Asian American Identities, Relationships, and Post-Migration Legacies: Reflections from Marriage and Family Therapists

Bringing together the personal and professional narratives of Asian American family therapists, this book offers insight into the Asian American experience through systemic theory and frameworks, individual and community stories, and clinical considerations.

The Asian American experience is still a largely invisible and unknown one, especially in the field of marriage and family therapy. With a contextual lens, this book highlights how understanding family migration legacies and individual generational status relative to time, place, and context is critical to doing meaningful work with Asian Americans. Filled with thought-provoking case studies and reflective questions, chapters discuss the impact of stereotyping on mental health; the historical and present ways that Asian American racialization invisibilizes individual and collective experiences; shame associated with bicultural identity, gender, generational trauma, media representations; and more. Each chapter bridges these ideas to clinical practice while concurrently centering the voices and experiences of Asian American therapists.

This book is essential reading for marriage and family therapists and other mental health clinicians who want to deepen their understanding of, relationship with, and clinical support for the Asian Americans in their lives, whether friends, colleagues, supervisees, or clients.

Jessica ChenFeng, PhD, LMFT (she/her), daughter of immigrants from Taiwan, is a systemic therapist, consulting with academic, healthcare and church organizations to improve the well-being of people within their communities. Her work centers around social contextual intersections of race, gender, generation, trauma, and spirituality. She is an associate professor of marriage and family therapy at Fuller Theological Seminary.

Lana Kim, PhD, LMFT (she/her), daughter of immigrants from South Korea, is a systemic therapist, supervisor, and educator with a background in medical family therapy. Her clinical and research focus includes contextual issues in teaching and supervision, relational parenting, sociocultural and socio-emotional attunement in couple therapy, and collaborative care practices. She is an associate professor and the program director for the Marriage, Couple, and Family Therapy program at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon.