https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYsRxLsWnFI
Princeton Theological Seminary
Mental Health and Asian Americans
Contexts and Strategies for Faith Leaders
January 24, 2022 • Online Conference
Center for Asian American Christianity
Join EventCenter for Asian American Christianity
Mental Health and Asian Americans
Asian Americans have some of the lowest rates of treatment for mental health issues while also experiencing high rates of mental distress (44%) and serious mental illness (6%). This is true for Asian American Christians where Christian culture can further exacerbate the problem. In addition to the stigma attached to seeking mental health support, the anxiety, social isolation, and internalized racism associated with the COVID pandemic has further intensified the situation.
On January 24, 2022, the Center for Asian American Christianity at Princeton Theological Seminary will host an online conference titled “Mental Health and Asian Americans: Context and Strategies for Faith Leaders.” The morning plenary sessions will feature presentations by leading mental health expert, Dr. Josephine Kim, and the co-founder of StopAAPIHate, Dr. Russell Jeung. Dr. Kim will address the historical, social, and racial factors that help make Asian Americans vulnerable to mental health issues. Dr. Jeung will address the immediate context of the COVID pandemic and the racial trauma experienced by many Asian Americans.
The afternoon will feature workshops led by leaders with academic and clinical expertise and experience relating to Asian Americans, mental health, and church ministries. The goal of the workshops is to provide research-based strategies that ministry leaders can begin to implement immediately to help strengthen their communities. In the afternoon, we will feature different selections of practical workshops on topics such as mental health and spirituality, conflict resolution, wholeness and perfectionism, and active listening skills. These workshops are led by Rev. Dr. Jin Lee, Rev. Dr. Eunbee Ham, Dr. Joel Jin, and Dr. Samuel Kim. These workshops will help equip church ministry teams in their professional development to become more faithful and effective Christian leaders.
Plenary Speakers
Dr. Josephine M. Kim is Senior Lecturer on Education at Harvard University and affiliated faculty at the Center for Cross-Cultural Student Emotional Wellness at Massachusetts General Hospital. She is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor and National Certified Counselor whose clinical skills and experiences span many contexts including residential treatment facilities, federal agencies, hospitals and public and private schools. She is the founder of Mustard Seed Generation, a non-profit organization that seeks to increase mental health literacy in Korean American communities. She is an internationally known speaker and consultant who lends her expertise on cultural adjustment and racial identity development; promotion of mental health and prevention of psychological risk; intercultural understanding and cultural brokering; culturally relevant counseling and advocacy; and anti-racist pedagogy and practices to media sources, organizations, corporations, and schools in Asia, Europe, and the U.S. She is a former resident fellow in the Administrative Fellowship Program at the Office of the Assistant to the President for Institutional Diversity and Equity at Harvard University and is an Expert on diversity and inclusion training design focused on antiracism in the workplace at United Nations.
Dr. Russell Jeung is Professor of Asian American Studies at San Francisco State University. Dr. Jeung is an author of books and articles on race and religion. He has written Family Sacrifices: The Worldviews and Ethics of Chinese Americans (Oxford U Press, 2019); Mountain Movers: Student Activism and the Emergence of Asian American Studies (UCLA AAS Center, 2019); and At Home in Exile: Finding Jesus Among My Ancestors and Refugee Neighbors (Zondervan, 2016). In March 2020, Dr. Jeung co-founded Stop AAPI Hate with Chinese for Affirmative Action and the Asian Pacific Policy and Planning Council. It tracks incidents of COVID-19 discrimination to develop policy interventions and long-term solutions to racism. Stop AAPI Hate was awarded the 2021 Webby Award for “Social Movement of the Year.” TIME magazine named its co-founders, including Dr. Jeung, as among the top 100 Influential Persons of 2021.
Workshop Speakers
Rev. Dr. Eunbee Ham is an ordained Pastor at Davis Community Church in Davis, California. Her formative experiences navigating multiple cultures in Korea, Philippines, and Mexico shaped her vocational and research interests in decolonizing identity development, intercultural pastoral counseling, and antiracist pedagogies. After receiving her MDiv and MA in Youth Ministry at Princeton Theological Seminary, she pursued pastoral care training in the hospitals, children’s homes, and addiction recovery centers of Mozambique, South Africa, Brazil, and Korea.
