Key Takeaways:
- For Asians, therapy can come with barriers from societal stigma to non-inclusive language.
- Increase in loneliness and violence against Asians during Covid-19 forced long overdue conversations about Asian mental health.
- Therapy is sometimes seen as a monolith but different forms of therapy can have different effects on different people.
- My experience with different types of talk therapy has helped significantly with different parts of my mental state:
- Cognitive Behavioural Therapy: The most common talk therapy technique that helped me adjust my thinking when facing different challenges.
- Compassion Focussed Therapy: Rooted in both Western and Eastern techniques, it helped provide tools to deal with emotions as they arise.
- Psychodynamics: Focussed on exploring the subconcious. Helped me explore my past and reestablish the foundation of emotional well being.
The Asian experience with therapy and mental health
In the Netflix series Beef, Steven Yeun’s character famously says “Western Therapy Doesn’t Work on Eastern Minds”. While the statement is debateable, it does depict the relationships that many Asians have with therapy and mental health. Therapy is traditionally not seen as an avenue Asians can pursue and open conversations of mental health is frowned upon.
Saving face is paramount in many Asian households. This means admitting to mental health challenges and seeking help outside the family unit is especially hard. Mental health struggles are often linked with shame and social stigmas. Unfortunately, admitting to facing these challenges can imply to others in these cultures that you’re weak and don’t come from a supportive family. To compound the issue, mental health is not a topic that is brought up openly at home either. Therefore, most conversations around mental health are met with silence.
For those who do seek help, solutions like therapy can oftentimes seem overwhelming and non-inclusive. Without guidance, trying to sort through the vast number of different therapies can turn many people away. Secondly, finding a therapist who you can trust and understands the nuisances of your cultural background isn’t easy. Lastly, the conversation around therapy is often clouded with convoluted language that might push away those who learned English as a second language or didn’t grow up in an emotionally open environment. So even if you wanted help, there are many barriers to actually finding it.
Changing the conversations around Asian mental health
The Covid-19 pandemic shone a light on mental health as social isolation and loneliness rose. The rise of hate against Asians in many Western countries also intensified the daily anxiety among Asians. The one saving grace of these terrible events are that the impacts on mental health became too real to ignore. Furthermore, the new generations of Asians and the Asian diaspora are more open to speaking up about mental health. The discussions in these communities are starting and the long overdue change is coming.
I wanted to contribute to this conversation as someone who has openly talked about my experiences in therapy. In particular, it felt important to provide an authentic account of how each type of therapy has helped. In doing so, I hope to help ease some of hesitations that other Asians might have around therapy and mental health.
Finding the right therapy and therapist
Therapy is sometimes viewed as a monolith. Many supporters and critics speak as if every person has the same experience when going through the therapeutic process. The reality is more complex than that. There are dozens types of therapy that exists which could have different effects on patients. Furthermore, variables like culture, gender, sexuality, and upbringing of both patients and therapist could greatly change the experience.
For those new to therapy, it can be overwhelming choose a form of therapy. For those who are currently going to therapy, it can be difficult to know what other, possibly more suited, options exist.
Aside from the type of therapy, the most important decision is to consider who your therapist is. The ultimate goal is finding a therapist you can trust to help you sort through your thoughts and emotions. Therapy is a personal journey and it’s often hard to explain your challenges to someone who doesn’t understand your upbringing and cultural context. It can be valuable finding practitioners who share a similar background and can understand where you come from. With the rise of remote therapy, finding the right person has never been easier.
My experiences with talk therapy: CBT, CFT, and Psychodynamics
Over the last decade, I’ve had three therapists across North America and Europe. The beginning of each relationship was triggered by a difficult period of my life where it felt like too much for me to face alone. Each therapist specialized in a different form of talk therapy. Instead of discussing what each form of therapy is about (where there are loads of resources online on), I’ll share what each provided me.
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) gave me the tools to deal with difficult emotions in the moment
The first time I went to therapy came after I suffered my first panic attack. After years of ignoring my mental health, I finally admitted to myself that I needed help. So I started doing research and confided in a few people I trusted about what I was going through. This process led me to Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT). I was told that CBT is the most popular form of therapy and is used to help adjust thinking patterns. As emotions are driven by our thoughts, CBT would help alleviate some of the anxiety and depressive thoughts that I was experiencing. What I liked about this approach was that there were clear goals that focussed on addressing my current problems.
