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Overview

This research has explored a cultural approach to better understanding Chinese migrants‘ experiences and for working with Chinese migrants in ‗psychological intervention‘ in New Zealand. It is based on the assumption that better understanding of this group of Chinese leads to better psychological practice with them. This research was made up of two parts. Part One (chapters one to four) focused on understanding how Chinese migrants make sense of their experiences after migrating to New Zealand from China, whereas Part Two (chapters five to eight) took this further to look at how to intervene with recent Chinese migrants to assist them in the transition period from living in China to living in New Zealand by drawing upon the findings from Part One.

There is a lack of research on Chinese migrants‘ own perspectives in making sense of their migration experiences in New Zealand. Most research on exploring Chinese migrants‘ experience has adopted western cultural discourses as the framework for interpretation (e.g., stress and coping, acculturation) and there is a lack of consideration of Chinese cultural meanings and cultural sense-making process. No research so far has looked at adopting a discursive approach to psychological intervention in working with recent Chinese migrants in New Zealand. This research is the first to explore how Chinese migrants make sense of their experiences in New Zealand and how to work with recent Chinese migrants in psychological intervention by drawing upon a cultural-centered and discursive approach.

The key points to be derived from this research are:

First, negotiating meanings for ―migration‖ and ―fitting in‖ is the central process for Chinese migrants to make sense of their migratory experiences in New Zealand. In this meaning-making process, Chinese cultural meanings provide useful discursive resources for Chinese migrants to draw upon to better understand their experiences of migrating from China to New Zealand. The sayings such as ―fish or bear‘s paw‖, ―loss are accompanied by gain‖, ―life is about negotiating loss and gain‖ are used by Chinese migrants in a way to allow them more flexibility in constructing

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their experience in New Zealand. More importantly, the dialectical sense-making embedded in traditional Chinese cultural knowledge is a helpful way to transfer their discursive constructions from negative to positive aspects of their migration experiences.

Second, a group-based, collaborative, and social constructionist approach to ‗psychological intervention‘ is helpful for recent Chinese migrants to take up functional discursive resources (based on other Chinese migrants‘ shared experiences) to further co-construct positive meanings to make sense of their difficulties in adjusting to life in New Zealand.

In the following, I summarize implications for future research on migrants‘ experiences, as well as implications for psychological intervention with Chinese migrants.

Implications for future research on migrants‘ experiences

This research has a small scope and is only concerned with Chinese migrants from Mainland China. It is not intended to be generalized to all Chinese migrants in New Zealand who come from diverse geographic, socio-cultural, historical and economic backgrounds. However, the research has demonstrated the importance of taking these broad contexts as well as the associated discourses into consideration in understanding migrants‘ experiences. Future research can explore other non-western migrants‘ experiences in New Zealand by taking a discursive analytical approach. More importantly, increasing attention has been called to search for strength and resilience of migrants instead of focusing on their problems (Ehrensaft & Tousignant, 2006). Future research can look at how other non-western migrants draw upon their indigenous cultural knowledge to construct positive meanings for their migratory experiences in a new country.

Implications for psychological intervention work with Chinese migrants

Seeking a sense of shared experience

The group approach to intervention seems to be a good means to work with Chinese migrants to address their adjustment issues in a new country. The adoption

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of group work instead of individual work achieved the purpose of providing a space for participants to share their migratory experiences in New Zealand. The group therapeutic factor of ―universality‖ worked most effectively for group members. Talking about the shared experiences of migration and ―fitting in‖ in New Zealand helped participants to recognize a sense of togetherness and belongingness. Talking about their ―difficult‖ experiences also alleviated the feelings of isolation and loneliness, realizing ―I am not alone‖. For example, many participants spoke about it is good to know that other people had the similar experience to theirs. This made them feel better about their own situation. Speaking of shared experiences can also be seen as Chinese cultural way of sense-making. This is demonstrated in participants‘ drawing upon other Chinese people‘s experience (both in China and overseas) to better appreciate their own situation. Therefore, this research supports the benefit of taking a group approach to working with Chinese migrants (e.g., Chung, 2004). This suggests future psychological intervention can consider adopting forms of group intervention in working with Chinese migrants in addressing difficulties in migratory life.

