下面为大家整理一篇优秀的assignment代写范文- Mental Health Issues among Asian International Students in the USA,供大家参考学习,这篇论文讨论了美国亚裔留学生心理健康问题。在美国,亚裔留学生的心理健康问题引起了社会的极大关注,因为如今与他们有关的谋杀和自杀案件正在上升。这些留学生在面对经济压力、文化鸿沟、和社会认同中受挫,从而造成严重的心理健康问题。一个两难的问题是,这些学生不愿意寻求帮助,当他们真正遇到心理危机的时候,也没有意识到危险,直到最坏的情况发生。另一个原因是他们对心理咨询有不同的态度,甚至对此也有疑问。
Introduction
The mental health of Asian international students in the US have captured great concern in the society as the cases of the murder, injury or suicidal cases related to them are rising nowadays. These students have to deal with financial pressure, cultural divide, marginalization and the loss of social identity, resulting in severe mental health problems. A dilemma is that these students are reluctant to seek help when they are truly in psychological crisis, for not aware of the danger of mental crisis until the worst situation happen. Another reason is that they have different attitude towards psychological counseling and even they have doubt to it.
In order to solve this problem, preventing the international students from being isolated and hopeless, the university and college should provide a practical training program for those international students in cultural transition. Besides, a training program of psychological counseling is also recommended, with a practical goal to raise the cultural awareness of the psychological staff.
Cultural Shock
“It has been well documented that international students experience a variety of challenges such as culture shock, isolation and homesickness, language-related
difficulties, acculturative stress, and discrimination” (Arthur, 2004; Mori, 2000) The most prominent area lies in cultural shock, and there are 5 stages for international students to go through it. The first stage is honey moon, the initial pleasant emotions in an exotic country; the second is crisis, which means the frustration or hostility from the host country due to cultural differences and problems; the third is to recover from crisis by self-improvement; and the forth is to fully adjust themselves in the new environment and make them as a member of the society. (Cheng, 2013)
The mental problem of Asian international students indicates that they are at the second stage, the crisis. And understanding different cultural values will be helpful in dealing with their mental problems. “Asians tend to view their personality as a flexible entity (Triandis, 2001) and place value in the ability to accommodate oneself to the demands of a social context” (Markus & Kitayama, 1991) and Asian culture “emphasizes sacrifice for the communal goals, and deference to the authority within the group” (Park-Saltzman, Wada, Mogami, 2012) In other words, Asians are inclined to hide their own thoughts to the outside and refrain from showing the authentic desire of their heart, as showing an initiative may seem rather inappropriate in Asian society. As such, many Asian students are too refrained to call for help when they are in emotional crisis. Take Yaolin Wang’s case as an example, a Chinese students studying in Seattle murdered by her ex-boyfriend, when suffered from both severe physical trauma and mental disorder, the American value made her to seek assistance, while “her roommate (Asians) discouraged her repeatedly whenever she expressed a desire to call the police” (Zhang, 2016), leading to her ultimate death. Moreover, “activists have long felt frustrated that physical, emotional and psychological abuse is seen as secondary to sexual assault, unless a student is seriously injured or killed.” (Baker, 2015) In this regard, campuses should attach great importance to the emotional and psychological abuse in mental problems of international students.
Isolation
Apart from different cultural values, being isolated is also counted as a major reason for international students not seeking mental assistance when they are in psychological dilemma. “The feelings of isolation that come from being an ‘outsider’ (Mittal & Wieling, 2006) based on their nationality may be further aggravated by xenophobia in the United States that even treats U.S.-born Asians as ‘perpetual foreigners’” (Lee, Wong, & Alvarez, 2009, p.79) As the American society is majored by the protestants and Caucasian, unlike the powerful presence of African Americans who have fought for their rights through arduous efforts, or the large population of Latino Americans, Asians in the US seem to capture less attention and they are excluded in the mainstream society. To some extent, Asians are geographically away from their homeland but still establishing a mentally closed connection to it.
Besides, from the perspective of cultural identity, “for a world of travelers…home comes to be found in a repetition of habitual social interactions” (Rapport 1994), “those who adapt more quickly may be the ones who are most able to carry their own worlds with them” (Bradley 2000). In other words, the Asian international students who are failed to get used to the new environment have to suffer from isolation, as they are exposed to a completely new area with the foreign language weakness. The everyday life of the local college students seems to be a great adventure to Asian international students, from how to write a qualified research paper to get the nuances of meaning in a joke. As Asian students are private and reserved due to a lack of confidence, they feel even harder to express their inner world in the second language when they have mental problems. Except for a few outgoing students, most Asian students are inclined to get together in their own coterie speaking native language.
Another reason for their isolation is their complacency to live in their own world, regarding the major social events as not worthy of serious consideration. Such indifferent attitude makes them hard to win the respect from the American counterparts. To a certain degree, the Asian students are both actively and passively going for isolation which makes them reluctant to seek assistance during mental disorder.
