Pastoral Care in a Korean American Context (Asian Christianity in the Diaspora) 3030485749, 9783030485740

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ASIAN CHRISTIANITY IN THE DIASPORA

Pastoral Care in a Korean American Context

Edited by Angella Son

Asian Christianity in the Diaspora

Series Editors Grace Ji-Sun Kim Earlham School of Religion Richmond, IN, USA Joseph Cheah University of Saint Joseph West Hartford, CT, USA

Asian American theology is still at its nascent stage. It began in the 1980’s with just a handful of scholars who were recent immigrants to the United States. Now with the rise in Asian American population and the rise of Asian American theologians, this new community is an ever-important voice within theological discourse and Asian American cultural studies. This new series seeks to bring to the forefront some of the important, provocative new voices within Asian American Theology. The series aims to provide Asian American theological responses to the complex process of migration and resettlement process of Asian immigrants and refugees. We will address theoretical works on the meaning of diaspora, exile, and social memory, and the foundational works concerning the ways in which displaced communities remember and narrate their experiences. Such an interdisciplinary approach entails intersectional analysis between Asian American contextual theology and one other factor; be it sexuality, gender, race/ethnicity, and/or cultural studies. This series also addresses Christianity from Asian perspectives. We welcome manuscripts that examine the identity and internal coherence of the Christian faith in its encounters with different Asian cultures, with Asian people, the majority of whom are poor, and with non-Christian religions that predominate the landscape of the Asian continent. Palgrave is embarking on a transformation of discourse within Asian and Asian American theological scholarship as this will be the first of its kind. As we live in a global world in which Christianity has re-centered itself in the Global South and among the racialized minorities in the United States, it behooves us to listen to the rich, diverse and engaging voices of Asian and Asian American theologians. More information about this series at http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14781

Angella Son Editor

Pastoral Care in a Korean American Context

Editor Angella Son Psychology and Religion Drew University Madison, NJ, USA

Asian Christianity in the Diaspora ISBN 978-3-030-48574-0    ISBN 978-3-030-48575-7 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-48575-7 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: Mickey Cashew / Getty Images This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Our students, our clients, and our congregational members

Foreword: The Tiger’s Whisker

In 2010, Angella Son wrote an avant-garde chapter titled “Pastoral Care of Korean American Women: The Degeneration of Mothering into the Management of an Inadequate Sense of Self.” Her chapter was for a volume, Women Out of Order: Risking Change and Creating Care in a Multicultural World, the fourth volume in a series on pastoral care of women. Angella Son boldly and wisely pointed out an inequity in the series. That volume for which she wrote her innovational contribution had 23 chapters, but only 3 that focused on women who are Korean Americans. Even more shocking is the fact that in the previous three volumes, there were no chapters on Korean Americans! I was either the editor or co-­ editor of those four volumes. Now, a decade later, I am honored and humbled to introduce a book that has named and claimed that inequity: Pastoral Care in a Korean American Context. The cohesive theme is as follows: there are personal, cultural, and systemic issues that need to be addressed in the Korean American and Korean communities in North America. The eight contributors to Pastoral Care in a Korean American Context address compelling issues such as ageism, depression, gender power dynamics, immigration issues, social status, racism, addiction, and acculturation as they emerge in Korean and Korean American contexts in the United States. The book proposes constructive theological metaphors and paradigms as well as practical measures for living into the Imago Dei. The structure, organization, coherence, and presentation of the material lends itself toward hopeful possibilities. A major contribution is the deconstruction of a theology that uncritically idealizes suffering. This “theology of cross-bearing” can vii

