Mental Health in Asian Culture

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Table of Contents

Introduction
The Role of Beliefs and Values
Family Reputation
Cultural Contributions
Western Treatment
Conclusion
References

Introduction

The United States has many racial groups; among these are the Asians who are growing at a very fast rate. A part from growing at a fast rate, Asians is also the most diverse racial group with more than forty three ethnic groups that speak in excess of 100 languages. The population of Asian Americans rose from one million in the 1960s to more than ten million in 2000. Estimates indicate that this figure might double by the year 2015. Many of the Asian groups have health belief systems that are mostly influenced by their cultures. This on many occasions has affected the way mental illnesses are diagnosed and treated. In this paper, we are going to look at how mental illnesses are perceived across the many Asian groups and how to solve the issue.

The Role of Beliefs and Values

Beliefs and values held by different cultural groups influence greatly their health awareness. Ethnic minorities are usually affected by the issue of shame and stigma. When this is coupled with misinformation concerning mental health, then the way the community conceives mental disorders is greatly affected. It has just been shown that Asians have increased in number in the US; this is bound to impact on their cultural influences.

Asians tend to accept mental health issues if they know that the problems are of a physical or spiritual nature, but they shun anything to do with emotions. Shame and stigma that is associated mental illnesses is a major obstacle to the use of mental health care by many Asians. Stigma prevents many Asians from accessing mental care. Many Asians belief in self reliance and therefore, they tend to be more reserved with the underlying fear of bringing shame to their families. This makes many Asians with mental problems to avoid seeking medical aid. They see mental illnesses as a weakness on the part of the patient; this may also paint his or her family negatively (Chow, 2010, p.1).

Family Reputation

Another thing is that many Asian Americans value much the family reputation and relationships than anything else. Such families will have a tendency of resisting to share anything that they think might bring shame to their families and perhaps cause alienation from the rest of society. Mental illnesses are seen as factors that may decrease one’s opportunities for work, marriage and the general acceptance in the society.

Due the stigmatization affects that come with mental illnesses, many Asians Americans try to avoid them by manifesting many psychological problems in their lives as physical problems. Someone suffering from a mental problem will prefer to describe it to the doctor as a headache or any other physical complication to avoid stigmization. For instance, Chinese Americans choose to describe depression using physical symptoms instead of sadness because they regard as morally unacceptable the diagnosis for depression. This confuses medical practitioners because they will attend to the physical symptoms leaving the real problem unaddressed thereby endangering the life of the patient (Spencer et.al, 2010, p. 1).

Cultural Contributions

Cultural beliefs also play a role in the way Asians perceive mental illnesses. Many Asians regard some mental illnesses as manifestations hereditary weaknesses, medical dysfunctions, as imbalances of yin and yang; they see victims as people who were born under an unlucky star. They even go to the extent of seeing the illnesses as a punishment from Supreme Being. They will therefore, rather seek the services of shamans and priests than medical help.

Many Asians, especially those from the south east, have the tradition of seeking help from family members or friends. Despite the fact that mental illness is a shame to the family, tradition calls on the collective responsibility of the family as a unit to take care of the sick member. Culture teaches them to use family resources in solving their problems and avoid giving their burdens to other people. They find iot absurd for one to confide in a stranger on intimate matters, therefore, they handle minor mental problems by themselves (Kramer et.al, 2002, p.1).

It is also said that many Asian Americans treat their mentally disturbed family members by exhorting or reasoning with the victim by telling him or her to correct on behavior. Family members then come up with treatment proposals that will be tried out until resources and tolerance is completely exhausted. When this happens, the family can then seek professional help, which on many occasions does not help because the problem will have gone beyond recovery.

Many Asians also belief that they can not seek help outside their community, if the family fails to tackle the problem, then community elders, spiritual healers and monks, depending on the Asian subgroup, are approached for help. Many Asian Americans such as the Chinese, the Filipino, and the Japanese believe that individuals should avoid dwelling on disturbing thoughts if they want to maintain their mental health. They base this on the concept of self control.

They strongly believe that persevering in hard times without making complains is a sign dignity, they say that those who complain have a small spirit. They say that talking about one’s problems is not the best way to address them. They consider feelings as private issues that should be kept discreet. The few that may opt for medical advice will always avoid psychotherapy, or they will terminate their therapy along the way for fear of disclosing too much of their personal lives to people from outside their family (Uba, 2003, p. 202).

To address the issue of psychological problems, many Asian cultures use coping with strategies like being actively involved in something always to avoid thinking a lot about problems that may trigger mental stress. They strongly believe that willpower, self-control, and determination to avoid any unpleasant thoughts help in reducing emotions that are not appropriate thereby reducing mental troubles.

They also encourage victims to accept or endure their problems as another coping strategy. For instance, Taoism encourages people to accept situations as fate and therefore should not challenge them. Buddhism, on the other hand, teaches that suffering and stress are normal aspects of life and therefore, human beings should learn to persevere. Asians therefore, would prefer to stoically deal with their problems than reveal them to outsiders. They will only seek professional assistance as a measure of last resort (Uba, 2003, p. 205).

Western Treatment

Many Asians also do not trust the western treatment methods probably because it has not worked for them in the past. This is understandable because they usually seek western help when the problem is already worse. Some Asians even associate western medicine with death. Another possible reason why many Asian Americans do not seek mental health services is ignorance. Their cultural practices are so embedded in their lives to the extent that they don’t know that there are mental health services.

Those who are aware of the services often encounter language barriers when communicating to the medical providers and this discourages them. They end up not trusting the medical providers. Some of them believe that there problems should be solved once they seek help from the experts, therefore, when this fails, they end up not trusting the services completely. Failure to understand the culture of Asians by medical practitioners also plays a role in the way Asians perceive mental health. Most of the western methods of treatment are tailored along western values and therefore, fails to meet the expectations of many Asians with their own values (Ashram, 2008, p.6).

Conclusion

These perceptions on mental health will go on for many years if clinical psychology does not change. The current clinical psychology that is based on western beliefs and values does not meet the needs of today’s multicultural society. To help Asians access mental health services, those in the psychological field will have to apply psychotherapy that is sensitive to the different cultures. We have that Asians associate mental health with stigma because of their firmly held cultural beliefs and this reduces their likelihood of accessing professional help. They therefore resort to more informal treatments.

A change in the way clinical psychology is administered to reflect the needs of the culturally changing society will go a long way in decreasing the gap between service given and the patient expectations among the many Asian subgroups. With this in place there is no doubt that even the more cultured Asians will be more likely to seek professional help when they encounter any mental complications.

References

Ashram. (2008). A Consultation on Mental Ill Health in South Asian Communities. A Consultation on Mental Ill Health in South Asian Communities. Web.

Chow, S. (2010). Chinese Lay Theory and Mental Illness Stigma: Implications for Research and Practices. FAQ. Web.

Kramer et.al. (2002). Cultural factors influencing the mental health of Asian Americans. Western Journal of Medicine. Web.

Spencer et.al. (2010). Discrimination and Mental Health–Related Service Use in a National Study of Asian Americans. American Public Health Association. Web.

Uba, L. (2003). Asian Americans: Personality Patterns, Identity, and Mental Health. New York, NY: Guilford Press.

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