Counseling And Psychotherapy For South Asian Americans

This essential text explores what it means to be a South Asian American living in the US while seeking, navigating and receiving psychological, behavioral or counseling services. It delves into a range of issues including cultural identity, racism, colorism, immigration, gender, sexuality, parenting, and caring for older adults. Chapter authors provide research literature, clinical and cultural considerations for interviewing and treatment planning, case examples, questions for reflection, suggested readings, and resources. The book also includes insights on the future of South Asian American mental health, social justice, advocacy, and public policy. Integrating theory, research, and application, this book serves as a clinical guide for therapists, instructors, professors and supervisors in school/university counseling centers working with South Asian American clients, as well as for counseling students.

This book is a practical and comprehensive guide for clinicians, trainees, and students interested in developing their skills in providing Psychotherapy and Counseling to Asian American Clients. The authors offer a cultural and social environmental framework, which helps mental health professionals conceptualize issues facing Asian American clients as well as strategies for addressing clinical concerns. This book discusses many frequently asked questions regarding clinical work with Asian Americans: Cultural similarities and differences among various Asian American groups; clinical implications of immigration and refugee experiences; strategies for diagnostic assessments; ways to engage Asian American clients in treatment; application of individual, family, and group psychotherapy and counseling; culturally syntonic service delivery models; and training and curriculum issues. Practical suggestions and case examples are offered throughout the book.

First Published in 2009. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

The Asian American population is increasing rapidly and, not unpredictably, so are its mental health needs. A number of cultural factors and stressors common to Asian Americans pose obstacles to the successful employment of Western psychotherapy approaches and counseling---for example, the central role of the family in Asian life and the culturally based, traditional stigma associated with mental health problems. The authors, all practicing psychotherapists, focus on the critical aspects of transference and empathy in their consideration of the mental health approaches and therapies appropriate to ethnic minority population. The work has value as a resource for professionals and as a training guide for those intending to practice as psychotherapists and counselors in minority communities. It offers extraordinary insights and practical guidance through the use of case studies. Not only do these identify problems stemming from the racial differences between client and therapist, but they also provide rich clinical examples of case diagnosis, treatment plans, and client status statements. This is an important book that will further both the theory and practice of psychotherapy among minority populations.

Scholars of psychology, education, social work, and counseling examine such topics as transracial adoption, women's issues, substance abuse, and the racial experiences of 43 different ethnic groups often statistically lumped together. Among the specific topics are Asian Indian women's bicultural experience, political ethnic identity versus cultural ethnic identity, ethnic variations in the adaptation of recent immigrant Asian adolescents regarding, and sexual abuse.

This research-to-practice volume grounds clinicians in a robust, culturally-informed framework for conducting effective therapy with Asian-American couples, families, and individuals. Family, cultural, social, and spiritual dynamics are explored across ethnicities, generations, relationships, and immigrant/citizen experience to reflect a diverse, growing population. Discussion and case examples focus on contrasts, conflicts, and balances involved in acculturation and change, notably the shift from collectivist cultural tradition to a more independent view of the self, gender, choices, and relationships. The contributors’ finely shaded guidance and accessible approach will help therapists provide appropriate services for Asian-American clients without minimizing or pathologizing their experiences. Included in the coverage: How Asian American couples negotiate relational harmony: collectivism and gender equality. Through religion: working-class Korean immigrant women negotiate patriarchy. The role of Chinese grandparents in their adult children’s parenting practices in the United States. Balancing the old and the new: the case of second generation Filipino American women. Bicultural identity as a protective factor among Southeast Asian American youth who have witnessed domestic violence. Transition and Change in Collectivist Family Life is a cogent clinical resource for practitioners and mental health professionals with interests in Asian-American family therapy, psychotherapy, collectivism, and faith-based community and counseling.

“The authors are to be commended for a book which should be very helpful for mental health professionals taking care of South Asian patients. The book uses case histories to illustrate a range of issues, which may come up in the treatment of this ethno-cultural group. The cases cut across genders, age groups, socioeconomic groups, diagnostic categories, and other clinical matters pertaining to abuse and domestic violence among South Asians born in South Asia and in the United States. The cases illustrate issues related to immigration, acculturation, stigma, access to care, and familial and intergenerational problems. The cases make teaching points about the impact of culture on clinical presentation and treatment, focusing on how culture and religion can be both a hindrance and an asset. The authors describe how to use cultural understanding in diagnosis and treatment” (Iqbal Ahmed MD, FRCPsych, UK).

A comprehensive, readable introduction to the cultural dimensions of counseling and psychotherapy is now available. National leaders in each topic have been selected to provide an accessible, yet thorough, presentation of culturally alert counseling. An introduction to the nature of counseling and culture begins the book, followed by chapters on Social Inequality, Race, and Ethnicity. The succeeding chapters reveal the characteristics, histories, mental health issues, and appropriate counseling strategies for each of eleven cultural groupings. The book ends with a thorough presentation of actual culturally alert counseling practice, Seven dimensions combine to make the book unique, namely thoroughness, inclusiveness, theoretical foundations, practicality, readability, activity, and modeling. In the first case, this book broadens the discussion of culture from ethnicity and race to include social class, religion, gender, and sexual orientation. Of particular note, in the area of ethnicity, all five of the major U.S. pan-ethnic groupings are presented, as well as Middle Eastern and South Asian people. The book is also inclusive of all people, including both those in dominant and non-dominant cultural groups. The assumption is that everyone has culture. Culturally alert counseling is also theoretically grounded in the first few chapters of the book, which lay out a guiding developmental vision of culturally alert counseling. Further conceptual foundations are laid in discussions of social inequality, social justice, social diversity, and critical consciousness. The practical dimension of the book is underscored by the inclusion of a chapter devoted to actual culturally alert counseling skills, an area that is needed by practitioners in this important work. Readability and interest are enhanced by the interweaving of case vignettes and experiential activities throughout the book. Finally, culturally alert counseling skills are modeled in an accessible, vital demonstration video that accompanies the book. Ultimately, readers will leave informed, moved, and changed by the encounters with culture that lie in these pages. They will also be ready to begin practice equipped with both a vision of the work and practical skills in implementing it.