Week 6 Anna De Villa

Anna De Villa
A03

Of the articles for this week, Katherine Kam’s “On Some Campuses, a Focus on Asian American Mental Health” resonated with me the strongest. I could identify strongly with the way the pressure affected the students they are under to succeed. The most unfortunate part is that the students would often put the pressure on themselves. The need to make their parents proud and make their sacrifices for their children worth it caused more trouble than it should for these students. There is a fine line that students first and second generation students have to walk that makes them balance between what they want to do and what would be appropriate to pay their parents back. I think it is also fostered by the idea floating around that humanities or liberal arts majors are not as useful as STEM majors because of the perceived stability of doctors and engineers and other STEM careers. I find it so important for people like those in the article to tell these students under pressure that it is okay to not follow the stereotypical path. Even though I myself am in a STEM major, I appreciate how much stress we are put under. It’s unfair how no matter which path someone chooses, they are likely to experience debilitating stress that causes real illness.

Ethan Watters’ piece “The Americanization of Mental Illness” also caught my attention because it was a completely new perspective for me to read. I believed that mental illness was both a chemical imbalance and an emotional or physical trauma, but I did not realize those causes could be separate and could affect how other perceive those with mental illness. I think that by acknowledging that someone is not broken from a trauma or disorder we will have a better attitude with less bias about treating these people.

Question: Why do we allow mental health to define or dismiss someone?

References:

Akana, A. [Anna Akana]. (2016, August 4). My experience with antidepressants. [vVideo File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-whc6Mmlug.

Kam, K. (2013, September 13). On Some Campuses, A Focus on Asian American Mental Health. New American Media.

Watters, E. (2010, January 10). The Americanization of Mental Illness. The New York Times. 

Week 6 - Anna Yang

Anna Yang
Week 6
ASA Sec 2

“On Some College Campuses, A Focus On Asian American Mental Health” by New American Media, it discusses the mental and health issues that Asian-Americans often face due to being a “model minority” and feeling academic pressures by their family. Furthermore, Asian American college students are at an increased risk for depression, and college counselors have noted that many are extremely reluctant to seek help. Because of this, many have committed suicide.

This article resonated with me a lot because both my brother and my sister attended Lowell High School. In San Francisco, Lowell High School is a prestigious school where students heavily focus on academics. While my brother and sister attended school there, I remembered all-nighters and late night cramming that they had to stay up for to finish the workload assigned to them. Taking multiple AP classes on top of balancing club activities, they were highly stressed. Though my parents did not push my siblings that hard to get good grades, they did mention to work hard. Instead, this made my brother and sister stress upon themselves to get good grades and would often feel disappointed if they got anything less than an A-. Knowing how both my siblings were doing mentally at Lowell High School, I still felt a sense of pressure to apply to attend the high school. However, I did not get in. After that, I felt disappointed in myself and believed that I was not academically as smart as them. This, in turn, affected me mentally because I was always being compared to them and never felt like I had a sense of direction in my life.


Question: How can we stop academic pressures among Asian-Americans?





References :

New America Media. "On Some College Campuses, A Focus on Mental Health." N.P., 13 Sept. 2013. Web. 5 May 2017.

Asian American Students Have Strong Academic Support – But Is It Too Much? |. (n.d.). Retrieved May 05, 2017, from http://steinhardt.nyu.edu/site/ataglance/2017/03/asian-american-students.html

Week 6: Jasmine Vu

Thao-Nhi “Jasmine” Vu

A02

Week 6: Pathologizing of Asian Americans and the Americanization of Mental Illness and Other

My sister is diagnosed with ADHD, depression, and anxiety. It started with my mother and a DSM-V; now, she’s on an ever-changing laundry list of pills meant to make her “better”. Make her “healthy”. Let her “do well”. My parents, Viet refugees with lingering faith in the Western world for salvation, espouse to her that it’ll be the medicine that helps. When she’s upset or acts out, the first thing my dad asks is, “Have you taken your medication?” My parents rely on my sister’s pills more than she does; meanwhile, my sister texts me, and it’s all the same: she’s tired, she’s sluggish, she can’t focus. At times, she tells me she feels like she can’t recognize anything really, only “shapes and figures”. My mom’s had her medications switched several times in the past few months; she’s constantly adjusting and readjusting. Where is her healing? How is this making her better?

This week’s readings deal with the topic of Asian Americans and mental health. No, we don’t have higher suicide rates. We’re under just as much stress as any other ethnicity; why are we scapegoated as “victims” to mental illness? The reason is twofold. First, Western view of mental health is that it is dealt with using medication and therapy. To be “culturally sensitive”, they good-heartedly train their psychiatrists to be open-minded and learn to adapt to the attitudes of Asian Americans. However, this is what Ethan Watters warns against in his article The Americanization of Mental Illness: in our eagerness to help, we overlook the existing manifestations of mental illness and their treatments in other cultures.

