Jennie Brooks, host of the Unstoppable Together podcast, talks with Dr. Jenny Wang, a Taiwanese American clinical psychologist, author, and national speaker on Asian American mental health. Tune in as they tackle stigmas to addressing mental health, creating more equitable access to support, and the rise of xenophobia in advance of her new book, Permission to Come Home, released on Tuesday, May 3, 2022.
Jennie Brooks:
Welcome to Booz Allen Hamilton's Unstoppable Together podcast, a series of stories that unite us and empower each of us to change the world. I'm Jennie Brooks with Booz Allen Hamilton, and I'm passionate about diversity, equity and inclusion. Please join me in conversation with the diverse group of thought leaders to explore what makes them and all of us unstoppable.
Welcome to part two of our conversation with Dr. Jenny Wang. If you missed part one, be sure to go back and listen to that episode first. Enjoy.
You've spoken about just some of the inherent stigma around mental health and sort of the barriers that it can essentially create to access for mental health supports for people. When you think about creating more equitable access to mental health to support the API community, what do you envision?
Dr. Jenny Wang:
I think access is a complicated multifaceted issue, right? Because even, let's say, an individual has the resources, they have insurance, they have financial stability to seek out mental health support or therapy or treatment, the stigma alone can be a strong enough barrier to keep people from reaching out. And so, on the one level I'm thinking about, how do we normalize the conversation even about mental health, about difficult emotions, about seeking help so that people don't feel as though there's something wrong with them when they do reach out? And how do we equip them with the kind of easy steps of finding a therapist because that in itself is work?
Jennie Brooks:
Yes.
Dr. Jenny Wang:
Right. For me to find a culturally competent, a culturally humble and reverent therapist who understands my lived experience who can talk about power, privilege and race in the therapy room with me, that might be hard to find. And so people have said to me, "It feels like I'm dating when I'm trying to find a therapist," right. "I try one, it's not a good fit. Then I try another, and I just feel like I'm in this constant loop of trying to find somebody that I can really feel safe with." And so, one of the reasons we developed the Asians For Mental Health Therapists Directory is to help remove some of that work or at least reduce the hardship of it is by saying, "Well, we have a directory where we have self-identified Asian therapists who are able to support you in different states across the United States." Perhaps that's just one less step for an individual.
I think also though, when we talk about access, there are those individuals who do not have insurance coverage, do not have the financial resources. And that's partially why I'm on social media because I have a love-hate relationship with this platform, but that could we democratize mental health such that people have even just small touch points or information that they can start to slowly change some of these thoughts and frameworks even if they don't ever make it into a therapy room.
And so, there are multiple levels when we think about access, right. And some are [inaudible 00:03:39], some are simply regional. There are some states where we do not have an Asian identified therapist in those states. That's really sad to me, right? That somebody in, I don't know, Idaho, maybe seeking a therapist, but there's not anyone who identifies similarly to them that can help them. And so, I think all many different organizations and many professionals are trying to reduce some of those barriers, but there's still so much work left to do. And I think for access, it is an ongoing conversation about what health and access to health looks like in the United States. What does equitable and culturally competent care looks like? There's so many different facets that we can touch on.
Jennie Brooks:
Wow. It would be amazing. We should have a conversation five years from now and see what has happened as a result of your directory and the platforms that you're on, really engaging in this conversation and to be able to look back and say, "Look at the shifts." Won't that be amazing? For those who are listening who might be employers, what else would you offer that they consider in terms of mental health and awareness, how to support those in our API community?
Dr. Jenny Wang:
I do a lot of corporate speaking for different companies, especially for their Asian affinity groups or employee resource groups. And this is one of the biggest questions that comes up is from the employer, leader, manager, director side, how can we best support the Asian American community? And I think the first thing that comes to mind is simply, does your organization offer the psychological safety necessary for your members of marginalized groups to even speak up about what they need?
I recently was on kind of a call with a prominent company. And one of the colleagues had said to me, "We are being asked to go back to work, but we're scared," right. "Because one of the primary ways of getting to work is through the subway. And yet our community is being physically attacked in the subway system," right. Or they're being attacked and yelled at on the street.
And so, we have this confluence of companies trying to shift back into more normalcy, which I understand. And at the same time, the very real fears, the very real threats that Asian Americans are contending with when they leave their homes. And so, what does it look like to create space as an employer for your employees to say, "Hey, we feel stuck. We are scared. And yet we don't want to be viewed as not a team player or difficult or not willing to accommodate the company's transition back into work." But perhaps there is a gray zone that we can work in as an employer, as a leader, and where the employees feel safe and comfortable to go back. And so, I think one of the most powerful things is people even if the solution is not what they hope for, they want to be seen and heard.
And so, can employers allow their employees to feel as though their concerns are at least being acknowledged, heard, taken into account when they make major decisions for the overall company? And can the company also show that they're willing to make accommodations when necessary? That they're not just thinking about always the bottom line, but that they're seeing their employees as human beings, as people who have emotions, struggles and true fears.