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be reinforced by particular Korean values and cultural ideals. For these reasons and more, this volume is positioned at the intersection of psychology, sociology, cultural studies, spirituality, and theology—a nexus resulting in a wholistic approach to pastoral care. The time in academe and publishing is absolutely right, if not overdue, for this pioneering work. I cannot imagine a theological school or divinity school or seminary teaching an Introduction to Pastoral Care course without this fresh resource! This book poised to make a significant impact on all the guilds and educational systems that are seeking to become increasingly multicultural. These guilds include, but are not limited to, the American Academy of Religion, the Society for Pastoral Theology, the International Academy of Practical Theology, and the Association of Practical Theology. Classroom educators including professors of theology as well as clergy are desirous of the type of information in Pastoral Care in a Korean American Context. The information addresses and augments the emerging research on multi-­ layered discrimination. For example, elderly Koreans face ageism combined with their minority status in the USA. In short, they face a set of values in America that does not honor them as “elders” in the way they would be in their homeland of Korea. “The Tiger’s Whisker” is a Korean Folktale that has several versions. However, there is always an old sage or wise person who gives the protagonist, Yun Ok, a task to perform. Notice the honoring of an elder! Yun Ok, a young wife, needs wisdom for common life, Chung Yong. There is an imbalance of harmony in her home; one version attributes the disharmony to post-war trauma in her husband. Yun Ok asks for a potion from the wise one; however, the potion that was offered lacked one ingredient—a whisker from a live tiger. Yun Ok would have to face the tiger who lived in the cave in the mountains. Yun Ok faced a most dangerous mission. She had heard of this tiger of whom everyone in the village was afraid. From some deep place within herself, she formulated a plan that involved a bowl of rice with meat sauce. Before dawn each day, she surreptitiously crept out of her home and went to the tiger. Each day, she shoved the bowl a little closer to the opening of the cave. Several months went by, and as they did, the young woman and the tiger came face to face. One morning, she came with a small knife and asked permission from the tiger for a whisker. She petted the tiger who was busily eating and cut off one whisker.

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Running with exultation to the sage, she found to her amazement that the cure was not in the whisker but in the gradual care, patience, wisdom, and courage that she had mustered. Aware of these qualities that had risen within her, she left the sage and turned homeward. She knew what to do. It is striking to me that eight contributors have each reached deep into themselves, fortified themselves with current research, and propelled by deep caring and courage—have faced the tiger. One by one, whiskers of expedient issues have been plucked to address intimate violence, ageism, the 1.5 generation, identity consolidation, high rates of depression among Korean American youth and young adults, sexual ethics, addiction, changes in power dynamics, and immigration issues. The facial whiskers of a tiger are like a moustache on the snout. They help the tiger sniff the prey and know where to take a bite. It is an intrepid undertaking to pluck one and take it away, even if the action is to be used to bring healing, to offer pastoral care, and to restore relationships. In a similar way, Pastoral Care in a Korean American Context is such a venture, facing towering issues, striving for wholeness, and ultimately offering a potion for pastoral care. Dallas, TX, USA

Jeanne Stevenson-Moessner

Preface

This book is the very first book entirely focused on the pastoral care of Korean Americans. Since the First Korean Methodist Church in Honolulu was founded as the first Korean American church in 1905, it took more than a century for a book like this to come into existence. This book aims to provide theoretical background and pastoral strategies to pastors, lay leaders, and congregation members in South Korea and the United States on various issues so that a restoration of the human dignity imputed by God and the good community desired by God is realized. This book project addresses compelling issues in pastoral care and pays particular attention to the specificity of Korean and Korean American contexts such as immigration issues, racism, multi-cultural issues, and changes in roles and power dynamics between women and men. The compelling issues addressed for pastoral care and theology in this book include (1) wisdom for common life (Chung Yong) as a theological and pastoral task, (2) identity formation within a multi-cultural context, (3) tension between Confucianism and a feminist approach in Korean and Korean American women, (4) intimate violence, (5) ageism and elderly care, (6) racism and cultural identity of Korean youth, (7) depression among Korean American youth and young adults, (8) sexual ethics among Korean young adults, and (9) addiction among Korean Americans. These issues are often ignored or even buried by Korean and Korean American churches, and it is crucial that Korean American churches take a proactive approach to confront these issues so that proper pastoral care is provided to those who are silently suffering in their situations. This book recognizes, though different, the commonality shared between Korean people xi

