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Clinical Considerations When Working with Asian American Children and Adolescents

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Handbook of Mental Health and Acculturation in Asian American Families

Part of the book series: Current Clinical Psychiatry ((CCPSY))

Abstract

There are a number of reasons Asian American children and adolescents are coming to the attention of mental health providers. In addition to the challenge of satisfactorily navigating through developmental stages, they may have to do so in a country whose culture and customs are either unfamiliar to their parents or to themselves. Other etiological reasons may include difficulties in identity formation and consolidation, including the compounded difficulties of simultaneous ethnic/sexual identity formation, acculturation challenges (e.g., acculturation gap between parents and children), and parental psychopathology, which can be challenging considering that many Asian parents may not recognize or seek help for themselves. Despite past research which has found Asian children and adolescents to have low rates of mental illness, there is also great evidence to support that illnesses and dysfunction such as depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation, substance abuse and dependence, and delinquent behaviors exist at significant rates and are critical concerns. This chapter will describe several points to consider when working with Asian children and their families in addition to special consideration for strength-based treatments when working with Asian American families. Finally, this chapter will conclude with a section providing clinical recommendations or considerations that may help provide the reader with a “frame” when working with acculturation stressors and their impact in Asian children and adolescents.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    “Coining” refers to the folk remedy that entails running a coin along the body with herbal oils; “cupping” refers to the folk remedy that entails the use of suction cups that are to extract “bad winds” from the body.

  2. 2.

    Linguistics and education refer to “code switching” as the use of two or more languages within a single conversation or the use of different manners of speaking and interacting that are dependent on the context in which the individual is operating (e.g., conversations with close friends vs. in the classroom).

  3. 3.

    In emerging literature on culturally responsive education, “hybrid identity” refers to the multifaceted understanding of identity in a sociocultural context [9]. It addresses how identity is understood as well as expressed or enacted by individuals. For example, for immigrant youth in some urban and rural areas, how the youth identifies with components of both the majority group as well as other minority groups with which they interact are important influences on how strongly they identify with their own ethnic group and the extent to which their identities may blend aspects of other ethnic identities into their own.

  4. 4.

    It should be noted that this study used a non-Asian sample.

  5. 5.

    It should be noted that this study focused on a college-age sample.

  6. 6.

    It would be prudent to mention that the Asian population in Hawaii is 41.5% according to the 2005 census as compared with the 4.3% found in the United States overall. The percentage of Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander (Guam, Samoa, or other Pacific Islands) is 9.0% as compared with the 0.2% found in the United States [53]. There was a wave of migration by Japanese and Chinese immigrants to Hawaii in the nineteenth century for work, for example, as “cheap labor” for the large plantations. These populations have been on the Island for several decades; thus, there are multiple-generation Asians present now on Hawaii in addition to new generations. The Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander population has been found to have worse health outcomes than the rest of the population of the United States, likely due to disparities and barriers in access to health care [54].

  7. 7.

    Outdating or outmarrying refers to the marriage to or dating of persons outside of one’s own ethnic or racial group.

  8. 8.

    Community or faith-based organizations may have counselors or other qualified professional staff on hand who can assist in translation, although one must be sensitive to the parent/guardian’s feelings toward seeking help from organizations or persons who may be part of their own ethnic communities.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Mental Health Division at the City of Berkeley; and private practice Berkeley, Family, Youth, and Children’s Services and Adult Services, Berkeley, CA, USA

    Yanni Rho

  2. Educational Consultant, Boston, MA, USA

    Kathy Rho

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  1. Yanni Rho
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Correspondence to Yanni Rho .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

    Nhi-Ha Trinh

  2. Mental Health Division, Family, Youth, and Children’s Services, City of Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA

    Yanni Chun Rho

  3. Department of Psychiatry, University of California at San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA

    Francis G. Lu

  4. Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

    Kathy Marie Sanders (Assistant Professor of Psychiatry) (Assistant Professor of Psychiatry)

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Rho, Y., Rho, K. (2009). Clinical Considerations When Working with Asian American Children and Adolescents. In: Trinh, NH., Rho, Y.C., Lu, F.G., Sanders, K.M. (eds) Handbook of Mental Health and Acculturation in Asian American Families. Current Clinical Psychiatry. Humana Press. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-60327-437-1_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-60327-437-1_8

  • Publisher Name: Humana Press

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-60327-436-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-60327-437-1

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