I also think that when we think about mental health and how employers play a role in that, we need to think about, do we allow our employees to take days off for mental health, right? Do we give them space to go to therapy, right? Maybe sometimes they need to do it during their lunch hour or taking an hour to do something like going for a walk. These are all things that help support mental health. We know through all this research and yet there's no space and time for those things.
And so, can employers be intentional about giving their employees space and time to reset in the middle of their day or to do things that support their mental health, which we know confers benefits on the corporate level, on the bottom line. When employees are happy and feeling engaged in a state of flow, then their productivity increases. Their innovation increases. All of those things have downstream effects that are positive.
Jennie Brooks:
Wow. You've given us a lot to think about. And we had another expert on one of our previous podcasts who talked about, wouldn't it be great if you can have that conversation at the outset? And then as you move around the company or people on your team move around or your career manager moves around, there's a mechanism that that information follows so that you don't have to have the conversation over and over and over. Again resetting and summoning up the courage to have to address it again.
Lastly, Dr. Jenny, for those who are listening who might be reluctant to seek help for their mental health, particularly, in the state of the world today, with the rise of Asian hate, in particular, what would you offer them? What would you recommend? Simple steps that they can consider taking.
Dr. Jenny Wang:
I would recommend that for people who are perhaps reluctant or in that kind of pre-contemplation stage, where maybe it's crossed their mind that they'd be interested in trying therapy, but they're just not quite yet ready to make contact with a therapist or to reach out for help. I think something just to wonder curiously is, what is it costing you to not seek help? What are you keeping yourself from in the life that you want to be living and not seeking help? And also, I would encourage you maybe just to find one safe person just to be honest with them about how you've been feeling, right. Be a friend, a family member, someone who could just give you the gift of their presence and hold space for you. For you to simply say, "You know what? I've noticed that something doesn't feel right. I'm not quite sure what that is, but I don't feel like I'm in a place of grounding, of thriving, of feeling fully alive in my life. And I'm not really sure what I'm ready to do about it yet, but this is where I'm at."
I think that so many of us, we use avoidance and suppression as short term strategies to manage our mental health difficulties. And what happens is that becomes our long term strategy without us even knowing it. So, many of us, we are not even in tune or in touch with how we're feeling in terms of our mental health. So, sometimes we don't even realize that things have deteriorated to the point that we're no longer right engaging in our lives. We are lacking in motivation. We just want to hide in our bed all day, right. We are not social. We are not doing the things that we love to do. When all of those start to fall away, it increases the isolation and that isolation then breeds all of those negative stories we tell ourselves about who we are.
Jennie Brooks:
Yes, it compounds. It compounds, doesn't it? Yeah.
Dr. Jenny Wang:
Yeah. And so, part of reaching out and just having these vulnerable conversations gives us, one, the experience of empathy from another, which builds connection. It helps us look at the parts of ourselves that we may have been trying to avoid for a very long time. And then three, it also gives us a sense that maybe I don't have to stay this way forever. That maybe there are small steps I could take today to start to change the trajectory of our lives. And I always tell my clients that if we just shift where we're headed by a half a degree and multiply that over years, the trajectory of our lives is so different in 10 years from now. But we have to realize that we don't want to stay the same. We have to be so sick of how things are today to have the motivation to start making that change and taking that small step.
And the last thing I would say is, there's nothing wrong with you, right. Even the things that you do to cope with your life, be it emotional eating, be it some other form of addiction, be it some other thing that society labels as a negative coping strategy, you're trying your best. And so, can you give yourself the compassion to say, "Maybe there are other strategies that I have access to and maybe that might change my life."
Jennie Brooks:
Oh my goodness. I love that. Thank you so much for that. I love the incremental shift strategy because I think we're drawn towards having the perfect day and lining it all up. And if one thing deviates from that, it's terrible, right. But if you just envision the small shifts, incremental shifts as success strategies, that's really powerful. Thank you for that.
Dr. Jenny, at the end of every podcast, we leave our guests some free space. What would you like to leave with our audience today? I don't know if you can talk what you just offered, but go ahead and try.
Dr. Jenny Wang:
When I think about what I would leave, I would like to leave a sense of hope. A hope in what comes next for us, even though sometimes it feels like the world is kind of falling apart. And as a mother to two young kids who will inherit the world that we leave them, I can only hold on to hope as the driving force for what comes next for all of us. And so, I would say that, can we hold hope in human dignity, in collaboration, in empathy that can cross all the divides that seem to separate us as people? And can we just focus on our local spheres of influence? Right. Right now it feels like there's so much going on in the bigger world. And so, it can feel like we are hopeless or powerless in the face of it, but all that we ask is, can you improve the life of one person that is within your reach? That may be your partner, your colleague, your friend, your parent, a local organization. Can you just leave the world a tiny bit better today than it was yesterday? And I think if we can offer that to each other, think about what we can accomplish together.
Jennie Brooks:
Thank you, Dr. Jenny.
Dr. Jenny Wang:
Thank you so much for having me.
Jennie Brooks:
Thanks for listening. Visit careers.boozallen.com to learn how you can be unstoppable with Booz Allen. Be the future. Work with us. The world can't wait.