Episode Details
According to the U.S. Census 2019, there were an estimated 22.9 million Asian Americans, 1.6 million Native Hawaiians, and other Pacific Islanders (AANHPI), together accounting for 7.2 percent of the nation’s population. The percentage of Asian alone-or-in-combination military veterans in 2021 was 2.4 percent. While the population numbers might seem small, the AANPHI community has also been touched by trauma. Enter EMDR Certified Therapist and Consultant-in-Training Sherry Yam, LCSW, to discuss how EMDR therapy can help to heal members of this community and their collective trauma.
Episode Resources
- EMDRIA Client Brochures
- Focal Point Blog
- EMDRIA EMDR and Diversity, Community and Culture Special Interest Group (SIG)
- EMDRIA Practice Resources
- EMDRIA’s Find an EMDR Therapist Directory lists more than 15,000 EMDR therapists.
- Follow @EMDRIA on X/Twitter. Connect with EMDRIA on Facebook or subscribe to our YouTube Channel.
- EMDRIA Online Membership Communities for EMDR Therapists
Episode Transcript
Kim Howard 00:04
Welcome to the Let’s Talk EMDR podcast brought to you by the EMDR International Association or EMDRIA. I’m your host Kim Howard. In this episode, we are talking with the NBR, certified therapist and a consultant in training Sherry Yam about EMDR therapy and the AANHPI population. Let’s get started. Today we are speaking with EMDR certified therapist and consultant Sherry Yam, to talk about EMDR therapy and the Asian American Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander population. Thank you, Sherry, for being here today. We are so happy that you said yes.
Sherry Yam 00:37
Of course Kim. It’s my pleasure to be here. And thank you for inviting me to join you.
Kim Howard 00:42
Sherry, can you tell us about your path to becoming an EMDR therapist?
Sherry Yam 00:48
Well, I started working as a clinical social worker and I always heard about EMDR in my profession, but I didn’t really experience the benefit of EMDR and is healing power until the campfire in 2018. One of the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in California history. I remember at the time, I was working at a local clinic as a mental health triage social worker. My job was to assess patient’s needs and connect them to appropriate mental health treatments. During that time, it was such an eye opening experience for me to get a taste of disaster work and the negative impacts of a natural disaster. Both individuals and the community very soon realized that the clinic was under resource because many of the staff were also personally impacted by the wildfire. Fortunately, the EMDR humanitarian assistance program hap Trauma Recovery Network reached out to me about the EMDR pro bono services that they offer. So I started to refer my patients and my colleagues for their EMDR sessions. And that was the beginning of my EMDR journey. How was amazed to see that my patients and colleagues were able to function better, they were more resilient. After only a few sessions, they were able to return to work and handle the aftermath of the campfire. Then I started to look into EMDR trigger earnings. And I was thinking, hey, maybe there could be something that I could use to work with the AANHPI veterans who didn’t respond well, with the traditional trauma focused interventions.
Kim Howard 02:39
That’s a good story. Thank you for sharing that. I am very appreciative of any work that a therapy world does for the rest of humanity, including themselves. But I am especially appreciative of anybody who steps in right when a crisis is happening. I feel like that is an extra layer of stress not only on the therapists but also on the people receiving the therapy. So thank you guys for doing all of that early intervention work, and helping people deal with any kind of trauma that they’re having. So we appreciate all the work that you guys do. Sherry, what’s your favorite part of working with EMDR therapy?
Sherry Yam 03:15
That is a great question. I would say my favorite part of working with EMDR therapy is I get to be a part of people’s healing journey and witness their resilience. How awesome is that? Many of the people I worked with lost their hopes to themselves or to the world, they’ve seen the worst of themselves. EMDR therapy gives them hopes that they can feel better about themselves. They can make peace with the past, they can relate to others better, they can improve the quality of their lives that they probably never thought of. It always impresses me that EMDR provides such a gentle way to help heal many of the deep wounds. Although my patients may share similar trauma themes. They all have their unique recovery experiences that humbles me as a human being the effort and the work they put into each session, teach me how strong a human being can be.
