Permission to Come Home
Reclaiming Mental Health as Asian Americans
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4.3 • 4 Ratings
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
Strengthen your sense of well-being and embrace empowering new approaches with this invaluable investigation into mental health in the Asian American community.
Asian Americans are experiencing a racial reckoning regarding their identity, inspiring them to radically reconsider the cultural frameworks that enabled their assimilation into American culture. As Asian Americans investigate the personal and societal effects of longstanding cultural narratives suggesting they take up as little space as possible, their mental health becomes critically important. Yet despite the fact that over 18 million people of Asian descent live in the United States today—they are the racial group least likely to seek out mental health services.
Permission to Come Home takes Asian Americans on an empowering journey toward reclaiming their mental health. Weaving her personal narrative as a Taiwanese American together with her insights as a clinician and evidence-based tools, Dr. Jenny T. Wang explores a range of life areas that call for attention, offering readers the permission to question, feel, rage, say no, take up space, choose, play, fail, and grieve. Above all, she offers permission to return closer to home, a place of acceptance, belonging, healing, and freedom. For Asian Americans and Diaspora, this book is a necessary road map for the journey to wholeness.
“Dr. Jenny T. Wang has been an incredible resource for Asian mental health. I believe that her knowledge, presence, and activism for mental health in the Asian American/Immigrant community have been invaluable and groundbreaking. I am so very grateful that she exists.”—Steven Yeun, actor, The Walking Dead and Minari
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PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Clinical psychologist Wang debuts with an edifying examination of how cultural expectations impact Asian Americans' mental health. "When we are able to visualize the frameworks restricting us, we are then able to access the freedom to choose something different," Wang writes, inviting Asian Americans to probe cultural assumptions and narratives by exploring points of tension and discomfort, and describing experiences common to diaspora. For example, Wang notes that white supremacy imposes the "fear-based framework" that Asian Americans should refrain from "taking up space" and be "quiet" and "compliant." The author encourages readers to step outside these limitations by articulating what makes them afraid, identifying small ways to start taking up more space, attending to how others respond to their actions, and developing a support system. Other chapters urge readers to permit themselves to "rage," "play," and "say no," and provide steps to achieve these goals. Wang's jargon-free prose and psychology-backed explanations elevate her recommendations, such as when she cites research showing how emotionality improves decision-making and warns against idealizing stoicism. This is a timely and insightful reconsideration of mental health in the Asian American community.
