Using Psychosocial Approaches to Working with Asian American Youth at Clinical High Risk for Psychosis

Asian immigrant families tend to underutilize mental health services, have less favorable help-seeking attitudes than their mainstream counterparts, and terminate services prematurely.Different factors may hinder Asian... [ view full abstract ]

Asian immigrant families tend to underutilize mental health services, have less favorable help-seeking attitudes than their mainstream counterparts, and terminate services prematurely.

Different factors may hinder Asian immigrant families from seeking help for their child in a

timely and consistent manner. First, stigma has been shown to interfere with help-seeking

for families of young people with psychotic symptoms. In Asian culture, seeking mental health services is often regarded as a violation of Asian family hierarchy as it indicates family inadequacy and a loss of “face”. For these reasons, great effort is made to contain the illness within the family for as long as possible. Consequently, mental health stigma is considered a strong predictor of delay in the help-seeking process among many Asian immigrant families. It is important to note, however, within-group differences such as acculturation level that affect views on mental health and its treatment. Asian immigrants who are more acculturated to the Western culture tend to be more tolerant of the stigma associated with psychological help, and are more open to discussing their problems with a mental health professional.

This presentation involves the following components with the illustration of a clinical case: 1) Introducing Asian immigrant cultural beliefs of mental illnesses and barriers to clinical services, 2) Presenting the clinical high risk for psychosis context in an Asian American family,  their help-seeking behavior, barriers to services and motivating factors to services, 3) using culturally sensitive psychosocial approaches to working with an Asian American family, who has an adolescent showing subclinical psychotic symptoms, 4) Summarizing the clinical implications and guidelines of working with Asian immigrants in different countries.