A Counseling Perspective
Mar. 17th, 2011 02:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
owaranai_natsuOk, so perhaps you may be tired of hearing about this from your flist, because you've heard enough from the media and you're worrying as it is, but I just wanted to share what my class, Multicultural Counseling, has done tonight. We delved into Japanese culture, a little bit of Japanese-American history, and how to apply counseling to their community. In light of what's happened, we were thinking up ways in which we could provide our services, especially in knowing how to debrief someone after a disaster. The sad part about it though, is that there is still very little room to even diagnose post-traumatic stress, since it hasn't ended, and we don't know what's going to happen next.
It seems, we, as a fandom, get a decent glimpse at Japanese culture when we listen to their music, the lyrics they choose to use, the dramas and stories they tell and how they deal with certain issues. Despite thinking that I knew a good deal about the culture, I learned a lot from reading this article: Counseling Japanese Americans.
As a disclaimer, I'd like to say that these are generalizations, and may not be true for every individual.
From the article, we see that, problems arise between the Issei (1st Gen. immigrants) and the Nissei (2nd Gen.), because of clashing values. The Japanese value staying close to their families, providing for the family's needs over the self, respecting and obeying their elders, and working really hard to excel no matter what. It's not that the Americans didn't have these values, but that they valued individuality and being independent from the parents after a certain time.
As more and more generations grew up, some experienced difficulty in fitting in, because of prejudice, the war, not having clear cultural identities -raised in a household that has different values than the rest of the society. Feelings of anxiety, depressing, frustration, and repressed anger would typical cases.
A lot of these issues have carried on into the modern times. People may become more aware of psychology and what counseling/therapy is, but they may still be reluctant to use it.
The Japanese are a collectivist society. If issues arise, they stay within the family. They rarely look outside for help. Psychological or any sort of mental illness is a sign of shame and should not be discussed with other people. They once thought that therapy/counseling were for psychotic people and if a family member were mentally ill, they should be confined.
Some of their emotional and mental pains would show up as physical symptoms, so they would talk to their physician for a solution.
The Japanese community has been a tough community to reach in terms of counseling. They don't really believe in it, they don't want to talk to strangers, they value restraint and find it honorable to face problems by oneself, the concept of gaman. And if they were to get help, would they be spoiled, amea, in a way?
So, these are a couple of issues we have to think about when trying to offer services to Japanese-Americans, or to the Asian-American society in general.
As you can imagine, right now, Japanese-Americans must be facing all kinds of emotions. Perhaps survivor's guilt, not being close to family in times of turmoil as they should be, not knowing if someone is safe, not knowing what to do, just fear, and imagine if they have no one to turn to...
It seems like Asians are focused more on solutions than talking about their feelings, so if we were to devise a plan to help in the disaster relief, the best way is to be aware of the many resources out there available, such as the phone ap for finding missing person, or how Verizon and AT&T are currently offering free long-distance calling to Japan.
For counselors in Japan, they could go volunteer in the community, actually showing they can help.
And we've come up with a really cool idea. Generally, Japanese don't like to talk about their issues in open, so group therapy would not be a good setting. However, for those who have lost loved ones, who have lost their home and support network, it might be good to share in a group -form a new support network. Of course, this has not been tested, so I don't now if the application of it will actually work. I personally don't know how deep trauma affects you, but to keep it in like that would be so hard. Yet, the Japanese are so resilient. Time and again, they've faced things, and they are still standing together, working on what they can instead of focusing on what can't be done.
I've learned a great deal tonight. I know I can't convey everything that we discussed in class, but I hope I've been informative. If you would like more information, below are several related articles:
Intergenerational Relations as an Aspect of Assimilation: the Case of Japanese-Americans.
Helping a Japanese Family Cope With Acculturation Issues: A Case Study.
A website dedicated to Asian American History, Demographics, and Issues.
It seems, we, as a fandom, get a decent glimpse at Japanese culture when we listen to their music, the lyrics they choose to use, the dramas and stories they tell and how they deal with certain issues. Despite thinking that I knew a good deal about the culture, I learned a lot from reading this article: Counseling Japanese Americans.
As a disclaimer, I'd like to say that these are generalizations, and may not be true for every individual.
From the article, we see that, problems arise between the Issei (1st Gen. immigrants) and the Nissei (2nd Gen.), because of clashing values. The Japanese value staying close to their families, providing for the family's needs over the self, respecting and obeying their elders, and working really hard to excel no matter what. It's not that the Americans didn't have these values, but that they valued individuality and being independent from the parents after a certain time.
As more and more generations grew up, some experienced difficulty in fitting in, because of prejudice, the war, not having clear cultural identities -raised in a household that has different values than the rest of the society. Feelings of anxiety, depressing, frustration, and repressed anger would typical cases.
A lot of these issues have carried on into the modern times. People may become more aware of psychology and what counseling/therapy is, but they may still be reluctant to use it.
The Japanese are a collectivist society. If issues arise, they stay within the family. They rarely look outside for help. Psychological or any sort of mental illness is a sign of shame and should not be discussed with other people. They once thought that therapy/counseling were for psychotic people and if a family member were mentally ill, they should be confined.
Some of their emotional and mental pains would show up as physical symptoms, so they would talk to their physician for a solution.
The Japanese community has been a tough community to reach in terms of counseling. They don't really believe in it, they don't want to talk to strangers, they value restraint and find it honorable to face problems by oneself, the concept of gaman. And if they were to get help, would they be spoiled, amea, in a way?
So, these are a couple of issues we have to think about when trying to offer services to Japanese-Americans, or to the Asian-American society in general.
As you can imagine, right now, Japanese-Americans must be facing all kinds of emotions. Perhaps survivor's guilt, not being close to family in times of turmoil as they should be, not knowing if someone is safe, not knowing what to do, just fear, and imagine if they have no one to turn to...
It seems like Asians are focused more on solutions than talking about their feelings, so if we were to devise a plan to help in the disaster relief, the best way is to be aware of the many resources out there available, such as the phone ap for finding missing person, or how Verizon and AT&T are currently offering free long-distance calling to Japan.
For counselors in Japan, they could go volunteer in the community, actually showing they can help.
And we've come up with a really cool idea. Generally, Japanese don't like to talk about their issues in open, so group therapy would not be a good setting. However, for those who have lost loved ones, who have lost their home and support network, it might be good to share in a group -form a new support network. Of course, this has not been tested, so I don't now if the application of it will actually work. I personally don't know how deep trauma affects you, but to keep it in like that would be so hard. Yet, the Japanese are so resilient. Time and again, they've faced things, and they are still standing together, working on what they can instead of focusing on what can't be done.
I've learned a great deal tonight. I know I can't convey everything that we discussed in class, but I hope I've been informative. If you would like more information, below are several related articles:
Intergenerational Relations as an Aspect of Assimilation: the Case of Japanese-Americans.
Helping a Japanese Family Cope With Acculturation Issues: A Case Study.
A website dedicated to Asian American History, Demographics, and Issues.
