Mental health project targets Chinese

Chinese people with mental illness can have greater difficulty recovering due to cultural beliefs that their ill-health is shameful and a punishment from the supernatural for wrong-doing.

To combat that stigma, and the discrimination that stems from it, the Mental Health Foundation and a mental health consultancy group, Mind and Body Consultants, are hoping to get funding for a pilot project targeting the community though the Chinese-language media. They hope to begin in the middle of this year.

Entrenched beliefs can be "a huge barrier to recovery," says Sandy Hall, a worker on the Mental Health Foundation's Like Minds Like Mine programme.

"We want to combat stigma in these communities, promote good mental health, and encourage access to mental health services."

Although previous anti-discrimination campaigns such as Like Minds Like Mine have had a positive influence on the general population, she says they have had limited reach among the Chinese.

Australian and New Zealand research has concluded that migrants do not have increased rates of mental ill-health compared with the general population.

However, sub-groups such as older migrants are at higher risk, and it is known that post-migration rejection by locals, and poor English, can also increase risk.

Last year's Phoenix Research study says that Chinese and Koreans can view mental illness as a failure or weakness, which brings with it enormous shame.

Research has also found that Chinese people can see a diagnosis of mental ill-health as lifelong, and sometimes as supernatural punishment for wrong-doing.

Some will conceal their condition, and some will find their families reacting by trying to hide them away.

Studies have also established that Asians tend to opt for family members' advice and traditional health care when suffering stress, with psychiatric expertise a last resort.

Ivan Yeo, a peer support worker for Mind and Body Consultants, told his friends he suffered from depression.

Instead of getting support the 33-year-old Malaysian Chinese found that they backed off, unsure of how to respond.

"When I talk to relatives, they still have the notion that if you have mental illness, you are crazy or violent," says Mr Yeo, of Manurewa.