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and Korean diaspora in the United States and suggests that this book would be applicable to Koreans and Korean Americans. The book, while it is focused on a Korean American context, is also seen as beneficial for everyone because it addresses compelling issues in care as noted above. The book aims to speak to wider readers and is intentionally planned to be reader oriented with accessible language and a simplified theoretical background. This book project is meaningful in that it is a collaborative effort among Korean American scholars and one Euro American scholar in the field of pastoral care. It thus represents diverse perspectives and approaches to pastoral care while promoting one common goal of healing and wholeness in Korean American community. I learned that collaboration among various scholars enriches the discussions and insights in a book from Jeanne Stevenson Moessner when she invited me to be a part of the collaboration among women scholars across the racial and ethnic diversity for Women Out of Order: Risking Change and Creating Care in a Multicultural World, which was edited by her and Teresa Snorton. I express my deepest gratitude to Jeanne Stevenson Moessner, who instilled in me the invaluable value of collaboration, a knowledge that guided me in this project and further in my teaching. I am also grateful to many colleagues in the Society for Pastoral Theology who have been on the forefront in advocating the particularities, significance, and urgency of studies in cultural multiplicity. They attributed full agency to the study of pastoral care in a particular ethnic community. They also created a holding environment for me and enabled me to thrive as a scholar. Finally, one distinctive aspect of this book is that all of the contributors have a strong background in clinical and/or pastoral practices in addition to theoretical expertise. I would like to express my deepest appreciation to all of the contributors to this book—Jaeyeon Lucy Chung, David Daesoo Kim, Yong Hwan Kim, Insook Lee, Kirsten Sonkyo Oh, Sophia S. Park, and Sonia E. Waters. I am particularly grateful to Sonia E. Waters, who is the only non-Korean American contributor, for sharing her expertise on addiction in this book. The theoretical expertise and practice credentials of all contributors immeasurably enhanced and enriched the discussions on the issues addressed in this book. Madison, NJ, USA August 31, 2019

Angella Son

Praise for Pastoral Care in a Korean American Context “Living in an age of interculturality that declares racial and ethnic identity rather than cultural homogeneity, this volume acknowledges the unique experiences of Korean Americans within America’s history of race relations. Whereas this is a Kairos moment for declaring and advocating culturally specific care ministries, this text is a must read in order to honor the lived experiences of Korean Americans!” —Lee H. Butler, Jr., Vice-President of Academic Affairs and Academic Dean, William Tabbernee Professor of the History of Religions and Africana Pastoral Psychology, Phillips Theological Seminary “Pastoral Care in a Korean American Context, edited by the Rev. Dr. Angella Son, as the first book entirely devoted to spiritual care with Korean Americans, is a much needed addition to the pastoral literature! This anthology includes contributions from highly regarded Korean and Korean-American pastoral theologians today, who bring expertise to complex intersectional issues impacting Korean Americans across generations.” —Pamela Cooper-White, Vice-President of Academic Affairs, Dean, and Christiane Brooks Johnson Professor of Psychology and Religion, Union Theological Seminary, New York, and author of Shared Wisdom: Use of the Self in Pastoral Care and Counseling “I celebrate this trailblazing book, the first of its kind. With clinical expertise and scholarly wisdom, the contributors show how common issues take on unique form among those also contending with racism, acculturation, identity confusion, and Confucian values. Rich with case material and pastoral strategies, this collection is destined to become a classic and will transform how you view pastoral care.” —Bonnie J. Miller-McLemore, E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Professor of Religion, Psychology, and Culture, Vanderbilt University Divinity School and Graduate Department of Religion, USA “This brave book succeeds beyond measure in advocating expansive approaches to pastoral care with Korean Americans across the lifespan. Seamlessly melding theology, social psychology, and pastoral psychotherapy, its authors delve into complexities of childhood shame, youthful sexuality, intimate partner violence,

addiction, and discrimination against older adults. While engaging a particular community, readers gain entrance into a wider world of shared humanity.” —Robert C. Dykstra, Charlotte W. Newcombe Professor of Pastoral Theology, Princeton Theological Seminary, USA “We have waited more than a century for this book, the first of its kind to address the pastoral and spiritual care needs of Korean-Americans. Angella Son and her colleagues bring into focus both the needs of the individual and their cultural and societal context. It is a must read for anyone seeking to provide care within Korean American contexts.” —Shari K. Brink, President & CEO, Blanton-Peale Institute & Counseling Center, USA “I am so excited to teach this book to my pastoral theology and care students, giving us fresh takes on addressing intimate violence, depression, racism, pastoral wisdom, addiction, and more. The book spotlights the experiences and voices of Korean and Korean American people. But check your own racist assumptions, because this book is absolutely for every pastoral care classroom!” —Eileen Campbell-Reed, Visiting Associate Professor of Pastoral Theology and Care, Union Theological Seminary, USA “This brave, wise, pioneering, and practical text dares to address the often unnamed and misunderstood lived experience of many Koreans and Korean Americans as they struggle to bridge two cultures. While contextually specific, the chapters offer universally relevant theoretical insights, theological perspectives, and pastoral care strategies to all who encounter the pain of racism, addiction, ageism, and intimate violence.” —Carol J. Cook, Harrison Ray Anderson Professor of Pastoral Theology Emerita, Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, USA “Compelling case studies of struggles with addiction, intimate partner violence, depression, and sexual intimacy demonstrate how ageism, racism, and sexism are compounded by rigid Christian beliefs and Confucian values that intensify shame. This innovative book describes how pastoral care and counseling can bring to light these religious sources of shame and explore spiritual sources for healing and wholeness for Korean Americans.” —Carrie Doehring, Professor of Pastoral Care, Iliff School of Theology, USA “Angella Son, in collaboration with other pastoral theologians, has provided a rich and much needed book on pastoral care of Korean Americans, covering a wide number of issues such as intimate violence, shame, sex, racism and depression, and