The importance of taking account of context

A social constructionist approach to therapeutic work requires paying attention to the socio-cultural context in which meanings are embedded (Hoshmand, 2006). The consideration of context also means paying attention to the background of Chinese migrants in psychological intervention with them. As pointed out in various places, Chinese are made up of diverse groups. This study is concerned with recent Chinese migrants from Mainland China. Providing culturally appropriate psychological intervention work for recent Chinese migrants needs to acknowledge that this group of migrants may not be ‗psychologically‘ minded. This means psychological intervention is still culturally foreign to them and there may be stigma attached that psychological intervention is for the mentally-illed person. This means it is important to formulate the goal of the intervention and translate it in a way to avoid implying psychological illness in Chinese language in the recruitment as well as in the intervention with Chinese migrant. More so, it is widely noted that Chinese people do not consider negative feelings and emotional problems to be reasons for seeking professional help, and when they do seek professional help they tend to expect the

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professionals to be the authority and expert and thus giving advice (Chen & Davenport, 2005). Therefore, it is more effective to construe psychological intervention in a way that emphasizes offering alternative meanings to understanding their situations rather than focusing on reliving emotional distress. This is consistent with discursive therapy‘s understanding of the therapeutic process as a process of meaning transformation (e.g., Strong & Pare, 2004). This suggests discursive therapy can be effective in working with the Chinese.

Further, viewing psychotherapy from its cultural context requires culturally derived meanings to be used as a resource of alternative meanings in psychotherapy (McLeod, 2006a). For people of western cultural background, the alternative meanings may be derived from eastern philosophical thinking. On the contrary, for migrants of non-western cultural background, the alternative meaning system may well refer to the dominant understanding in western culture. In this sense, there is a need to raise awareness among Chinese migrants about how problems are dealt with from western cultural perspectives. This can be achieved by addressing cultural specificity of different understandings. For example, in my study, as the facilitator I made explicit the cultural contexts in which the different understandings are embedded. Doing so helps recent Chinese migrants to be equipped with the different discursive resources available to them in order to resist the problematic construction of their experiences in the dominant western culture. More so, this can help them to have a better understanding of the ways that people of western cultural backgrounds understand and deal with problems in life (e.g., how they conceptualise problems as emotional distress and seek professional help). This explication of culturally specific discourses may give them more options and resources to deal with problems in western society. This is in congruent with the Chinese dialectical way of thinking. Here the Chinese idioms can be drawn upon, ―古为今用‖ (make the past serve the present), ―西为中用‖ (make the west serve the east), ―洋为中用‖ (make foreign things serve China). By doing so, the psychological intervention can achieve the function of providing other possible interpretations to the taken-for-granted dominant understandings in different societies and cultures, whether it is New Zealand, China or somewhere else. This is also in agreement with the assumptions of psychotherapeutic approaches informed by social constructionism, in which one aim of therapy is to

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offer people a wider range of socio-cultural discourses to make sense of their experiences, which can be different from the dominant discourse in the person‘s particular cultural context (Avdi & Georgaca, 2007).

„New‟ or „old‟ approach to working with Chinese

In western culture, the dominant discourse around psychological intervention guidelines for working with Chinese clients often stress that the facilitator needs to adopt an educator role as this is regarded as fitting with Chinese clients‘ expectation of psychotherapists as an expert, as well as fitting with the Chinese value for respecting an expert or authority (e.g., Hodges & Oei, 2007). Psychological intervention work with Chinese is often recommended to be goal directed to address their problems.

In contrast, my research adopted a more collaborative (social constructionist) approach to psychological intervention. I did not assume the role of expert or authority over participants‘ problems. During the group discussion, I put emphasis on seeking diverse meanings as well as different ways of sense making. I highlighted there was no single right solutions to their ‗problems‘. The goal of the group discussion was not about finding the ‗right‘ way to successful adjustment, but rather generating new meanings which are at the participants‘ disposal. My research shows that the social constructionist approach worked well in group discussions. Participants were able to make the most of the opportunities to explore different understandings around their experiences, and were flexible about the usefulness of the meanings to their own unique experiences. I also point out participants‘ way of sense- making reflects a dialectic way of thinking in traditional Chinese culture. In terms of opening up possibilities in meanings for life, this is in accordance with a social constructionist approach to psychological intervention that emphasizes encouraging people to have flexible perspectives (Avid & Geirgaca, 2007). Here, the old and new, eastern and western approaches find common ground.

