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Aim or purpose
According to the National Institute for Mental Health in England (2003), Chinese clients tend not to request support from available psychological services and have been described as an 鈥渋nvisible population鈥�. However, this does not mean that Chinese people in the UK do not experience mental health struggles or need psychological therapy support.
There are obvious obstacles for Chinese clients to access psychological therapy, including therapists offering services that do not meet the clients鈥� social, cultural and linguistic needs; clients鈥� language barriers and a lack of awareness of mental health services within the minority community; perceived discrimination from professionals. Therefore, the need for psychological therapies to be culturally appropriate and responsive to Chinese clients has been recognised.
Design and methodology
Chinese Calligraphy Handwriting (CCH) as a mindfulness-based brush meditation intervention has been practised for thousand years in China. CCH traditionally uses a natural ink stone with water added to generate ink, which is then applied on rice paper in strokes, using a soft-tipped brush, in the form of the structure of Chinese characters. To Chinese people, calligraphy practice is not just a national art and cultural-historical heritage, it is, in fact, a well-known and familiar way of achieving relaxation and harmony of the body and the mind, which are also essential for physical and psychological functioning.
Chinese Calligraphy Enhanced Therapy (CCET) is a complementary therapy designed as a culturally sensitive and non-threatening approach to bridging Chinese clients鈥� access to psychological therapy. The four sessions of CCET are an innovative integrative approach which also draws on cognitive theory, mindfulness theory and psychoanalytic theory. The design is inspired by my clinical work with Chinese clients in the UK and is also based on personal experience of psychotherapy practice and my role as a mindfulness teacher for community services.
Results and findings
The data collection and analysis are in progress, but it will be using a qualitative theory-building case study method, it will not directly aim to address the effectiveness of the CCET approach itself, but instead will hope to build an explanation for western psychotherapy field of how the approach works.
Conclusions and implications
I hope this study will provide benefit for culturally sensitive psychological therapy access for the Chinese Community in the UK, improve the awareness of a cultural-sensitive psychological approach in the psychotherapy community and promote race equality in mental healthcare services in the UK.
Views expressed in this article are the views of the writer and not necessarily the views of 91自拍 Publication does not imply endorsement of the writer鈥檚 views. Reasonable care has been taken to avoid errors but no liability will be accepted for any errors that may occur.