addictions. This book will be an important resource for pastoral educators and caregivers who are engaged in Korean American contexts.” —Ryan LaMothe, Professor of Pastoral Care and Counseling, Saint Meinrad Seminary and School of Theology, USA “This book is the first of its kind authored mostly by leading Korean American pastoral theologians of various generations, covering wide-­ranging topics about Korean American communities, a delightful resource full of useful information. This is a must read if you want to understand Korean American church communities and the challenges they face.” —Kyungsig Samuel Lee, Edna & Lowell Craig Professor of Practical Theology, Spiritual Care, & Counseling, Claremont School of Theology, USA “What is it like to be considered a model minority, while being treated as a perpetual foreigner? In this book, Angella Son and a group of distinguished pastoral theologians raise questions such as this and respond to them with carefully researched recommendations for pastors, churches, counselors, and all those who want to offer informed and compassionate pastoral care to Korean Americans.” —Mary Clark Moschella, Roger J. Squire Professor of Pastoral Care, Yale Divinity School, USA “Written by mostly outstanding Korean-American pastoral counseling professors, this long-awaited book is a trailblazer in Korean-American counseling. It will greatly improve the quality of Korean-Americans’ physical, mental, spiritual, cultural, and communal health. This superb work is a must-read for Korean-American pastors, Korean Americans, Korean diasporas, and cross-cultural professionals.” —Andrew Sung Park, Professor of Theology and Ethics, United Theological Seminary in Ohio, USA “Angella Son and seven colleagues together provide Christian pastors and laity an essential, first- ever resource for pastoral care with Korean Americans in the US and Korea. Naming the bi-cultural complexity of Confucian and Christian influences, the chapters engage a wide range of issues including feminism and Confucianism, aging, intimate violence, addiction, navigating early and later adolescence, and racism.” —Nancy J. Ramsay, Emerita Professor of Pastoral Theology and Pastoral Care, Brite Divinity School, USA

“Focused on Korean Americans, this timely and important book fills a significant gap in pastoral care literature. Issues of domestic violence, addiction, racism, intercultural identity, and ageism in Korean American communities and churches are explored with theoretical and theological depth. Each chapter considers the role of the Korean American church in promoting healing and social justice and proposes pastoral care practices.” —Karen D. Scheib, Professor of Pastoral Care and Pastoral Theology, Candler School of Theology, Emory University, USA

Contents

1 Introduction: Wisdom for Common Life (Chung Yong) as a Theological and Pastoral Task in the Korean American Context  1 Angella Son 2 The Power of Ambivalence for Korean American Women in the Confucian Context 13 Insook Lee 3 Intimate Violence and Pastoral Care in the Korean American Community 27 Jaeyeon Lucy Chung 4 Exposing the Shame That Binds Us in Intimate Partner Violence 45 David Daesoo Kim 5 Pastoral Care for the Spiritual and Mental Health of Elderly Korean American Christians: Confronting Ageism Through Autobiography Groups 63 Yong Hwan Kim

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6 In-Between Cultures to In-Both: Creating Common Stories of Korean American Youth 81 Sophia S. Park 7 What’s Love Got to Do with It? Sex and the Korean American College Student and Young Adult 99 Kirsten Sonkyo Oh 8 Racism as a Heightening Factor in the High Rate of Depression among Korean American Youth & Young Adults (KAY&YA)117 Angella Son 9 Addiction, Pain, and Compassionate Care135 Sonia E. Waters Index151