Kim Howard 04:21
That’s a good answer. Thank you. What successes have you seen using EMDR therapy with AANHPI population?
Sherry Yam 04:30
I would say two things that stood out to me were identifying the sense of cultural identity and increasing awareness of emotional experiences. I remember there was one case that I worked with, who was an adult child of immigrant parents from The Philippines, because of the uncommon practice to talk about emotions and the language barrier growing up. She struggled with labels Thinking and making sense of her emotional experiences. What worked well in EMDR for her was that she learned to access her emotional experiences through body sensations. Although she had a hard time describing her emotions with words, she was quite aware of her body sensations. One of the reasons was talking about emotions wasn’t part of her parents culture, so she didn’t have many opportunities to practice describing her emotions with words. The buildable part of EMDR is patients can still reprocess their disturbing memories with accessing body sensations, even with limited words to describe the disturbing memories, patients can start to develop vocabularies to label their emotions throughout treatments. In this case, it was extremely helpful when we got to future templates, because the benefit of enabling her emotions helps her communicate her needs with others in a more effective way. EMDR was also able to help her connect the function of her own emotions and the value of her emotional experiences. Without rejecting the parts that weren’t the dominant American culture, she was able to develop and integrate a more balanced way of thinking into her daily life, she had more compassion toward her parents, recognizing that they tried their best to provide a better life for their children as immigrant parents.
Kim Howard 06:38
I can’t imagine uprooting my family and moving to another country where I didn’t speak the language. I didn’t understand the customs or the culture. And I had to learn how to integrate myself into it. I feel like people who do that are so brave, because it takes takes a lot. And I know that people come emigrate to other countries for a lot of different reasons. But in general, for people to do that, that’s a really brave decision. I appreciate all the people out there who have done that my my grandparents immigrated from Italy back in the early 1900s. And so, you know, my family, my mom’s family, at least, you know, dealt with that, you know, more than 100 years ago, but it’s, it’s, it’s very brave. And it’s amazing. And thank you all for doing that. So, and thank you guys for helping people who need the help. Are there any myths that you would like to bust about working with this population?
Sherry Yam 07:34
One thing that I really want to point out is that our society can overlook the AANHPI veteran population. I recently came across a 2012 study, AANHPI veterans reported for mental health and they were less likely to use mental health services, both at the VA and other mental health facility and other veterans. This study extends the existing study on AANHPI in the general population that have found lower rates of mental health service utilization among AANHPI as compared to other race or ethnic groups. According to the 2021, U.S. census, military veteran status report 2.4% identified as Asian Americans, and 6.8% identified as Native Hawaiian, and other Pacific Islander. So if we work with AANHPI veterans and service members, it is crucial to look at the mental health stigma in addition to the military culture, and how we can break down these walls to build our patients trust and walk with them in their recovery journey.
Kim Howard 08:53
My dad was in the in the Army and there is was then and there still is today, unfortunately, a stigma, especially for active duty, about getting any kind of mental health help. And so we know it exists. We can’t necessarily fix the attitude about it, but we can encourage people to go seek help if they need it, if they’re active duty or if they’re veterans or if they’re neither and they just feel like they need some mental health help. You know, there’s nothing wrong with fixing that part of you and helping that part of you heal. So please, please, please, if you feel like you need to do that, please reach out to somebody we have a lot of EMDR therapists in our directory, but you know, please reach out to somebody and get help you need so that you can live the life you want sharing. Are there any specific complexities or difficulties working with this community?