If the problem is in mentality, and mentality is shaped by culture, does it not make sense that mental problems with present themselves differently in different cultures? Consequently, should the treatments not be different? As Watters writes, “the expectations and beliefs of the sufferer shape their suffering”. As I read this, I remembered learning about dance mania in a class winter quarter, which had happened exclusively in Europe from 1300-1600. Why had issues like this phased out? Because of shifts in culture! If we continue our Western → Eastern education of mental “illness” and medication being the end-all, we damage how people already cope and seek help. It can also affect how we perceive them. If we see the issue as more of a disease, we tend to pathologize the individual and actually treat them as lesser. Before my sister was medicated, my parents would try and talk to her to understand problems; now, they just ask her if she’s taken her medicine. Science and technology are not culture-blind.

My question is, how do we maintain these culture-specific treatments and ideas abroad? Unlike transnationalism, you can’t really go back to your secondary country and have your mentality adjust.

For further reference on how other cultures view mental health and illnesses, I've included a short documentary which includes experience of indigenous peoples in North America. Around the 13:00 mark, they begin discussing how to fill the "void" left by mental health experiences by replacing it with cultural experiences and traditions.

Resources

1. Watters, E. (2010). The Americanization of Mental Illness. The New York Times.
2. Echo-Hawk, H. (2011). Culture Matters: Indigenous Perspectives on Behavioral Healthcare. Washington: Wide Angle Studios

Week 6 - Rachel Wong

Rachel Wong

ASA 2- A02

Week 6 

"On Some College Campuses, A Focus on Asian American Mental Health" by New American Media discusses how Asian-Americans are more susceptible to mental health issues, such as depression, than other ethnic groups, due to model minority pressures and high family expectations. They also have a considerably higher suicide rates, compared to other ethnic groups, which is unfortunate.

Attending a prestigious high school with predominately Asian-Americans, I have first-hand experience with Asian-American students with pressures for high grades from their families. My school, Lowell High School, also had a particularly high suicide rate, when compared to other San Francisco high schools. On a daily basis, students were often stressed over tests and grades, mainly due to family pressures on succeeding in school. I remember during my senior year, many of my schoolmates were extremely stressed about SAT scores, college admissions, and grades. Many of classmates often joined clubs and sports to just to put on their college application, rather than for enjoyment.

It is also unfortunate that Asian-American students tend to withhold from seeking treatment for their mental health issues. Because Asian culture often has a stigma against individuals with mental issue, Asian-Americans often shy away from addressing mental health issues. For example, my Chinese family, especially my grandparents, tend to perceive mental health issues as a weakness. I think because many Asian cultures prioritize the importance of success, they see mental health issues as a barrier to that success.

Question: How can the Asian-American community take steps to end the stigma of mental illness?

Citations:
New America Media. "On Some College Campuses, A Focus on Mental Health." N.p., 13 Sept. 2013. Web. 5 May 2017.

Wang, Z. (Director). (2017, March 11). Asian American Mental Health | End the Stigma (Short Film PSA) [Video file]. Retrieved May 5, 2017, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46Z1bRbeW3I

Week 6 / Melanie Manuel / A03

Week 6 / Melanie Manuel / A03

Both Ethan Watters' "The Americanization of Mental Illness" and New America Media's "On Some College Campuses, A Focus on Asian American Mental Health" provide interesting insight on the stigmatization of mental health. These texts struck me out of the other readings because there was information I both knew and didn't know upon reading.

Watters (2010) writes "When these scientific advances are translated into popular belief and cultural stories, they are often stripped of the complexity of the science and become comically insubstantial narratives." This alone struck me from something Professor Valverde mentioned in class about the use of "big words" in order to explain a concept. When you try to convey a certain message in scientific jargon instead of modern day colloquialism, then you most certainly run the risk of losing the same weight and meaning of your intended tale. This is definitely to say that 'dumbing things down' is beneficial for everyone because if this message is to the people then why is it only targeting a specific group that can understand it?

Another quote that struck me, this time from the News America Media (2013) article was the following: “They don’t want to let anybody down. They don’t want their family to worry, or they don’t think their family is going to understand,” This right here is my own worry because sometimes my own mental health just isn't up to par with everyone else's. And many people my age feel the same way -- they think their families won't understand. In some cases, they will. But other cases, I've seen peers stigmatized for coming out as depressed or anxious; even worse, they'll even be ostracized as the odd one out because there's this incessant need to be neurotypical in Asian households. Although being neurotypical might just be a myth, there is this culture of "normalcy" that is prevalent in households because mental illness is like a plague. It's not welcomed.

I personally think it's great that we're actually discussing mental health, because more often than not it's very taboo. This YouTuber in particular, Akana (2016) is very open about her depression and what it's like to face it. Sometimes she even jokes about it. And I think that if she can express what it's like to have depression and how she's trying to treat it as plainly as she does, then we should have no problem talking about it without so much stigma pertaining to it.