Notes on Contributors

Jaeyeon Lucy Chung, PhD  is Assistant Professor of Pastoral Theology and the Director of the Styberg Library at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary in Evanston, Illinois. She holds a PhD in Person, Community, and Religious Practices from Emory University Graduate School. Her recent publications include Korean Women, Self-Esteem, and Practical Theology: Transformative Care (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017) and “Toward an Asian American Pastoral Theology of Radical Hospitality: Caring for Undocumented Migrants,” Journal of Pastoral Theology (Jan. 14, 2020). David Daesoo Kim, PhD, LPC  is a psychotherapist and an adjunct faculty member at the Mercer Medical School’s Marriage Family Therapy Program. He holds a PhD in Counselor Education and Supervision from Mercer University. He is the founder and director of Research Institute for Counseling & Education (RICE) located in Atlanta, Georgia. His clinical, research, and teaching interests include Asian and Pacific Islander American mental health, racial and sexual identities, acculturation, intimate partner violence, culturally sensitive training and supervision, and working with immigrant populations. Yong  Hwan  Kim, PhD is Professor and the Director of Christian Counseling Psychology of Presbyterian Theological Seminary in America in Santa Fe Springs, California. He is also the Executive Director of the Santa Fe Christian Counseling Center in Santa Fe Springs, California. He holds a PhD in Spiritual Care and Counseling from Claremont School of Theology in Claremont, California. He is an ordained minister of the xix

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Presbyterian Church of Korea. His research interests include aging and pastoral care with the elderly, cross-cultural psychology of Korean immigrants, and cultural application of cognitive behavioral therapy for Koreans and Korean immigrants. Insook  Lee, ThD  is a professor and the Director of Master of Arts in Pastoral Care and Counseling at New York Theological Seminary. She is a fellow in the American Association of Pastoral Counselors and an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church, United States. She is an editorial board member of the Journal of Pastoral Theology and Book Review Editor of the Journal of Pastoral Care and Counseling. Her research interests include Confucian feminist pastoral psychotherapy, intercultural and interreligious dialogue, multiple identities, and Zen meditation and psychotherapy. Her research usually aims at promoting the partnership between Asian and Western liberal feminist pastoral theologies. Kirsten  Sonkyo  Oh, PhD  is Professor of Practical Theology at Azusa Pacific University and the Ecclesiastical Associate Professor of United Methodist Studies at Fuller Theological Seminary. She holds a PhD in Theology with a Pastoral Care and Counseling emphasis from Fuller Theological Seminary, and she focuses her research on intercultural narrative counseling using multidisciplinary approaches in order to address the intersections of identities. As an ordained elder in the United Methodist Church, she serves as a co-convener for the Faith and Order Table of the National Council of Churches and a mentor for the United Methodist Women of Color Scholars program. Sophia S. Park, ThD, LMFT  is Associate Professor of Pastoral Clinical Mental Health Counseling at Neumann University, Aston, Pennsylvania. She holds a doctorate in Pastoral Theology and Counseling from Columbia Theological Seminary, Decatur, Georgia. Her writings focus on the challenges faced by immigrant families, especially the identity formation of children growing up in multi-cultural contexts. She brings more than 15  years of professional experience in marriage and family counseling, psychiatric in-patient units, addiction clinics, hospital chaplaincy, academic teaching, and church ministry. Angella  Son, PhD  is Professor of Psychology and Religion at Drew University. She holds a doctorate from Princeton Theological Seminary. She is an ordained Presbyterian minister, Presbyterian Church (USA

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[PCUSA]), a certified Association of Clinical Pastoral Education (ACPE) psychotherapist, and the Director of Korean Care and Counseling Program at Blanton-Peale Institute. She serves on several juried journals and her publications include Spirituality of Joy: Moving Beyond Dread and Duty and numerous juried journal articles and book chapters such as “Relationality in Kohut’s Psychology of the Self” and “The Japanese Secret: The Shame Behind Japan’s Longstanding Denial of Its War Crime Against Korean Comfort Girls-Women.” Sonia E. Waters, PhD  is an Episcopal priest and a Professor of Pastoral Theology at Princeton Theological Seminary. She holds a PhD from Princeton Seminary, an MDiv from General Theological Seminary in New York City, and a BA from Wheaton College in Illinois. She has served in parish ministry in New  York and New Jersey. Her research interests include substance and behavioral addictions, including a new book Addictions and Pastoral Care. Her broader interests include contextual and political pastoral theologies, attachment and family systems theories, and relational perspectives on the self.

