Multicultural Couples Counselling for Asians

If you are in a relationship with a partner with an Asian background, or if both partners come from an Asian background, you may benefit from a culturally-informed approach to couples counselling.

Most couples come to counselling with the goal of improving their communication. If you are from a Western background, ‘good communication’ specifically looks like accurately articulating your needs, being open to discussing emotions, expressing affection explicitly and being verbally supportive of your partner. North America culture is what social psychologists describe as a low-contextculture, meaning that that we value explicit and concrete expression.

What is considered ‘good communication’ in Asian culture is often the polar opposite of what is considered healthy in Western culture. Most Asian peoples have lived in the same region, eating the same food, with people of the same race for thousands of years. They have a type of communication that is called high-context, due to having accumulated a lot of shared assumptions over the centuries. Skillful communication is less about explicit emotional expression (in fact, many Asians consider overt emotional expression as a sign of immaturity!), and more about careful observation, indirect communication through actions or body language, and a focus on fulfilling the physical needs of the partner over overt emotional validation.

A purely Western approach to counselling may (mistakenly) flag you or your Asian partners’ communication style as avoidant, emotionally distant or unsupportive. However, a culturally-informed approach to couples counselling may help to expand the scope of communication between you and your partner by incorporating the best of both worlds. Learning to communicate and appreciate both low-context and high-context communication can give couples more options when it comes to building a solid bond and resolving conflict, ultimately enriching your relationship in the long run.