Graceful Resilience: Kana Grace Nootenboom — Therapist, Mother, and Member of the Aoki Family

Basic Information

Into the Room — My Take on Kana’s Story

I like to imagine family stories as layered soundtracks — some parts are drum-heavy drama, others are soft piano memories — and Kana Grace Nootenboom’s life plays like a quiet, steady bridge in an otherwise loud record. I first came to her story not through fame-seeking headlines but through the people orbiting her: a world-famous DJ, a fashion-model cousin, a daughter who graces magazine pages. Then I turned the lens to find the person at the center — a clinician who builds emotional scaffolding for others while navigating one of the more public family trees you’ll find in American pop culture.

Kana’s public identity blends two worlds: the private craft of mental-health work and the public gravity of being in the Aoki orbit. That duality — clinic light by day, family tabloids by association — gives her a kind of chiaroscuro presence. Up close, she’s the therapist crafting a safe room; at a glance, she’s a relative to names people already know.

Career and Craft: Therapy, Ketamine-Assisted Work, and Clinical Leadership

As a practicing Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist and clinical director, Kana’s professional life reads like an intentional pivot from spotlight to sanctuary. She works with modalities that are both contemporary and clinical: EMDR for trauma healing, Internal Family Systems (IFS) elements, and ketamine-assisted psychotherapy — a modern tool in the mental-health toolkit that pairs medication-facilitated neuroplasticity with seasoned psychotherapeutic frames.

Numbers matter when you think about credentials: years of training, certifications, and supervisory hours add up — they’re the invisible architecture behind any clinician’s license. While I can’t list the exact timeline of her degrees here, what’s visible is the trajectory: clinician → clinic leader → specialty work with ketamine-assisted approaches. That’s a shift from one-on-one care toward shaping a practice that can multiply impact — training staff, setting policy, and stewarding a safer, regulated way to use emerging treatments.

If therapy were a movie genre, Kana’s practice would be a slow-burn indie — patient, textured, built on scenes that accumulate meaning over time rather than explosive plot turns. The clinical director title tells you she’s not just in the room; she’s designing the room.

Family and Relationships: Aoki Roots, Nootenboom Branches

Family trees are messy, beautiful things — more like sprawling, tangled vines than tidy charts. Kana sits at a branching point between two recognizable threads.

At the trunk: Hiroaki “Rocky” Aoki — restaurateur and founder of a restaurant empire — is identified as her father, and Chizuru Kobayashi as her mother in available public profiles. From that trunk, many limbs extend: Steve Aoki (global DJ and producer) and Devon Aoki (model and actress) are widely known half-siblings; other siblings and extended relatives show up in family listings and estate records. The Aoki name brings a pop-culture echo — red-carpet images, festival stages, fashion spreads — and Kana’s role in the family is quieter but essential.

At the next branch: the Nootenboom line — the surname that appears with her daughters — connects Kana to the younger generation now visible on covers and playlists. Her daughter Olivia Yumi Nootenboom, known professionally as Yumi Nu, has a growing public profile as a model and musician; Natalie, another daughter, appears in family profiles and interviews alongside Yumi. Seeing Kana through the lens of motherhood reframes her: she’s a parent who introduced two daughters to creative paths, and who raised them with enough confidence that they now navigate fame on their own terms.

There are legal echoes here too — estate filings, trust conversations, the formal paperwork that follows a public patriarch — and Kana’s name appears in those contexts as part of a larger family legal narrative. Those records are not tabloids; they’re the paperwork of succession, the dull but decisive instruments of inheritance and legacy. In other words: this is a family with both glam and governance.

Public Mentions, Media, and the Quiet of a Private Professional Life

It’s a little cinematic — imagine the montage: glossy magazine spreads of one daughter, the stage lights of a half-brother, legal documents in a courthouse folder — and then the small, steady scene of a therapist’s office where the biggest moments are unphotographed. Kana’s public footprint includes mentions in interviews about her daughters, listings on clinical directories, and appearances in family-related reporting; yet she keeps the clinician’s ethic intact — patient privacy, professional boundaries, measured presence.

Net worth figures? I looked for a headline-ready number and found none that passed the “authoritative” test. There’s a difference between being part of a family that has had wealthy chapters and having an independently verified net worth in public records — and Kana’s own financial profile remains private by every reliable measure.

Numbers & Dates (Quick Reference)

FAQ

Who is Kana Grace Nootenboom?

Kana Grace Nootenboom is a licensed marriage and family therapist and clinical director publicly identified as a daughter of Hiroaki “Rocky” Aoki and as the mother of Olivia Yumi Nootenboom and Natalie Nootenboom.

What does she do for a living?

She practices as an LMFT and works with EMDR and ketamine-assisted psychotherapy, serving as a clinical director at a counseling/ketamine clinic in Henderson, Nevada.

Is she related to Steve Aoki and Devon Aoki?

Yes — she is publicly listed as part of the extended Aoki family, with Steve Aoki and Devon Aoki named among her half-siblings in public profiles.

Who are her children?

Her children include Olivia Yumi Nootenboom (professionally known as Yumi Nu) and Natalie Nootenboom, both of whom have appeared in media and interviews.

Does Kana have a public net worth?

No reliable, authoritative net-worth figure for Kana Grace Nootenboom is publicly available.

Has she appeared in news or legal records?

Her name appears in family-related legal and estate records connected to the Aoki family, and she is mentioned in lifestyle features about her daughters.