CHAPTER 1

Introduction: Wisdom for Common Life (Chung Yong) as a Theological and Pastoral Task in the Korean American Context Angella Son

1.1   Introduction If you are barely able to put food on the table each day and are asked to move to and work at a place where the streets are paved with gold and it is easy for you to become rich, what would you do? This is how the immigration from Korea to the United States began: “On January 13, 1903, the first shipload of [102] Korean immigrants, aboard the S.  S. Gaelic, arrived in Hawaii to work on the pineapple and sugar plantations.”1 Unfortunately, what was waiting for them was not a land of abundance, but was instead a life of hard work and suffering at the pineapple and sugar plantations. What is particular to Korean immigration is that church was an important factor in recruitment, and thus the early history of Korean immigration rather coincides with the early history of Korean American churches. Of 102 Korean immigrants of the first group, more than half of

A. Son (*) Psychology and Religion, Drew University, Madison, NJ, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 A. Son (ed.), Pastoral Care in a Korean American Context, Asian Christianity in the Diaspora, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-48575-7_1

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the Koreans were recruited from Naeri Methodist Church in Incheon. The first group gathered for the first Sunday service on November 10, 1903, and then founded the First Korean Methodist Church in Honolulu on April 1, 1905. The church is currently known as Christ United Methodist Church. Church then became a place to find comfort from suffering and a place of hard work at plantations as well as a space to gather together socially and to worship God. Most importantly, Korean immigrant churches played one of the most important roles within the Korean independence movement. Korean American churches not only solidified Korean Americans in unity, but also raised funds for the independence movement. After playing such a significant role in political justice, many Korean American churches lost their involvement in socio-economic and political issues, especially in an explicit way. Instead, they paved a path of dualism where churches are involved in spiritual matters while civic organizations are left to deal with non-spiritual aspects of life. This dualism then influenced Korean American churches to stay away from the proactive care of those suffering from mental health issues, abuse, and addiction to name a few. While Korean American churches engage in outreach ministry for the poor and less privileged, they are understood to be a part of evangelism and mission work. The notion “justice” is usually understood by Koreans as being associated with extreme acts. This sense of avoiding involvement in the extreme is influenced by principles of Confucianism, especially Zhongyong or Chung Yong2 which is often understood to mean maintaining centeredness usually by avoiding extremes. It is not an exaggeration to say that Chung Yong has been one of the creative resources that was intricately informing Christian practices of Koreans and Korean Americans. Koreans and Korean Americans often strive for a disposition with a sense of centeredness by holding in harmony multi-variant tensions in life. Unfortunately, this narrow understanding of Chung Yong influenced Korean American churches to shy away from active involvement in non-­ spiritual matters, or rather, to exclude some matters such as care for the victims of injustice, abused and abusers, and those suffering from mental health issues as separate from spirituality. Moreover, the stereotype of passivity attributed to Koreans or even Asians is a result of parenting which emphasizes hard work and excellence but discourages protuberant behavior that, in effect, discourages risk-taking as entrepreneurs and challenging oneself to more leadership positions. It is thus crucial to examine whether

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Korean people are correctly understanding and applying the Confucius teaching, Chung Yong. I will posit that the wisdom for common life is the most essential aspect of Chung Yong and that wisdom for common life in Chung Yong should be the theological and pastoral task in the Korean American context. In other words, the fact that theological discourse often tends to be speculative in nature and is understood to be in the domain of elitists should be given a second look, and its commonality manifested in everyday life of ordinary people should be brought forward as the main focus of theological and pastoral tasks. Claiming the wisdom for common life afforded by insights based on Chung Yong can contribute to making Christianity more relevant to Korean American people’s lives by moving beyond a right or wrong approach to life situations, embracing challenging everyday situations including abuse, addiction, and mental problems as the location of theological and pastoral work, and encouraging Korean American children and young adults to take risks as entrepreneurs and take on more challenging leadership roles. We now turn to a brief discussion on Chung Yong.

