Yutian (Rain) Liu

Yutian (Rain) Liu holds a B.A. in Applied Psychology from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, and an M.A. in Music Therapy from New York University. She is a Board-Certified Music Therapist. Her multicultural background and bilingual identity inform her sensitivity to clients’ cultural and social contexts, family dynamics, and lived experiences. Her musical journey includes many years of choral singing, a cappella, and orchestral ensemble performance, as well as training in Erhu, piano, handpan, and guitar—experiences that shaped her belief in music as a source of identity, belonging, expression, and community.

Clinically, Yutian practices from a client-centered, humanistic, and resource-oriented psychotherapy framework, integrating music therapy with principles of relational work, embodiment, and emotional attunement. She views music as a medium through which individuals can reconnect with strengths, identity, and agency. Her work reflects the therapeutic frameworks she has engaged with across settings—Nordoff-Robbins improvisation, DIR/Floortime, and cross-cultural perspectives—and is further enriched by her peer-counseling experience, which shaped her understanding of empathy, mutuality, and client-centered support. Guided by these values, she supports clients through improvisation, preferred music, grounding techniques, and playful musical engagement.

Yutian has provided music therapy across MT community centers, hospitals, and special education schools, working with adolescents and adults experiencing emotional dysregulation, neurodivergent children and teens with developmental needs, infants in the NICU, adults in outpatient care, and older adults in medical settings. Across these diverse contexts, her work is grounded in regulation, attunement, and the co-creation of musical connection—drawing on intersubjective, relational, and aesthetic principles that emphasize presence, embodied experience, and deep listening. She integrates playfulness, creative exploration, and music as a health resource to support empowerment, agency, and authentic expression. She is particularly passionate about supporting clients experiencing emotional dysregulation, anxiety, cross-cultural stressors, and periods of significant change, offering a therapeutic space in which individuals can explore their sense of self, reconnect with strengths, and feel genuinely seen and heard within a supportive therapeutic relationship.

Outside of her clinical work, Yutian enjoys playing music and cooking with friends, experiencing different forms of creative arts, spending time in nature, and discovering new cities. She values authenticity, curiosity, and mutual connection, and she strives to create warm, collaborative, and empowering spaces where clients feel truly heard and seen.

Yutian works off-site for EBAT providing music therapy groups at Sutter Health Mills Peninsula Medical Center (Adult & Adolescent Psychiatric Units) in San Mateo, CA.