, grounded in the belief that we all deserve to be unconditionally valued and understood within the systems that shape our lives. She draws from attachment-based frameworks, parts-informed approaches, and body-aware practices to support clients in listening more closely—to themselves and to one another.
Examples of Issues: Emotion-Regulation, Family-Conflict, Grief, Racial-Identity, Relational-Concerns, Self-Esteem
Approach:
Her practice is relational, culturally responsive, and trauma-informed. Belle works collaboratively from a person-centered lens, grounded in the belief that we all deserve to be unconditionally valued and understood within the systems that shape our lives.
Belle is especially called and honored to work with AAPI and diaspora communities here in Maine and beyond, particularly in a state with limited racial and ethnic diversity. Her work lives at the intersection of grief, belonging, and identity, grounded in evidence-based and culturally responsive care. She believe healing is both individual and collective—an ongoing process of learning, unlearning, and becoming. Belle’s hope is to create spaces where stories and struggles are held with care, cultural nuance is honored, and new meanings can gently emerge.
Bachelor of Arts, University of Southern Maine
Master of Science, Boston University
Master of Social Work, University of New England
Doctor of Philosophy, Lesley University (in-progress)
Internships: Gateway Community Services. Maine Medical Center – Palliative Medicine Program
Fellowship: Lesley Institute for Trauma Sensitivity (LIfTS)