1.2   Chung Yong Chung Yong, known as The Doctrine of the Mean,3 was originally a chapter in the Liji or Records of Ritual that was later separated out and selected by Zhu Xi as one of Sishu (The Four Books), along with Lunyu (The Analects of Confucius), Mengzi (Mencius), and Daxue (The Great Learning), all of which had earned high status and had been the foundation of Chinese teachings.4 Wing-tsit Chan, one of the prominent Chinese scholars, claimed Chung Yong as “perhaps the most philosophical work in the whole body of ancient Confucian literature.”5 Ever since it took on its English title as The Doctrine of the Mean in a translation by James Legge, Chung Yong has often been associated, as did in understanding and practice by Koreans, with moderation which is a limited or mistaken utilization of its profound meaning. Just as the long-established western understanding of Aristotle’s virtue of mean is moderation,6 in western society the mean of Chung Yong is often understood to represent mediocrity. In today’s context when bigger and more is better, Chung Yong as moderation is thus perceived as a premature observance of limits and mediocrity rather than as a reasonable observance of limits which is one of the dictionary definitions of moderation.7 Chung Yong is thus understood to exhibit arrested actualization so that practicing Chung Yong is seen as forfeiting a portion

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of one’s rightful capacity. In our current context where holding to or securing “enough” is seen as settling for deficiency, in a culture which is creating what I call a normativity of excess/extreme, it is critical that an accurate and compelling understanding of Chung Yong should be brought to light to bring insights from Chung Yong to bear on our theological and pastoral tasks. Chung Yong is defined as “‘putting into common practice’ (yong) of the ideal of perfect equilibrium (zhong)” in many traditional commentaries.8 Tu Wei-Ming explains this as an ideal of centeredness practiced in common life. Tu argues that Chung Yong is specifically practiced through one’s centrality in common daily life, that is, common life as the location in which Chung Yong should be practiced. In other words, concrete activities in specific human situations or common life are presupposed in the universal aim to live as human beings, that is, maintaining centeredness. One is to exercise centrality throughout all the possible on-going changes produced by the varying situations occurring in one’s common daily life,9 that is, according to Tu Wei-Ming, “It is the Confucian belief that the ultimate meaning of life is rooted in the ordinary human existence.”10 It is important to draw attention to the concept of perfect equilibrium or centeredness not as an unchangeable state of balance, but as “a compensatory restoration of equilibrium”11 in ever-changing human situations. In other words, the western pursuit of extracting objective universal principles defined in a substantival and atomistic understanding does not do the justice to comprehending a Chinese worldview that emphasizes the dynamic process between the universal principles and particularities of human exigent situations. The misunderstanding of Chung Yong as moderation noted above is, no doubt, partly a direct result from this mistake. Roger T. Ames and David L. Hall, by employing the discourse of field and focus that they borrow from the works of A.  N. Whitehead, stress this point and propose that Chung Yong represents the discourse of process and becoming rather than the usual Western discourse of discrete, objective, and permanent nature of world and should not be understood as promoting the means between the two extremes of defect and excess. They state: “The Zhongyong . . . advocates optimizing the creative possibilities of the ever-changing circumstances in which the human experience takes place.”12 Wing-tsit Chan in his introduction to his translation of Chung Yong echoes the dynamic interplay or rather an intricate harmony between objective values and subjective experiences that reside in the concept of Chung Yong and concludes that wisdom of practicality is the

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essential aspect of Chung Yong. He states: “In the final analysis, the Doctrine of the Mean is a Confucian document, and as such it has never deviated from its central interest in practical affairs.”13 Osamu deepens the understanding of Chung Yong by astutely pointing out how Chung, or the middle, does not represent a mid-point between the two, a quantitative middle, but a middle that exists between two extremes without gravitating more toward one side or the other. It, more importantly, is ready and able to embrace both sides, not merely existing between them.14 Osamu further notes how the middle does not represent a static point on a straight line but a dynamic vertex created by an integrative process resulting in a higher state of quality15 and calls this process harmony. Chang Chi-yun echoes this dynamically creative process involved in maintaining equilibrium or harmony as Chung Yong and states: “K’ung Jih seemed to believe, without saying it explicitly, that the universe tended to seek equilibrium between polarities and harmony in the midst of divergence while moving and changing all the time.”16 A common mistake is to misconstrue harmony as conformity or a lack of difference. Instead, one should be aware that it “refers to allowing everyone room to play under the prerequisite of harmony.”17 This way of understanding Chung Yong suggests a creative harmony between universal principles and relative particularities exhibited in common daily life. Chung Yong thus suggests the importance of both universal normativity expressed in principles, and specific particularities in each situation for determining the best possible act in a given situation. In other words, Chung Yong highlights the inevitable deficit of relying on either universal principles or situational particularities alone to assess human activity. There is a necessity for the creative integration of both. Chung Yong does not ignore the dynamic nature of daily life characterized by its ever-changing situations. Chung Yong thus encourages both the commitment to the principle-normative and the sensitivity to the situation-­ variant. Chang Chi-yun sums up the idea well in his estimation of K’ung Jih’s intention in Chung Yong: “What K’ung Jih wanted to say was just this: we should do the right thing in the right time and at the right place, not too much, nor too little, and meeting a special need.”18 Since Chung Yong promotes the best possible human action toward addressing the changing and variant situations of human life, it certainly can be seen to encourage avoiding extremes or finding the mean between defect and excess. However, it is important to note how Chung Yong’s dynamic aspect is intricate and complex enough so that it does not exclude a