She earned her doctorate in Pastoral Counseling at Emory University, where she also completed a clinical licensure track for Marriage and Family Therapy. Her research includes identity formation in Korean/American young adults who grew up internationally and focuses on decolonial, intercultural strategies of care that help support healthy identity formation and flourishing of Asian American communities.
Eunbee brings 17 years of pastoral experience, during which she has served in a variety of capacities—pastor, chaplain, teacher, and therapist. She served as a pastoral counselor for seven years at the Care and Counseling Center of Georgia and Research Institute of Counseling and Education (GA) before she followed her latest call to be a pastor at Davis Community Church in California. Her current passion is to integrate her pastoral, theological, and clinical training to bring alive the Christian gospel in fresh and creative ways with particular attention to issues of race, culture, mental health, and social justice.
Rev. Dr. Jin Lee is a private practitioner at The Living Counsel Ltd. and serves as the vice president at Korean-American Wellness Association. Jin has been working as a professional counselor since 2005 and has been serving as a pastor to various churches in the Chicagoland since 1998. He received an M.A. in Counseling Psychology, M.Div. in Pastoral Studies, and D.Min. in Church/Para-church Leadership. His approach to therapy integrates clinical, theological, and leadership perspectives based on the nature of the client’s needs. As a 1.5 Korean-American immigrant, Jin also understands the cultural dynamics in mental health among Asian Americans and is passionate about serving them.
Dr. Joel Jin is an Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychology at Seattle Pacific University. He is a 2nd generation Korean Canadian that moved from the greater Toronto area with 4 seasons to sunny California, after receiving his BSc in Psychology, Neuroscience, and Behaviour from McMaster University. He received his PhD in clinical psychology and his MA in theology and ministry from Fuller Theological Seminary. He teaches courses on foundational counseling skills, psychopathology, systems and psychodynamic theory, and diversity and cultural competence. He leads a research lab that focuses on addressing mental health disparities of racial/ethnic minority populations, specifically examining the role of mental health stigma and perfectionism. His lab conducts two clinical research studies examining the effects of a culturally adapted mindfulness-based intervention for high-achieving ethnic minority adolescents and first-generation college students.
Dr. Samuel Y. Kim is Assistant Professor of School Psychology at the University of Denver. His research interests include positive psychology, psychological measurement, bullying, and Korean American mental health. He was also a former president of the Korean American Coalition - DFW chapter. Dr. Kim is a second generation Korean American who received his B.A. from Emory University and his M.Ed., Ed.S., and Ph.D. from Georgia State University. He is a licensed psychologist and a nationally certified school psychologist who has trained or practiced in Georgia, Michigan, Kentucky, and Texas.
Schedule
All times are Eastern Time
Monday, January 24, 2022
Time (ET)
Session
Presenter(s)
9:00AM ET
Networking & Fellowship
Lounge
9:45AM ET
Opening Remarks
Dr. David Chao
10:00AM ET
Mental health in Asian American Communities: Unpacking External and Internal Factors that Keep Asian Americans Vulnerable
We often seek to understand mental health realities in communities of color through a limited, one-dimensional lens, and much of our time is spent on dissecting cultural underpinnings and internal characteristics that may serve as a barrier to wellness. While this within-community introspection is crucial to our understanding of mental health, it provides an incomplete picture when it is not contextualized by external sociopolitical, historical, and systemic factors that keep Asian American communities vulnerable to mental health challenges. This session will lend a historical and contextual lens to the current realities of mental health in Asian American communities, shedding light on the interplay between internal and external factors that keep Asian American communities vulnerable.
Dr. Josephine Kim
11:00AM ET
Stop AAPI Hate and Racial Trauma
Dr. Jeung’s talk will discuss the collective racial trauma that our communities are facing during COVID-19, its historic precedence, and indigenous approaches toward healing.
Dr. Russell Jeung
Lunch Break (12PM ET)
Networking & Fellowship
Time (ET)
Session
Presenter(s)
1:00PM ET
Mental Health and Spirituality: Know the Difference and Help Accordingly
This workshop is designed to help church leaders better discern and process common psychological and relational challenges they may face in the church. We will discuss how to distinguish between mental health and spiritually related problems and learn how to increase collaboration with local Christian mental health professionals when appropriate.
