Asian American Values

Personally, I haven’t had the opportunity to have a more direct type of professional interaction with Asian American clients than just having my best friend being from the Philippines. Nevertheless, I found extremely interesting to see that even though I find myself to be very different from Asian American individuals, Dr. Sue provided a clear description of values and beliefs that are actually very similar to my owns.
I have never thought of this before, until today! But my best friend and I have very similar core values. We are extremely different, and might disagree on many different things, but as I was reading this week’s video, I realized that we do share several cultural values. For instance, and as mentioned by Dr. Sue, for Asian American the priority is the family instead of just being independent and autonomous. The importance of honoring and respecting …show more content…
Sue mentioned how we might encounter Asian American clients who might express stress somatically. As he explained, situations like this might actually occur when individuals deal with a lot of stress or because they might feel that they are dishonoring their families. I can actually refer to this as my friend suffered from panic and anxiety attacks after she had to dropout of college. I remember her feeling disappointed and frustrated as she was not being able to meet her parents’ high expectations. At the same time, and although she has having several panic attacks daily, she refused to receive psychotherapy as she related this to individuals who were “weak” and “incapable of dealing with their own responsibilities”. Personally, I feel that this also applies to who I am. It is extremely important for me to not only make my parents happy and proud (although I’m not a little girl anymore), but also to show my own children that their mother is a hard worker and a great professional. Even though, I know that I am not perfect. I strive for perfection, which sometimes has a negative effect on