I kinda block out my education at this time of the night because I don’t like getting serious at 10 pm at night when I have spent at least ten hours in school.
I have a deeper understanding of developmental psychology because that’s what I have leaned towards in all my undergrad career but multicultural psych is part of the state curriculum in California under the guidelines of the American Psychological Association.
I understand the issues with Korea in a more…how do I say this, like academic way.
I was taught that Korea’s mental health programs are like the ones that existed in the U.S. 50-60 years ago. They have very little outpatient help and have an institutionalization system which, if you have ever taken 2 minutes of mental health history, did more wrong to people than good.
It’s very expensive, drugs are not okay with them (you know, some people do suffer from a brain chemistry imbalance), and it all comes down to one major factor as to why there isn’t advancement in the field.
Their culture.
We have set up a Western style of treatment and research methods. That doesn’t necessarily work well Asian cultures. But the thing is that, even if the APA reached a hand and was like “Yo Asia, let’s work something out,” they don’t always want to cooperate.
Look at Japan. It’s a first world country. It’s been developed for longer than Korea has, it’s more liberal, they have bigger foreigner population, and suicides and depression still through the roof.
They have to develop a system that works for them and they aren’t doing much to get there. At least not fast enough.