Methodology
Since the reasons are discussed, here comes to the solutions. As Asian international students have so many reasons for not to counsel, then the first method is to get them in the counseling center whey they have mental problems. In this regard, a psychological training program is preferable when international students are new in the university, in the period of cultural transition. They should be well-informed by the knowledge of psychological problems resulted from sexual or non sexual assault, physical or mental abuse, and the most important issue is to teach them to get rid of the prejudice of psychological consultation, as many of them regard it as a shame to admit their incapability to deal with social problems.
Apart from this, a training program of psychological counseling is recommended, with a practical goal to raise the cultural awareness of the psychological staff. “The practicum component of counseling psychology training requires a high level of English proficiency (Ng, 2006; Nilsson & Anderson, 2004; Wedding, McCartney, & Currey, 2009), a deep level of understanding of intricate nuances of cultural norms and values, and a comprehensive level of knowledge of the history and sociopolical and realities of various groups in the host country” (Inman et al., 2008)
However, some people may argue that it “may not be feasible or appropriate to train staff to acquire awareness of the endless range of specific cultural indicators” (Lago, 1992). On one hand, it is impossible for the psychological mentors to grasp the intricacy of all the targeted countries. Without actual living experience, mentors can hardly gain the essence of cultural divide during the conversation with students. On the other hand, even though they have a grasp on cultural assumptions, “such approach could be seen as confusing since cultures are no longer homogenous and it may result in unhelpful cultural stereotyping” (Kember and Gow 1991).
This view seems convincing at first, but it suffers from a flaw in reasoning. It is true that mentors are not possible to understand the cultural divide of all the targeted countries, but the goal of the training is to “develop an international, global identity, which is for most institutions of higher education an essential part of their corporate strategies.” (Bradley, 2000) This indicates that the psychological mentors are learning how to gain the global identity rather than being affected by cultural stereotype; it is a gesture of welcoming foreign cultures rather than rejecting heterogeneous cultures. As Asian international students tend to discuss their mental problems with those who of similar cultural background, mentors with a wide range of cultural knowledge can gain the trust of the students, which help establish a less stressful relationship between them.
Conclusion
The reasons for the reluctance of the Asian international students seeking mental assistance can be vary, from the cultural shock to isolation, from the ignorance of psychological knowledge to the fear of losing face. Now the importance of international students’ mental health cannot be neglected, as it has already evoked many tragedies in recent years. Asian international students, the vulnerable group in the host country, should learn to be a part of the new environment by participating in the activities of the society. And the universities should provide training for them in terms of the psychological knowledge. Meanwhile, the psychological staff should be trained to have different cultural awareness so as to establish friendly relations with the international students.
In essence, such efforts from universities and psychological counsel center need to be sustained in order to evade the marginalization of Asian international students. And those students should learn how to take the initiative when mental crisis happen. This is a social issue that needs the concern of the whole society. I believe the tragedy of Yaolin Wang will be reduced in the future.
Works Cited
Arthur, N. (2004). Counseling international students: Clients from around the world New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum.
Baker, K. (2015) Domestic Violence On Campus Is The Next Big College Controversy
Bradley, G. (2000) Responding effectively to the mental health needs of international students, from Higher Education, Vol.39, No.4 (Jun., 2000), pp. 417-433, Published by: Springer
Cheng, J. (2013) International Students: Addressing Barriers to Successful Transition
The Center for Mental Health in Schools at UCLA, p.3
Inman, A.G., Jeong, J.Y., & Mori, Y. (2008) Benefits and challenges of studying psychology in the Unites States, Studying psychology in the United States: Expert guidance for international students (pp. 25-35). Washington, DC: American psychological Association.
Kember, D. and Gow, L. (1991) ‘A challenge to the anecdotal stereotype of the Asian Student’, Studies in Higher Education 16, 117-128
Lago, C. (1992) Some complexities in counseling international students, Journal of International Education 3 (1), 21-34
Lee, S.I., Wong, N.-W. A., & Alvarez, A.N. (2009). The model minority and the perpetual foreigner: Stereotypes of Asian Americans. In N. Tewari &A.N.Alvarez (Eds.), Asian American psychology: Current perspectives (pp.60-84). New York: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Markus, H. R., & Kitayama, S. (1991). Culture and the self: Implications for cognition, emotion, and motivation. Psychological Review, 98, 224-253
Mittal, M., & Wieling, E. (2006). Training experiences of international doctoral students in marriage and family therapy. Journal of Marital & Family Therapy, 32, 369-383.
Ng, K.-M (2006). Counselor educators’ perceptions of and experiences with international students. International Journal for the Advancement of Couselling, 28, 1-19.
Park-Saltzman,J & Wada. K, & Mogami, T. (2012) Culturally Sensitive Mentoring for Asian International Students in Counseling Psychcology. The Counseling Psychologist
Triandis, H.C. (2001). Individualism-collectivism and personality. Journal of Personality, 69, 907-924
Rapport, N. (1994) ‘Busted for hash: Common catchwords and individual identities in a Canadian city’, in Amit-Talai, V. and Lustiger-Thaler, H. (eds.), Urban Lives Fragmentation and Resistance. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart.
Wedding, D., McCartney, J.L., & Currey, D.E. (2009). Lessons relevant to psychologists who serve as mentors for international students. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 40, 189-193
Zhang, T. (2015) Yaolin Wang’s Friend.
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