Traditionally, lack of mental health knowledge is inherited from Asia. Most immigrants do not know what a psychologist does. When immigrants immigrated to the US, many spoke of how therapy was not an option for most poor families due to high cost of treatment and lack of insurance. The inaccessibility of mental health services in their countries of origin forces many poor Asians to suffer alone. Poor Asian immigrants and refugees often suffer from pockets of trauma stemming from poverty while battling undiagnosed mental disorders. When lack of access to mental health services is normalized, it is then passed onto the next generation. But Asian Americans are greeted with many other barriers in the US.
J. Abe-Kim et al. (2007) stated, in their study, Use of mental health-related services among immigrant and US-born Asian Americans: results from the National Latino and Asian American study, “Barriers identified as negatively affecting the use of mental health-related services include cultural barriers (e.g., stigma, loss of face, causal beliefs), culturally unresponsive services (lack of language match, lack of ethnic match, poor cross-cultural understanding), limited access to care (cost, lack of insurance coverage), and lack of understanding to services.” Because of all these barriers, it is difficult for Asian-Americans to seek out the mental health services they need.
It is also difficult for clinicians to provide appropriate services to both the Asian immigrant population and US-born Asian Americans. There is not enough data on both groups (J. Abe-Kim & et al., 2007). Our struggles are very different, and Asian Americans need services catering to both populations. Asian immigrants need providers that speaks their language fluently and is culturally competent. US-born Asian Americans need therapists who are more culturally sensitive.
Asian clients have a higher drop-out rate in counseling than other minority clients. Non-Asian therapists are quick to jump to negative conclusions about us. They dismiss our parents as “emotionally-abusive” and our culture as “toxic”. Therapists should study the historical and cultural context of each Asian ethnic group. Rather, many treat every Asian face as a monolith. Most will not even entertain the idea of researching each Asian culture and the possible traumas that likely affect their patients. Adequate training and more diversity in mental health services are much needed.
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