Sherry Yam 09:47
When I work with this community? There are two specific areas that I always keep in mind. One of them after it can you brought it up earlier? Is the immigration the chance generational of trauma, and the other one is the cultural context in communication. When we assess our patient’s unique histories and characteristics related to historical trauma, we can find those so much information to help us identify treatment goals and the treatment approach. Within the AANHPI community, there are different forms of immigration, voluntary immigrants, or people who willingly choose to move to the U.S. in the hopes of better opportunities, such as well paid jobs, or greater political or religious freedom. By assessing the role of acculturation and cultural gaps, we can see how these gaps can have an impact on a maladaptive coping mechanism among adult children of immigrants. On the other hand, refugees are not voluntary immigrants because they are forced to leave their country as a result of civil war or political turmoil. What does that mean? How is this information helpful to working with our patients? I remember that there was one case, the patient’s father was originally from Vietnam, he only speaks Vietnamese. We don’t know what his experience was like, before moving to the US how or when he arrived to the US. We also have a little information on mom’s experience. The Vietnam War ended in 1975, and over 700,000 refugees had escaped to the United States by 1996. Many Vietnamese refugees stayed in refugee camps in Hong Kong, Thailand, prior to arriving to the U.S., which also became a source of trauma with these parents. Oftentimes, adult children of immigrant parents don’t get to hear that side of stories. The second area I look at is the cultural contacts in communication, the low contacts and the high contacts communications. Western countries commonly use the low context communication Asian countries commonly used the high context communication and the low context communication. Direct communication is preferred and respected. This communication values logic, facts and straightforwardness. In the high context, communication, knowledge and experience are not bounded as equal to authority status. In this dialogue communication emphasis is placed on understanding without direct verbal communication. The listener must combine the messages of both the speakers verbal communication and nonverbal behaviors to get the full meaning of the message. Oftentimes, decisions are made based on relationships. Many adult children of immigrant parents that I’ve worked with struggle with finding a balance between these two cultural contexts communications. Oftentimes, they were taught to use the high context communication at home and use the no context communication at school with their peers. This pattern continues to extend to their adult life. For instance, by deciding not staying in abusive marriage means that they embarrassed their parents and their family as a whole. They may be taught that it is disrespectful to speak up or disagree with someone who is older in the family. In EMDR therapy, we can help our patients the the pros and cons in both low and high context communications, and they can increase their communication flexibility to embrace the two communication cultures.
Kim Howard 14:14
Thank you, Sherry. How do you practice cultural humility as an EMDR therapist?
Sherry Yam 14:21
This is such an important question. I practiced regularly I’m always learning. I don’t assume I know it all. And I look at each patient individually. They might share some cultural similarities, but they all have their unique cultural aspects to bring to sessions that shape who they are in the society. When I work with the adult children of immigrants, parents always ask what language they spoke at home going up. Some people will say they spoke English because their parents were fluent in English. Wish, stoma would say they spoke English and their parents would respond back in their native tongue. Then I would ask if there had been times that they found it hard to express their needs, and what it was like for them. I also ask how they couch quality identify themselves. I don’t try to make my patients to teach me about their cultural identity. Instead, I would listen authentically, and work with them to identify their cultural strengths and balance their values and goals.
Kim Howard 15:38
That’s a great, that’s a great approach. Thank you. Sherry, do you have a favorite free EMDR related resource that you would suggest either for the public or other EMDR therapists?
Sherry Yam 15:48
Well, I asked this question for myself as well. I would have to say that there are a lack of resources for practicing EMDR with the AANHPI population out there, I struggle with finding resources myself at times. However, I do want to suggest checking out the EMDRIA Diversity Community and Culture SIG [Special Interest Group]. It provides a platform for therapists to get together share resources that are relevant to use EMDR. In the healing of trauma caused by all forms of oppression. There’s a really great worksheet in the library section called identity, race, and culture interview that often used during phase one in history taking. The worksheet provides helpful questions to assess patients cultural swings and challenges that are important to treatment planning. I found that the questions oftentimes give patients a different perspective or looking at their life experiences, and give them a sense of direction of where they would like to go with their life next.
Kim Howard 17:06
We appreciate the suggestion and the plug for an EMDRIA online community. We we believe that those discussion groups are extremely valuable to our members. So I will definitely put a link to that community in the description of the podcast. Thank you, Sherry. What would you like people outside of the EMDR community to know about EMDR therapy and AANHPI clients?