References:

Akana, A. (2016, April 21). I'm going on antidepressants [Video file]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/aSfT3qvTTKAOn Some College Campuses, A Focus On Asian American Mental Health. (2013, September 11). News America Media. Retrieved from http://newamericamedia.org/2013/09/on-some-college-campuses-a-focus-on-asian-american-mental-health.php

Watters, E. (2010, January 8). The Americanization of Mental Illness. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/10/magazine/10psyche-t.html

Questions:
In what ways can we approach mental illness without "Americanizing" it and without overlooking it? Would it actually be helpful for everyone to go through mental assessments as a norm so it isn't seen as something so 'foreign' or 'wrong'?

Week 6 - Anika Troeger - A03

Anika Troeger

ASA 002

Section 3

Week 6: Pathologizing of Asian Americans and the Americanization of Mental Illness and Other

Harms to Humans

In “The Americanization of Mental Illness”, I found that Ethan Watters makes an interesting point - the Western view of mental illness can have a strong, and possibly negative effect on mental health in other countries. Western views on mental illness are seen as the “correct” view towards mental health. That is, mental illnesses are a result of abnormalities in the brain, chemical imbalances, brain disease, or genetic/inherited factors. Many believe in this definition of mental illness, and it would be incorrect to call it false due to scientific evidence. However, it would also be incorrect to discredit other cultures’ ways to treat mental illness. Who has the right to say which culture is correct or incorrect? As stated in the article, countries with the “best” technologies have patients who are “the most troubled and socially marginalized”,  while countries with less technology and scientific resources have patients who are better off on average.

One of the reasons why Western countries have worse outcomes might be due to Western beliefs about a person’s sense of self. Westerners believe that a person’s sense of self comes from the brain, and when this brain is considered to be damaged, wouldn’t that person be theoretically “damaged”? Westerners also believe that they have control of their own circumstances and are not affected by outside influences, and may be unintentionally blaming their illnesses on the person and not the circumstance. People with mental illness are also shunned in today’s Western society. Homeless people who are shouting in distress are ignored by a majority of the populace and people with severe mental illnesses are locked up in facilities for most of their lives. In other countries, people with mental illnesses are still welcomed into society, as other cultures believe that they are more prone to outside influence and are less likely to blame the person directly.

Other cultures have solutions for mental illnesses, and even though their solutions are not supported by our research, they are still known to work and should not be discredited. Western society should be more open to other possible solutions for our problems, as they have proven to be more effective than ours at times, and all cultures should be respected.

Question: What are ways to alleviate mental illnesses in other countries?

References:

1. Watters, E. (2010). The Americanization of Mental Illness. The New York Times.
2. Davis, J. (2015). The Shamanic View of Mental Health. [Digital Image]. Retrieved from http://upliftconnect.com/shamanic-view-of-mental-health/

Week 6: Annie Deng, A01

Annie Deng
Section A01
Week 6

     Mental illness is being defined in a more broader and general way. The degrees to how people react to mental distress are considered when diagnosing mental disorders, but people are now expanding the boundaries used to diagnoses these illnesses (Wasserman, T., & Wasserman, 2016). Suddenly, mental health and mental illness is becoming a new rising phenomenon. People are being fed with new information. Therefore, more people are consciously or subconsciously being diagnosed with all sorts of mental illnesses like depression, anxiety, and OCD. Honestly, the problem lies in the over-medicalization of mental illnesses. Organizations, corporations, and big industries ultimately want to make profit, so categorizing everyday stresses and struggles as an illness will make a huge population considered to be "mentally ill," attracting more patients to treat. I also learned in my psychology class that there are several categories of mental disorders and then there were sub-disorders. I questioned all these categories because the over-medicalization practically assumes nearly everyone has some sort of mental illness, which cannot be right. Something that used to affect a small portion of the world is now suddenly dominating a huge part of it. Distress and suffering is now being accepted as a norm for medically diagnosed illnesses. Society has started to corporatize even mental health when it is not even necessary. 

I also found it intriguing when people reacted negatively to patients who had a mental disorder due to biological problems and how people reacted better to patients who had a mental disorder because of something that happened to them in the past. It made me wonder how there will always be differing perspectives on how people see mental illness. 

      Western globalization of mental health has also affected many cultures and the way everyone perceives mental illness. Because of this spread of western knowledge, more people are constantly being diagnosed as mentally ill. As the world is exposed to the conventional western diagnostics of mental illness, people are subconsciously developing mental disorders. The americanization of mental illness is spreading rapidly, making the world believe that western knowledge holds all the right truths. It is almost like western mental imperialism. 

Question: Why are we creating a system that increasingly manifests mental illnesses instead of actually focusing on how to truly heal the minds of people?



References

• On Some College Campuses, A Focus On Asian American Mental Health. (2013, September 11). News America Media. Retrieved from http://newamericamedia.org/2013/09/on-some-college-campuses-a-focus-on-asian-american-mental-health.php
• Wasserman, T., & Wasserman, L. D. (2016). Depathologizing psychopathology: the neuroscience of mental illness and its treatment. Switzerland: Springer.
• Watters, E. (2010, January 8). The Americanization of Mental Illness. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/10/magazine/10psyche-t.html
• Watters, E. Crazy Like Us. Digital image. N.p., 12 Jan. 2010. Web.