Abstract:
This qualitative research explores the accounts of self identified Asian mental health professionals (primarily psychologists) in Aotearoa/New Zealand, as they discuss the role culture and ethnicity play in their working lives. What are their experiences of the workplace and profession in relation to ethnic difference and cultural identity? What dilemmas are present for them, and what strategies do they adopt to deal with these? Does cultural difference feature in their practice and work with clients and in what ways? Although there is some international research on the experiences of ethnic minority therapists, there is no equivalent research on Asian psychological practitioners in New Zealand. I conducted 15 individual interviews using a semi-structured interview schedule. Participants were positioned as key informants and the interview transcripts were analysed for the main themes in their discourse. This research has a reflexive dimension as the researcher is a clinical psychology trainee identifying as Hong Kong Chinese who was brought up in New Zealand. Participants noted their own personal strengths and some described the role of supportive others in their experiences of the workplace, as well as more troubling experiences of client and colleague racism and marginalisation. There were few examples of systems of support for Asian professionals or attention to cultural difference in the workplaces. Participants relied on personal strengths and clinical strategies they had developed for processing difficult encounters with clients. In their accounts of their client work, I illustrate the ways in which participants emphasised, minimised or reframed the influence of culture and demonstrate their careful negotiating as they moved in their practice between validating the importance of culture and ethnic difference and avoiding stereotyping, racist assumptions and over-generalisation. For some participants what was most salient were universal or common human experiences and the human-to-human connection, along with the character of the individual person and their particular circumstances. For these participants, culture was framed as secondary to a professional focus and psychological explanations. For other participants, a cultural focus was more to the fore, utilising their cultural background and personal experiences of culture and diversity to understand other cultures, reformulating their understandings of therapy through the lens of culture, and reclaiming Asian and Eastern cultures as an inherent therapeutic resource. I discuss the implications of the findings for developing wider work on cultural skills, dilemmas and strategies in relation to Asian therapists and therapists in general. I also contextualise these accounts in terms of their position as ethnic minorities and as skilled professionals in New Zealand.