You're Already Screwed Up

On this week’s episode of American Desis we welcome our first guest host: Tushar Singh. Tushar joins Akaash as they talk to Kanishk Solanki. Kanishk is a psychiatrist in New York City hospital and he breaks down for us the reasons we all need therapy. He very clearly explains how psychiatrists are trained to look at Asian Americans (East and South) with the understanding they are probably skirting some psychiatric issues. Basically if a South Asian or Asian student is referred to a clinician and they say everything is fine and I’m just a little stressed, the good clinicians will recognize that the cultural context from which they come probably means that this is more dire than that. He lays out three big factors as to why that is: high academic/professional pressure, cultural incongruities, and chronic invalidation. Listen is as Kanishk breaks these down for us all and encourages us to get the help we need!