Sherry Yam 17:31
I would like to say that EMDR is a research supported evidence based treatment studies has shown its effectiveness in working with the NHPI community. And it is recognized by the World Health Organization since 2013. I’ve seen is effectiveness in working with my patients personally, it gives them another treatment option in addition to the traditional talk therapy. Today EMDR is what they use in the U.S. and many parts of Asia. The EMDR Standard Protocol has been translated to many Asian languages. The organization EMDR Asia offers EMDR trainings and annual conferences to support therapists in using EMDR. What I would hope to see more is that there is more field true research on using EMDR with this population in the U.S.
Kim Howard 18:29
Absolutely. Thank you sharing. I’ll put those links as well in the description of the podcast. So Sherry, if you weren’t an EMDR therapist, what would you be?
Sherry Yam 18:39
This is a tough question. If I weren’t an EMDR therapist, I would probably be a professional classical pianist or a piano teacher given to them piano lessons. When I was in college, I started with majoring in classical piano. So, you know, at the time, I didn’t immigrate to the U.S. until I was 19. So my English wasn’t that good at the time. So I thought studying music required less English writing and speaking. But you know, the funny thing was that being a music major actually requires more English communication than some of the other majors. We had her learn how to work with other musicians and get along with each other in music ensembles. We had to learn how to give an introduction of a song and each performance and how to give professional critiques to our peers. And now when I reflect back, that experience as a foundation of how to introduce EMDR therapy to patients and how to listen to their feedbacks, so I can clinically tune into their recovery process and address the complexity cultural challenges, just like music, when the piece is out of tune, your audience is not gonna like it, they have a choice to walk away when working with our EMDR patients, if the session is not tuning in to their needs, they have a choice to stop engaging in treatment.
Kim Howard 20:23
Do you still play sherry?
Sherry Yam 20:25
Yeah, yeah. It’s part of my self care.
Kim Howard 20:29
Oh, that’s really nice. That’s awesome. There’s no wrong answer to that question. I always like to ask it because we, we just kind of like to know a little bit more about the guests that we have on the podcast. And we have had a variety of answers on the podcast, but you are the first, I believe on the podcast who has said that you would be a classical pianist. So that’s a beautiful, beautiful skill to have. And we are grateful that you make music for the world. So thank you. Is there anything else you’d like to add Sherry?
Sherry Yam 20:58
When working with the AANHPI community, patients sometimes find it helpful to work with EMDR therapists who will also identify as part of the community. However, patients might not always have the luxury to access that, especially if they live in a rural areas or they need an EMDR therapist who is trained to work with certain specialties. I would say it is absolutely okay to work with them. Even though you identify as other race or ethnic groups. We don’t have to know it all. You can consult with your colleagues, you can take trainings, you can join an online community group. For those who are listening, I want you to know that every one of you is a gift for our patients. Your offer a sense of hope, walk with them in their healing journey, to have so much to offer in our EMDR community.
Kim Howard 21:57
That is well said Sherry And that is a great word in the podcast. Thank you.
Sherry Yam 22:01
Thank you for having me.
Kim Howard 22:03
This has been the Let’s Talk EMDR podcast with our guest Sherry Yam. Visit www.emdria.org for more information about EMDR therapy, or to use our Find an EMDR Therapist Directory with more than 15,000 therapists available. Like what you hear, make sure you subscribe to this free podcast wherever you listen.
Date
March 15, 2024
Guest(s)
Sherry Yam
Producer/Host
Kim Howard
Series
3
Episode
6
Client Population
Racial/Cultural/Ethnic Groups
Extent
22 minutes
Publisher
EMDR International Association
Rights
©️ 2024 EMDR International Association
APA Citation
Howard, K. (Host). (2024, March 15). EMDR Therapy and American Asian, Native Hawaiian & Pacific Islander Population with Sherry Yam (Season 3, No. 6) [Audio podcast episode]. In Let’s Talk EMDR podcast. EMDR International Association. https://www.emdria.org/letstalkemdrpodcast/
Audience
EMDR Therapists, General/Public, Other Mental Health Professionals
Language
English
Content Type
Podcast
Original Source
Let's Talk EMDR podcast
Access Type
Open Access