Culturally Attuned Behavior Therapy for Anxiety and Depression in Asian Americans: Addressing Racial Microaggressions and Deconstructing the Model Minority Myth

Extant research has shown that racial discrimination and microaggressions can have negative effects on anxiety and depression among Asian Americans. However, not much has been published regarding how to process and integrate experiences of racism into culturally attuned behavior therapy specifically for Asian Americans. In this article, I describe the process of culturally attuned behavior therapy for two Asian American clients, with an emphasis on integrating racial microaggressions into exposures for social anxiety, and deconstructing the model minority stereotype through value-driven behavioral activation for depression. Cultural attunements common to both case examples are then summarized, alongside practical recommendations for clinicians. Limits to generalizability are also discussed. Finally, the article closes by addressing the importance of cultural humility in effective culturally attuned behavior therapy with Asian Americans.     

Sikh millennials of the ‘kirtan generation’ in the making of an ‘American Sikhism’

ABSTRACT

This essay focuses on the millennial generation of Sikhs in the United States. Based on extended ethnographic research in Sikh communities, the author explores the role of Sikh millennials in the making of an ‘American Sikhism’, the contours of which are taking shape having followed after the explosive growth of gurdwara communities – and the educational, social, and other resources they provide – which were largely made possible by the affluence of Sikh communities beginning with the previous ‘Brain Drain’ generation. In particular, the author discusses this ‘kirtan generation’ of Sikhs, educated in gurdwara schools, and their growing leadership of Sikh communities.     

Sexual Harassment,Racial Harassment,and Well-Being among Asian American Women: An Intersectional Approach

ABSTRACT

Harassment of Asian American (AA) women has received little attention in popular culture and academic research despite their long legacy of sexualized racial stereotyping (e.g., Geisha, sexually submissive; Shimizu, 2007) and additional risk of mistreatment due to their membership in both marginalized gender and racial groups (Beale, 1970 Beale, F. (1970). Double jeopardy: To be Black and female. In T. C. Bambara (Ed.), The Black woman: An anthology (pp. 90–100). New York: New American Library. [Google Scholar]; Settles & Buchanan, 2014 Settles, I. H., & Buchanan, N. T. (2014). Intersectionality: Multiple categories of identity and difference. In V. Benet-Martinez and Y. Hong (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Multicultural Identity (pp. 160–180). New York, NY: Oxford University Press, Inc. [Google Scholar]). This study addresses this dearth of research using an intersectional theoretical framework to comprehensively examine sexual and racial harassment with a sample of AA women. Results validated the underlying factor structure of the Sexual Experiences Questionnaire (Fitzgerald, Gelfand, & Drasgow, 1995 Fitzgerald, L. F., Gelfand, M. J., & Drasgow, F. (1995). Measuring sexual harassment: Theoretical and psychometric advances. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 17, 425–445. doi:10.1207/s15324834basp1704_2[Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) and the Racial Acts, Crimes, and Experiences Scale (RACES; Bergman & Buchanan, 2008 Bergman, M., & Buchanan, N. T. (2008). Development of the Racial Acts, Crimes, and Experiences Survey (RACES). Unpublished instrument. [Google Scholar]) for AA women. Additionally, our results replicated previous research indicating that participants often reported experiencing behaviors that constitute harassment, but did not label them as such. This supports the use of behavioral measures over items that require individuals to label their experiences as harassment. Finally, we examined the associations between these forms of harassment and two indicators of psychological well-being, depression, and posttraumatic stress (PTS). Our results found that gender harassment was associated with more depression, whereas unwanted sexual attention, sexual coercion, and racial harassment were associated with increased PTS. This supports the utility of including both sexual and racial harassment in providing a more nuanced understanding of AA women’s harassment experiences overall and the relationship of harassment to psychological well-being. We discuss theoretical and clinical implications of these findings.     

Cultural Adaptation and Sexual Harassment in the Lives of Asian American Women

ABSTRACT

Despite the prevalence of both historical and current race- and gender-based stereotyping of Asian American women, little is known about their experiences and attitudes regarding sexual harassment. In this study, 109 Asian American women enrolled in a state university or a 2-year community college responded to questionnaires about cultural orientation, experiences of sexual harassment, and sexual harassment attitudes. Asian cultural orientation was associated with sexual harassment attitudes. Specifically, among women with low White cultural orientation, there was a statistically significant positive association between Asian cultural orientation and acceptance of sexual harassment. Results from this study have important implications for clinical practice with Asian American women, including issues of migration, cultural orientation, and the intersection of racism and sexism in the United States.     

