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Behind the Disempowering Parenting: Expanding the Framework to Understand Asian-American Women’s Self-Harm and Suicidality

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Asian American Parenting

Abstract

Background: Asian-American young adult women have high rates of depression and suicide. Disempowering parenting style, characterized as abusive, burdening, culturally disjointed, disengaged, gender prescriptive (ABCDG), has been associated with suicidal ideation and suicide attempt among Asian-American women. Objective: This study examines specific socio-contextual factors that may be associated with disempowering parenting styles of Asian immigrant parents. Methods: Thirty-eight 1.5- and 2nd-generation Asian-American women (Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese) participated in in-depth interviews. Among this, 16 women reported a history of suicidal ideation or suicide attempt. NVivo was used to identify shared socio-contextual factors among these 16 women. Results: Findings revealed seven socio-contextual factors were linked to disempowering parenting: (1) mental and physical health concerns, (2) marital discord, (3) sociocultural linguistic barriers, (4) job-related stress, (5) fragile support networks, (6) trauma from the country of origin, and (7) the vague transmission of personal history. Discussion: The stressors related to pre- and post-immigration among these parents were linked to their characteristics of parenting. These stressors collectively affect immigrant parents as well as their own children. Identification of these factors allows us to design culturally informed psychotherapy to work effectively with Asian-American parents as well as their children. It is essential that researchers, practitioners, and policymakers use culturally informed practice to evaluate and intervene before these stressors lead to suicidality in young Asian-American women.

This study was funded in part by NIMH Grant K01 MH086366-05 to the first author.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Social Work, Boston University, 264 Bay State Road, #222, Boston, MA, 02215, USA

    Hyeouk Chris Hahm Ph.D.

  2. College of Arts and Sciences, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA

    Yujin Kim

  3. School of Public Health, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA

    Monica Brova

  4. School of Medicine, University of Massachusetts, Worcester, MA, USA

    Katherine Liang B.A.

  5. School of Social Work, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA, USA

    Dale Dagar Maglalang M.A.

  6. Consortium, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Palo Alto, CA, USA

    Alexandra Rivera Psy.D.

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  1. Hyeouk Chris Hahm Ph.D.
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  2. Yujin Kim
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  3. Monica Brova
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  4. Katherine Liang B.A.
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  5. Dale Dagar Maglalang M.A.
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Correspondence to Hyeouk Chris Hahm Ph.D. .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Social Service Administration, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA

    Yoonsun Choi

  2. School of Social Work, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

    Hyeouk Chris Hahm

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Hahm, H.C., Kim, Y., Brova, M., Liang, K., Maglalang, D.D., Rivera, A. (2017). Behind the Disempowering Parenting: Expanding the Framework to Understand Asian-American Women’s Self-Harm and Suicidality. In: Choi, Y., Hahm, H. (eds) Asian American Parenting. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-63136-3_8

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