Why don’t Asian-Americans get better mental health care?
Even the U.S. Surgeon General documented inadequate mental health treatment for Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders because of inappropriate and biased treatment models that reflect a White American, middle-class orientation. Historically, Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders have had good reason to mistrust mental health service providers.
Why is mental health a taboo in Asian culture?
Talking about mental health is taboo in many Asian cultures, perpetuating the idea that mental illness is shameful and that people should keep these issues private. A lack of mental health awareness, coupled with negative stereotypes, may cause Asian Americans to overlook, reject, deny, or ignore mental health symptoms.
Do Asian Americans need culturally adapted psychotherapy?
It could be argued that Asian Americans living in a Western culture where independence is valued would benefit from therapy that promotes Western cultural norms, rather than from culturally adapted forms of psychotherapy.
How do various mental health stigmas impact Asian Americans differently?
Various mental health stigmas impact certain groups of Asian Americans differently depending on certain cultural factors. being pressured to excel in academic life and become a highly skilled professional regardless of the emotional, social, or physical toll being encouraged to hide emotions to avoid being seen as “too emotional” or a complainer
Step 1. Engage Clients
Once clients are in contact with a treatment program, they stand on the far side of a yet-to-be-established therapeutic relationship. It is up to counselors and other staff members to bridge the gap.
Step 2. Familiarize Clients and Their Families With Treatment and Evaluation Processes
Behavioral health treatment facilities maintain their own culture (i.e., the treatment milieu). Counselors, clinical supervisors, and agency administrators can easily become accustomed to this culture and assume that clients are used to it as well.
Step 3. Endorse Collaboration in Interviews, Assessments, and Treatment Planning
Most clients are unfamiliar with the evaluation and treatment planning process and how they can participate in it. Some clients may view the initial interview and evaluation as intrusive if too much information is requested or if the content is a source of family dishonor or shame.
Step 4. Integrate Culturally Relevant Information and Themes
By exploring culturally relevant themes, counselors can more fully understand their clients and identify their cultural strengths and challenges. For example, a Korean woman's family may serve as a source of support and provide a sense of identity.
Step 5. Gather Culturally Relevant Collateral Information
A client who needs behavioral health treatment services may be unwilling or unable to provide a full personal history from his or her own perspective and may not recall certain events or be aware of how his or her behavior affects his or her well-being and that of others.
Step 6. Select Culturally Appropriate Screening and Assessment Tools
Discussions of the complexities of psychological testing, the interpretation of assessment measures, and the appropriateness of screening procedures are outside the scope of this TIP. However, counselors and other clinical service providers should be able to use assessment and screening information in culturally competent ways.
Step 8. Provide Culturally Responsive Case Management
Clients from various racial, ethnic, and cultural populations seeking behavioral health services may face additional obstacles that can interfere with or prevent access to treatment and ancillary services, compromise appropriate referrals, impede compliance with treatment recommendations, and produce poorer treatment outcomes.
What are cultural beliefs about cancer?
Cultural beliefs about cancer may be a. barrier to cancer screening when patients. believe that cancer cannot be treated success-. fully and fear rejection by the community if. cancer is diagnosed, as shown in a study of. cancer screening in Cambodian women. 10. T raditional treatments. T raditional.
Is cultural difference considered bioethics?
Cultural difference has been largely ignored within bioethics, particularly within the end-of-life discourses and practices that have developed over the past two decades in the U.S. healthcare system. Yet how should culturebe taken into account?
Why do Asian Americans have the most trouble accessing mental health care?
Some estimates claim Asian Americans also have the most trouble accessing mental healthcare due to language barriers of all ethnic and racial groups living in the U.S.
What are the factors that affect mental health in Asian Americans?
Other cultural factors. Various mental health stigmas impact certain groups of Asian Americans differently depending on certain cultural factors. Factors influencing stigmas in children include: being pressured to excel in academic life and become a highly skilled professional regardless of the emotional, social, or physical toll.
Why is stigma important in APA?
The APA claim stigma may play an important role in someone’s likelihood to access care willingly. And according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, mental health stigmas are common in Latinx and Hispanic communities in the U.S. While more research is necessary, mental health stigmas may exist for several reasons, ...
