My service is right for you if you want to stand on your own two feet rather than relying on others. But also, if you:

• Want to improve how you feel and how you think
  • Feel it’s difficult to manage or express your emotions.
  • Feel more nervous or fearful than you’d like.
  • Hold onto shame or guilt about the past.
  • Use unhelpful coping strategies e.g., drinking.
  • Have low self-esteem.
  • Criticise yourself too much.
• Want more out of life
  • Have tried self-help but found it not as effective as you’d like.
  • Feel unmotivated.
  • Feel unsure what you want in life or who you are.
  • Self-sabotage or have fear of failing.
  • Want more resilience and grit.
  • Have self doubt or imposter syndrome.
  • Are too much of a perfectionist.
• Want to be better at dealing with family, romantic partners, friends, colleagues or new people
  • Feel you don’t have enough support from the people around you.
  • Feel you can’t talk to family about your concerns.
  • Often seek approval from others.
  • Want to avoid parenting your own kids the way you were raised.
  • Feel you have to say ‘yes’ to other people and be nice to everyone.
  • Feel you can’t speak up and have to keep your head down.
  • Feel you’re struggling because of racism and discrimination.

The way we'll work together

I use evidence-based methods and draw on my professional experience to increase your wellbeing. Together, we can:

• Identify what you want in your life
• Tap into what drives you to want change
• Tackle what’s getting in the way
• Put in place strategies that will help get you on the right path.

I believe everyone has the potential to enhance their life in the way they want, if given the right kind of support. I will walk alongside you and coach you to help you push through hurdles. In other words, my aim is to have you in the driver’s seat, and I’ll be your experienced guide sitting next to you. As you talk about your experiences, I will highlight views that you may not have considered, without judgement. Together, we will focus in on the things that will make the biggest difference for you. We will also plan for how to manage the unavoidable obstacles that you’ll face when working on a goal, so you can hold on to the progress that you make.

The way I’ll work with you comes from my experience with Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Motivational Interviewing, training and coaching adults, and applying Self-Determination Theory and Social Learning Theory. We will look at what concerns you have and apply it together.

Mental Health

Coming from an immigrant family, like an Asian family or a Mediterranean family, we don’t really prioritise our mental health. We’re taught (indirectly or directly):

• to focus on academics or whatever our parents tell us to do

• not to regularly talk about our emotions or express them in healthy ways

• not to bring shame to the family or lose face

We need and benefit from mental health support as much as people from dominant cultures but we don’t access mental health services as much as other groups. We experience common concerns like anxiety and procrastination, more difficult experiences like dealing with Asian parents or immigrant parents, all the way to bigger issues like burnout and toxic family members.

Seeking support

Some of us don’t ask for help or we prefer help outside of mental health professionals, like people we know, self-help books, our GP. Maybe we don’t want to worry others or maybe we don’t want the shame when admitting we need support; think “Haji” for Japanese people, “Hiya” for Filipino people, “Mianzi” for Chinese people, and “Chaemyun” for Korean people.

So, what happens is we might have temporary ‘fixes’ but the concerns keep popping back up after a while or we keep delaying getting professional support until it gets to the point where things get really serious e.g., inpatient care.

Personal skills coaching and psychology

Enhancing Minds aims to build the capacity of people from immigrant or migrant families so that we can live life our way. Whether you want to feel better, feel heard when with others, achieve more, or something else. The service was created to make counselling more user-friendly by combining coaching with psychology. It sits in between informal support and traditional therapy, in a space that’s productive and supportive but not too uncomfortable or unfamiliar.

The overall aim is to get you closer to the life that you want to live and the way you want to be. Whether you have a goal in mind or you have barriers and concerns you’re facing, this combination of coaching and psychology encourages you to take the lead as much as possible. I’ll provide guidance and support as needed, but I want you to have a say in the direction and the ideas that we come up with.

We will be working towards positive and practical changes by honing the way you think. We’ll also work towards having a better understanding of what’s happening for you by reflecting on your upbringing, life experiences, the system around, and/or your cultural and socio-political context. If needed, I will provide another perspective or even challenge you a little.

I will bring my knowledge in human behaviour, emotions and cognition, but I believe in rousing your inherent potential for growth. So, we’ll be tapping into your existing strengths (whether you can see them or not), values and beliefs to tackle the barriers and the concerns that you’re currently facing and move towards where you want to be.

Growing up in an Asian family with lots of aunties, uncles and cousins, I believe that we can support each other and build each other’s capacity using the knowledge and skills we’ve gained through life. I hope to provide you with the support that you want.

References

Chu, J.P., & Sue, S. (2011). Asian American Mental Health: What We Know and What We Don’t Know. Online Readings in Psychology and Culture, 3(1). http://dx.doi.org/10.9707/2307-0919.1026 

Han, M. & Pong, H. (2015). Mental Health Help-Seeking Behaviors Among Asian American Community College Students: The Effect of Stigma, Cultural Barriers, and Acculturation. Journal of College Student Development, 56(1), 1-14.

Yang, K.G., Rodgers, C.R.R., Lee, E., & Cook, B.L. (2020). Disparities in Mental Health Care Utilization and Perceived Need Among Asian Americans: 2012–2016. Psychiatric Services, 71(1), 21-27.