Features Overview
South Asians in Therapy: Challenging Norms and Taboos
AARTI VIRANI
Aiza Ahmad for The Juggernaut
When writer and filmmaker Pulkit lost his father to COVID-19 after he also contracted the virus, he struggled with the aftermath. “People often associate grief and trauma with just emotional impact. But the body suffers it equally, too,” the 35-year-old, who chose to disclose just his first name, shared in a candid Instagram confession this past spring. Pulkit’s anguish was only compounded by certain friends and family members, who encouraged him to keep it together. “I had people tell me not to cry and stay strong,” he told The Juggernaut. “Why is there this societal expectation among South Asians, and South Asian men in particular?” he wondered. “It really infuriated me,” he added, revealing that ultimately, he opted for professional mental help to help navigate the devastation.
Pulkit, who lives in New York but is currently based in New Delhi, represents a slice of the South Asian diaspora that is increasingly comfortable seeking mental health services. About a decade ago, South Asians in the U.S. had a greater stigmatoward mental illness than any other minority group, according to the non-profit South Asian Public Health Association, while an international study from 2019 reflected that South Asian immigrants experience high rates of mental health disorders that go unaddressed. It’s an idea comedian Hasan Minhaj presented on a 2019 episode of the Patriot Act. “Mental health isn’t a thing for us,” he deadpanned. “One time I told my dad I was feeling sad and he was like, drink water and pray.” Undoubtedly, there are disturbing links between model minority pressure and psychological well-being — there is an expectation to be excellent at all times.
While cultural pride may have thwarted first-generation immigrants from accessing mental health care in the past, a younger wave of South Asian Americans, emboldened by supportive digital communities and a nationwide shift towards embracing authenticity, is slowly altering those trends. And much like the kaleidoscopic South Asian American community itself, the mental health care pathways they choose are anything but uniform.
September 22, 2021
Polyvagal-Informed Therapy
From a polyvagal perspective, a key goal of therapy is to help the client find ways to move out of a dysregulated state—either a numbed-out “dorsal vagal” state or a hyperaroused “sympathetic” one—and return to “ventral vagal,” the biological seat of safety and connectedness. And because we can change our dominant life story only from a place of ventral vagal, it’s crucial for both therapist and client to be able to accurately identify the state of their own nervous systems at any point in time—both in the therapy session and out in the wider world. Only when individuals are able to recognize their location on the polyvagal map can they begin the journey back to calm and connection.
Notice that I said both therapist and client must become aware of their autonomic states. That’s because emotional healing can only take place when clinician and client establish a trusting nervous-system-to-nervous-system connection. Subconsciously, clients are continually picking up subtle cues from their therapist via tone of voice, eye contact, body postures, and facial expressions, from a slightly wrinkled brow to a particular movement of a hand. Throughout the session, clients are constantly reacting to these signals with sympathetic activation, dorsal shutdown, or ventral openness and trust. So from a polyvagal perspective, healing client–therapist relationships require therapists to know their own ANS and learn how to regulate it in the moment, in the midst of any session.
Happiness chemicals and how to hack them
by Dr Gill Walker
Why we refuse feelings
Painful truth: Many out there are practicing emotional avoidance and calling it ‘Positive Mindset.’ Here’s the ugly truth … You cannot ‘positive think’ your way out of something. You need to calm the nervous system and process the emotions in the body, then you can work on restructuring your brain to build resilience in order to generate positive thoughts when needed. Do you know how to calm your nervous system? Do you know how to regulate your emotions? Do you know how to process and sort out your thoughts that run at 200kmh? That is one of the reasons people seek therapists’ help, it has nothing to do with mental illness. Psychotherapy is about changing and remoulding the brain’s structure. Remember: It’s tempting to ignore what you don’t want to deal with, but ignoring won’t improve things. You cannot change what you refuse to confront.
- Jasmine Badge