Asian American Women Sexual Assault Survivors’ Choice of Coping Strategies: The Role of Post-Assault Cognitive Responses

ABSTRACT

Even though approximately one in three Asian American (AA) and Pacific Islander women experience sexual assault victimization, there is a dearth of literature examining how AA women sexual assault survivors cope with this traumatic experience. This study examined AA female sexual assault survivors’ choice of coping strategies post-assault and how their cognitive responses toward sexual assault victimization (e.g., attributions of self-blame, perceived control over the recovery process) relate to their use of coping strategies. Using the AA subsets of two large community studies, a total of 64 AA women ages 18 to 58 with unwanted sexual experiences after the age of 14 years were included in the analyses. Results indicated that AA survivors used Acceptance and Self-Distraction the most to cope with sexual assault. In addition, those who perceived they had less control over their recovery process tended to use more maladaptive coping strategies, such as substance abuse and behavioral disengagement (e.g., giving up). The discussion includes clinical implications and recommendations for using language, modalities, and foci of interventions that are consistent with clients’ and their families’ worldviews (e.g., indirect inquiries, solution-focused).     

Legacies of War: Asian American Women and War Trauma

ABSTRACT

Although Asian Americans are diverse in many ways, such as language, culture, ethnicity, religion, generational status, and more, many share a common experience: that of having experienced war first hand or being progeny of war survivors. World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Cambodian genocide, along with centuries of oppressive and authoritarian rule, have brought experiences of trauma, directly and historically, to the lives of many Asians. Subsequent experiences of migration and resettlement, as well as life in the United States as an ethnic minority, have also compounded the layers of oppression for many Asian Americans. Sexism in our cultures of origin, as well as sexism in the U.S., represents additional realities and traumas faced by Asian American women. In this article, we explore the experiences of war and subsequent traumas in the lives of Asian American women. We present a brief review of the current state of mental health as it relates to the experiences of war trauma, with the goal of providing a crucial contextual backdrop for our review of the best practices in mental health services to Asian American women. We review some of the best practices and conclude with a narrative reflection based on our own involvement in a small professional women’s group that yielded insights, discoveries, healing, and empowerment from the legacy of war trauma.     

The Relationship Between Racial Identity Status Attitudes and Acculturation Among Chinese and Korean Americans: A Criterion Profile Analysis

This study tested the relationship between racial identity and acculturation among 223 Asian Americans self‐identifying as Chinese American or Korean American. Findings showed within‐group variations among the study participants with regard to their racial identity status attitudes and acculturation. Using criterion profile analysis, the authors found 2 distinctive criterion profiles of racial identity status attitudes that significantly related to higher levels of acculturation among Chinese American and Korean American participants. Implications for multicultural counseling, racial identity, and acculturation research are discussed. Este estudio puso a prueba la relación entre identidad racial y aculturación entre 223 individuos asiático‐americanos que se identifican a sí mismos como chino‐americanos o coreano‐americanos. Los resultados mostraron variaciones dentro del miso grupo entre los participantes del estudio en cuanto a su aculturación y sus actitudes hacia el estatus de su identidad racial. Usando un análisis de perfil de criterio, los autores encontraron 2 perfiles de criterio distintivos para las actitudes hacia el estatus de identidad racial que estaban relacionados significativamente con niveles más altos de aculturación entre los participantes chino‐americanos y coreano‐americanos. Se discuten las implicaciones para investigaciones sobre consejería multicultural, identidad racial y aculturación.     

The Constancy of the Stanford-Binet IQ from Three to Five Years

Kindergarten and first-grade children giving nonintentional moral judgments were divided into three equated groups (Ns = 6), in each of two studies. Two groups performed with models (adult or peer) giving intentionality responses, with the third a control. During training, three Ss and three models in a group performing alternately were given social reinforcement for intentionality responses to Piaget-type stories. On an immediate posttest, both training groups in each study showed significant intentionality response gains from pretest and significantly exceeded their control group (ps < .05), while not differing significantly from each other. In study #2, a delayed posttest showed similar training durability for both training groups; both increased nonsignificantly in intentionality responses, continuing to exceed the controls (ps < .05).     

Helping South Asian Immigrant Women Use Resilience Strategies in Healing from Sexual Abuse: A Call for a Culturally Relevant Model

This article calls for the counseling and psychological field to construct a culturally relevant model for working with South Asian immigrant women survivors of sexual abuse to support their resilience and healing. Patriarchal norms of South Asian culture and acculturative stressors in the United States are examined to understand how they influence survivors' abuse experiences. The literature on South Asian women's experiences of intimate partner violence is reviewed in addition to resilience studies with women of color who have survived sexual abuse. Practice and research implications are presented.     

Reading against the grain: female sexuality in classical South Asian Buddhism

Responding to and building upon José Cabezón’s groundbreaking work, Sexuality in Classical South Asian Buddhism (2017), this essay challenges a hermeneutic that capitulates to the androcentrism and misogyny of classical South Asian Buddhist views on female sexuality by suggesting avenues for ‘reading against the grain’ in search of alternative gynocentric views. In particular, it points to glimpses of a female sexuality that is relational, active, and creative in premodern South Asian Buddhist sources, especially vinaya. It also argues that a full and balanced treatment of sexual violence against women is an essential component of any comprehensive study of sexuality in classical South Asian Buddhism.