Adolescent depression is a significant challenge for researchers and clinicians in the process of determining culturally sensitive strategies to ensure treatment effectiveness with ethnic populations in the United States. As a population of color, Asian Americans are the third largest ethnic group in the United States and the third fastest-growing group behind Latinos and African Americans (U.S current population survey,2000). The overall lack of clinical knowledge about Chinese Americans is especially egregious because families are often caught in the middle between traditional cultural values(e.g,parental duty to facilitate child development,Ho et al,2004,Lee & Mock ,2005), and a number of genuine clinical and or rational issues such as suicide risk, bright & Chung 2002.
As another ample, although cultural values emphasize both supporting and challenging children, there are many parents who are not able to attain or maintain the necessary balance of encouragement and demandingness. As it relates to academic achievement, Chinese American parents may default to the strategy of pushing and challenging adolescent children, rather than giving adequate support. All these unfortunately can lead to an increase inters and family level conflict which then results in depressive symptoms or clinical levels of depression for the adolescents. It is also found that Chinese American adolescents undergo a great deal of stress during this stage of their life, resulting in higher suicide rates when compared to their European American peers. Regrettably, as a function of the aforementioned lack of research, clinicians working with this group are often left without clear treatment guidelines for treating Chinese American adolescents struggling with depression.
The key treatment for these adolescents depression according to (Sue, 2001) will be organized and present to them the therapist knowledge about their own culture, values, biases, and assumptions regarding the clients’ ethnic and cultural group. Also the therapist skills relevant and appropriate for working with clients, giving their culture and other contextual factors.
In terms of general knowledge about adolescent’s depression, it is important for clinicians to understand that many teens experience and