The first sessions felt awkward. I didn’t know how to open up and would be guarded to what was actually going through my mind. Over time, I slowly started to let go of the mental barriers I put up. This allowed my therapist to help me adjust my thought patterns. She taught me tools that I could use when I was dealing with difficult situations. Instead of just keeping it in, CBT gave me a way of rationalizing difficult emotions and adjust some of the beliefs that caused them. Where therapy once felt like pseudo-science, I now saw it as a set of tools and structures to help adapt how I think. Once my thinking changed, my emotions started to change as well.
Compassion Focussed Therapy (CFT) provided me with Eastern inspired exercises to calm my anxiety
Four years, two jobs, and two countries later, I felt the urge to go back to therapy. Coming out of Covid-19 and having experienced major life changes, I knew I needed help processing everything. Initially, I wanted to go back to CBT because it was something I knew and trusted. However, upon consulting several therapists, it felt like what I learned in CBT was already used in my day-to-day life. I wasn’t sure if doing more CBT would be the most beneficial.
CBT was great for adjusting thinking in the moment but I felt it had limitations. It helped me rationalize my emotions but sometimes the anxiety and negative emotions still lingered. There was a deeper issue that I needed to solve. Growing up in an Asian household, I never really learned how to not be hard on myself. The critical voice in me remained loud as I grew up and I didn’t know how to stop it. As an adult, It was clear that self soothing emotions was not something I was good at. This meant that negative emotions built up and it was very hard for me to let it go. This is when I stumbled upon Compassion Focussed Therapy (CFT).
One therapist I met with was specialized in CBT but she also had experience with CFT. She explained that CFT mixes modern Western therapies like CBT with Eastern mental health practices rooted in philosophies like Buddhism. Therapy had always seemed like an incredibly Western concept to me so CFT was intriguing. I agreed to give it a shot.
CFT did one thing incredibly well and it was to teach me self-soothing techniques that I didn’t develop growing up. Implementing meditative and visioning exercises in my life gave me a path to calming my anxieties and emotions directly. Whereas CBT focussed on individual situations, CBT gave me the tools to focus on myself. Over time, I saw how hard I had been on myself and learned how to be more self-compassionate. This helped alleviate many ongoing stresses in my life and made me happier in the process.
Psychodynamics provided me with a process to explore my past and rebuild my emotional foundation
There was always a big elephant in the room when I went to therapy. With CBT and CFT, we would touch on parts of my past but didn’t dive all the way in. I knew doing so would be difficult and painful at times so I was always reluctant to do so. However, I knew that this was a necessary step if I really wanted to be the best version of myself. After major another period of life changes and difficult emotions, I finally found the courage to face this.
If I was going to do this, it had to be in the right circumstances. Most importantly, I wanted to find a therapist that came from a similar cultural background. It would make explaining my past a bit easier. I also wanted the therapy sessions to be in person, as I knew there were limitations with how far I could open up virtually. Lastly, it had to be someone who was trained in Psychodynamics. This type of therapy is focussed on helping you understand your past and the unconcious processes that affect your life. It helps to find places in your past and emotional foundation that lead to difficult emotions and addresses it. I knew there were patterns in my life that I wanted to get out of. Psychodynamics was going to help me get to the source of it.
Every week I would go to the therapist’s office and talk about what I was going through. It always came back to my past. Seemingly small events that caused major negative emotions in the present could be linked back to events in my upbringing. The therapist helped me understand where certain negative beliefs about myself came from and slowly helped me rebuild those beliefs. Over time, I started to face each emotional issue in the present with a more balanced approach. My emotions were less likely to be hijacked by a unconcious or subconcious processes. It felt incredibly freeing.
My last word on therapy
When deciding what type of therapy is right for you, it’s important to consider what you’re hoping to get out of it. I don’t view them competing techniques but as different tools to add for better mental health. Each therapist has taught me lifelong skills that helps me at different stages of the process. Furthermore, considering factors like the cultural background and experiences of the therapist can be helpful.
Therapy for Asians can often be overwhelming and not inclusive. However, I firmly believe it has a place in helping to overcome the mental health challenges that many Asians face. Finding the right type of therapy and therapist can go a long way in helping to make starting easier. Talk therapy won’t be for everyone but I encourage anyone who tries to not give up on it too early. Like it has for me, sticking with it can have major rewards.
Interested in reading more? Read more insights on the experience of Asians abroad on my Instagram or read my article on Using Working Models to Understand Relationship Conflict.