How to combat stigma?
The best way to combat stigmas is to become educated about mental health facts and engage positively with people who experience mental illness. Other ways to combat stigmas include: talking openly with family, friends, or using social media. promoting the idea that physical and mental illness are equal.
Why do people with mental illness seek outside help?
This can discourage people with mental illness, or their families, from seeking outside help to avoid being labeled as defective or damaged.
Why is it shameful for children to share their struggles knowing that others survived?
the idea that previous generations suffered worse circumstances or trauma, so it is shameful for children or young adults to share their struggles knowing that others survived “much more”. the idea among older adults that mental illness does not exist or impacts their community.
How many Asian Americans are there in 2019?
population. Of these, roughly 15% report having a mental illness in the past year, meaning more than 2.9 million Asian Americans experienced mental illness in 2019. Findings from the National Latino and ...
What is family in Indian society?
Families are multi-generational entities in Indian society. Respect for elders is highly valued. After marriage, the daughter typically moves in with her husband's family. Gender roles are very distinct. Women manage the house, finances and family while men are the breadwinners and family conduit with outsiders, such as health workers.8Children are often reared by their grandparents. In Seattle this remains consistent, though there are a number of families moving towards the more western 'nuclear' family model. In keeping with modem times and financial necessity, both men and women have started
Do Indians have birth control?
In rural India, girls were often married at a very young age and experience medical problems from closely spaced multiple pregnancies.12 It was uncommon for Indians to want to take western modem medicines, thus acceptance for birth control pills and depoprovera is low.13 This has now significantly changed by government laws prohibiting child marriages and incentives for birth control.
How do cultures differ in mental health?
Furthermore, cultures differ in the meaning and level of significance and concern they give to mental illness. Every culture has its own way of making sense of the highly subjective experience that is an understanding of one’s mental health. Each has its opinion on whether mental illness is real or imagined, an illness of the mind or ...
How does culture affect people?
For instance, culture affects the way in which people describe their symptoms, such as whether they choose to describe emotional or physical symptoms. Essentially, it dictates whether people selectively present symptoms in a “culturally appropriate” way that won’t reflect badly on them.
What is culturally appropriate mental health treatment for Asian Americans?
Culturally appropriate mental health treatment for Asian-Americans/Pacific Islanders should be cost-effective, accessible (located within Asian-American/Pacific Islander communities), and provided at convenient times (e.g., after work and weekends).
Why is it important to understand Asian American mental health?
Understanding the mental health issues of Asian-Americans/Pacific Islanders is important because of the vast heterogeneity of the group, the various Asian cultures' beliefs about mental health, and the emphasis on the connection between the mind and body.
Why are Asian Americans unable to be promoted?
Even among highly educated and acculturated Asian-Americans/Pacific Islanders, research has documented a glass-ceiling effect, whereby many Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders are unable to be promoted beyond a certain position because of discrimination and institutionalized racism and/or sexism.
What happens if the treatment orientation matches that of the client?
If the treatment orientation matches that of client, the client will be more likely to agree with the provider's explanation and suggested treatment. If the treatment orientation is different from that of the client, the client will not likely benefit from the treatment.
Do Asian Americans mistrust mental health providers?
Historically, Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders have had good reason to mistrust mental health service providers. Misdiagnosis and underdiagnosis of mental illness among Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders who have serious mental health and health implications continue to be a problem.
Is depression the same among Asian Americans?
For example, rates of depression appear to be similar among Asian-Americans/Pacific Islanders and White Americans, while the prevalence of substance abuse appears to be significantly lower among Asian-Americans/Pacific Islanders.
Is culturally competent treatment for Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders the responsibility of Asian American/Pacific Islander answer
In sum, culturally competent treatment of Asian-American/Pacific Islander individuals should not be the responsibility solely of Asian-American/Pacific Islander treatment providers. Little effort has been made to recruit and train Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders for careers in mental health, resulting in limited numbers of Asian-American/Pacific Islander clinicians. Rather, the mental health field must be accountable for providing accessible, well- trained and knowledgeable treatment providers who can offer culturally competent interventions and services to an increasingly diverse population.