This implies that a social constructionist approach to psychological intervention can be as useful as other traditional western approaches to working with Chinese. This supports the effectiveness of a social constructionist approach to therapy (such as discursive therapy and narrative therapy) for working with people with diverse

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cultural backgrounds. This also means that, in psychological practice with people from western cultural backgrounds, a social constructionist approach to therapy can introduce them non-western cultural ways of sense making (e.g., traditional Chinese dialectic way of sense making) to open up alternative ways to make meanings in life.

The use of cultural metaphors

In psychological intervention, the use of proverbs and metaphors has been pointed out as useful for providing relevant meanings (e.g., Tseng et al., 2005, Bernal & Saez-Santiago, 2006). Proverbs can help people to gain a new perspective of their problems and increase motivation for change. Chinese culture is rich in proverbs and metaphors. In particular, proverbs are frequently used as philosophical guides to deal with problems in times of distress. My research demonstrates that the cultural knowledge that Chinese migrants draw upon to make sense of their experiences in New Zealand is often marked as Chinese proverbs and sayings (such as ―fish or bear‘s paw‖). More importantly, these proverbs and sayings symbolize Chinese philosophical ideas of life and the way to deal with life situations, and they are easy for participants to grasp. This supports the view that cultural metaphors can be very useful in psychological interventions. This suggests that introduction or explication of meaningful Chinese proverbs can be a useful way to help Chinese migrants to make use of the cultural resources available to them to better understand their experiences of difficulty in New Zealand.

Meanwhile, a social constructionist approach to psychological intervention suggests we cultivate a kind of ethical sensitivity to meaning, especially since discourses are seen as offering incomplete and value-based ways of understanding (Parker, 2004). Therefore, psychological intervention, seen this way, can focus on cultural resources such as stories and metaphors to assist people to explore more helpful meanings. There is a need to call for cultural stories and metaphors (which are rich in meanings) to be widely utilized in psychological intervention.

The search for meaning in psychological intervention

The importance of meaning in psychological intervention has been emphasized (Corey, 2009, Hermans, 2004, Mackay, 2003, Neimeyer & Raskin, 2000, Raskin, 2007). Psychological interventions are faced with the challenge of using culturally

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appropriate and relevant ways of seeking meanings to work with people from different cultural backgrounds.

In western culture, the source of meanings has traditionally been seen as residing within the individuals. Accordingly, the search for meaning has been emphasized as being with the individual, who is responsible for his or her ‗inner experience‘ (such as cognition, and emotion). The social constructionist view of a person‘s experience is as deeply influenced and constrained by culturally sanctioned discourse, and the meanings that individuals give to events are essentially culturally dependent. This echoes a Chinese perspective which highlights the embedding of meanings in particular social, cultural and historical contexts. More importantly, the process of meaning-making is also culturally specific. The way individuals make sense of their experiences is embedded in their unique cultural context. The search for meaning needs go beyond the meaning itself to explore how meaning is constructed and transformed in the context.

In this sense, psychological intervention can be seen as a cultural meaning- making practice. The goal of psychological intervention is to help a person understand the ways meanings are constructed and gain access to these different ways of speaking of themselves and their situations. Different cultural approaches to psychological intervention in the west and the east can offer useful ways of understanding individuals‘ experience as long as they provide interpretations that are relevant and meaningful for the person as well as making their assumptions explicit. Across time and cultures, there is always room for more and different meanings. Because non-western migrants‘ experiences are often depicted as negative, psychological intervention for them needs to call for positive meanings, which can be found in different cultures. In this case, psychological practice with Chinese migrants can make use of ample Chinese cultural meanings and ways of sense-making to help them deal with negative changes encountered in the process of migration.

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