Rev. Dr. Jin Lee
1:00PM ET
Growing Together: Cultivating Healthy Communities through Conflict Resolution
Conflict can be a healthy and essential part of community growth, but it takes time, training, and practice to handle conflict in ways that help deepen interpersonal empathy and understanding. Particularly during the pandemic when stress levels are high, divisions are rampant, and emotional coping skills are strained, conflicts can have a huge impact on our mental health and quality of life. In this workshop, Rev. Dr. Eunbee Ham draws on her training as a Marriage and Family Therapist and pastoral experience navigating conflict from an antiracist lens to help participants identify successful conflict resolution tools and skills, cultivate antiracist values intentionally in conflict resolution processes, and practice ways to utilize conflict resolution skills in real life situations.
Rev. Dr. Eunbee Ham
2:00PM ET
Pastoring a Congregation of Whole People, not Perfect People
Asian American Christians can struggle with the experience of not feeling good enough. They perceive a gap between where they ideally ought to be and where they actually are. Across their personal, professional, and even spiritual lives, there is a tendency to expect perfection yet fall short of it. In turn, we might present ourselves as perfect, never offering ourselves the opportunity for care and healing. Although setting standards for ourselves is healthy, we are burdened when we feel like we constantly fall short of them. This workshop will equip church leaders to support Asian American Christians in becoming more whole people, not perfect people. We will learn about different types of perfectionism and how this applies to Asian American Christians. We will discuss practical strategies from the pulpit to pastoral counseling.
Dr. Joel Jin
2:00PM ET
Active Listening Skills for Congregational Change
In this workshop, attendees will learn how to put in practice active listening skills that will allow them to be empathetic change-makers. These practical listening skills will allow ministry leaders to effect change within their congregations.
Dr. Samuel Kim
3:00PM ET
Closing Remarks
Dr. David Chao
3:15—5:00PM
Networking & Fellowship
Lounge
Register for Free
Center for Asian American Christianity
The newly expanded Center for Asian American Christianity at Princeton Theological Seminary comes at a critical time in the life of Asian America. Asian Americans are the fastest-growing racial-ethnic demographic in the United States. The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed the persistence of anti-Asian racism. Moreover, minority and immigrant churches are poised to transform the face of Christianity in the United States in the next few decades. The Center for Asian American Christianity seeks to equip and empower the next generation of Asian American leaders for service in church, society, and academy.
Princeton Theological Seminary has been a leading voice in Asian American theology and ministry through the work of Professor Emeritus Sang Hyun Lee, the Center for Asian American Christianity, and the establishment of the Kyung-Chik Han Chair of Asian American Theology.
What We Do
The Center for Asian American Christianity forms Christian leaders who serve Jesus Christ in ministries marked by faith, integrity, scholarship, competence, compassion, and joy.
Steering Committee
Dr. David C. Chao is director of the Center for Asian American Christianity at Princeton Theological Seminary. He teaches courses on Asian American theology, organizes academic programs in Asian American theology and ministry, and mentors Asian and Asian American students. His research and writing focus on Asian American theology, the uses of Christian doctrine for liberation, the convergence and divergence of Protestant and Catholic dogmatics, and the theology of Karl Barth. His first book, titled Concursus and Concept Use in Karl Barth's Doctrine of Providence, is under contract with Routledge. He is grant co-author and project editor for the $300,000 translation grant awarded by the National Endowment for the Humanities to the Karl Barth Translator’s Seminar. He is also developing a multi-volume project on Asian American theology. Chao is a graduate of Yale University (BA), Regent College (MDiv), and Princeton Theological Seminary (ThM, PhD). He is a member of the American Academy of Religion and the Association for Asian American Studies. Chao has a wide range of pastoral experience with Chinese American, Korean American, and Pan-Asian churches and ministries and is an active member of the Presbyterian Church (USA).
An extrovert by nature and pastoral counselor by training, Pastor John loves people. Many have sought his guidance to help them traverse the murky waters that our emotions and minds can often be. If you ever need to talk, no matter the struggle, he’s your guy. It is safe to say that you are in good hands as Pastor John received his PhD in counseling. As much as he enjoys serving the church and teaching, he also loves spending time with his wife and two kids. He still doesn’t have Instagram or Twitter; but if you want to know what Pastor John is up to, he’s likely to be found playing basketball, golf, or coaching various sports teams.