By Dr. Xiaoduo Fan
Several years ago when I was practicing psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital, I noticed a pattern among the patients who came to see me – while I saw Asian patients in the ER or in an inpatient setting, rarely did I see them in an outpatient setting. When my team of researchers and I looked into this further, we found that in 2009 at MGH, non-Hispanic whites were more than twice as likely to be diagnosed with mental health disorders than Asian Americans, and also twice as likely to receive medication when they had a diagnosis.
I worked to establish the UMass Chinese Mental Health Program in 2013 with the goal of building sustainable academic collaborations between mental health professionals in the United States and China. In addition to our initiatives abroad, we also have an Asian Mental Health Consultation Service in Worcester, Mass. However, I knew for a while that I wanted to do something more to engage my community. Even if I can treat patients in my clinic, many of them continued to suffer due to the high levels of stigma in their communities.
On July 15 of this year, we launched our new initiative心怡HARMONIOUS to bring culturally those who are frequently left out of these conversations. In these spaces, this mental health stigma presents significant barriers to accessing important professional services and taking the first step on the journey to recovery. This stigma can also make it almost impossible for families to talk about mental health together. We believe that our bilingual, culturally-specific, community-focused approach will let us address these problems.
We thus aim to create an online resource for people of Chinese heritage to share information, highlight local services, and also provide a space for individuals to share stories, recordings, artwork, and other media about their personal mental health experiences. We want people to understand that these are real experiences from real individuals right in their own backyards. Our hope is that translating and amplifying these stories and lived experiences will encourage more of our community to realize that mental health is real, that help exists, and that we can talk about it instead of suffering in silence.
At this time, we are pleased to be partnering with Sampan to extend our reach further and work more closely with our community. Through this new column, we will continue to share valuable information, resources, and stories of real people who may be right in your neighborhoods. We also invite you to share your personal mental health stories with us. You can use the anonymous form below or email us directly at contact@projectharmonious.org. We are offering different degrees of anonymity if anyone feels uncomfortable sharing personal details. Together, we will make a difference in our communities.
To obtain a submission form: http://projectharmonious.org/share/ Website: projectharmonious.org or scan QR Code WeChat公众号: 心怡HARMONIOUS