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possibility that an extreme, either defect or excess, can be, though rarely is, the appropriate measure of action in a given situation. In light of the discussions above, I claim that a theological and pastoral task is wisdom for common life found in Chung Yong. Human beings are to practice wisdom in facing their day-to-day common affairs but moreover aim to demonstrate wisdom in their particular situations. While acknowledging the need for developing theological doctrines that guide our understanding of the universal normativity of Christian principles, the ultimate theological task both as ends and means should be identified as being wisdom-oriented and engaged by ordinary people in their day-to-day life. Moreover, even in the process of defining normative principles in doctrine, scholars and ministers need to be mindful of the particularities of human context in order to avoid the pitfall of designating the permanence to the principles implied in their substantival discourse. To that end, theological discourse should ultimately be concerned with engaging in wisdom as both means and ends in its endeavor. In particular, Chung Yong’s concept of wisdom for common life that seeks creative harmony between the normative principles and particular situations can suggest a good paradigm for our theological and pastoral enterprise, one which brings wisdom for common life to bear as both means and ends in the average person’s daily life. As an effort to engage with wisdom in the common life of Korean Americans, each chapter of the book addresses specific issues. To this we now turn.

1.3   Chapter Descriptions This book aims to provide theoretical background and pastoral strategies to pastors, lay leaders, and congregation members in South Korea and the United States on various issues so that a restoration of the human dignity imputed by God and the good community desired by God are realized. The book encourages the readers to attune and respond appropriately to the complexities of pastoral situations and care instead of resorting to a simple approach in providing answers to people’s problems, especially by quoting them biblical passages and telling them to pray to God. In particular, the book attempts to steer Korean and Korean American communities away from individualization, moralization, and spiritualization of Christian care and faith. It addresses both personal and systemic issues such as power differentials and racism. It incorporates the intersectionality between psychology, sociology, cultural studies, and spirituality and

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presents a wholistic approach to pastoral care that accentuates care for both psychological and spiritual development. Moreover, it tries to deconstruct uncritical appropriation of theology and reconstruct constructive theological paradigms as well as societal narratives about Korean Americans. As a result, vulnerability, ambivalence, and privileging stories, to name a few, are suggested as a part of pastoral strategies that can empower both ministers and laity. To this end, contribution by each chapter is described below. In Chap. 2, Insook Lee observes that many Korean American women must navigate two radically different ideologies concerning women’s roles, rights, and self-identity. The two ideologies are represented by Confucian traditions and Western liberal feminism. Lee also observes that this situation may create an inner conflict, such as ambivalence, for Korean American women. Lee then explores ambivalent feelings and attitudes of Korean American women toward Confucian values and Western liberal feminism. Her discussion focuses on defining ambivalence, why and how it is developed in specific US contexts, what impact it has on Korean American women’s emotional and psychological health, and how such ambivalence should be creatively treated in pastoral care and counseling. In Chap. 3, Jaeyeon Lucy Lee suggests that while there is a paucity of national representative research on intimate violence among Korean Americans, some national surveys and social scientific studies demonstrate higher rates of intimate violence among Korean American immigrants than other ethnic groups. Moreover, research also indicates that most victims hardly seek help, and if they ever do, they primarily resort to their churches. Jaeyeon Lucy Lee asks a two-fold fundamental question: what causes and perpetuates intimate violence among Korean Americans, and how can the church facilitate a theological vision of redeemed dignity and embraced vulnerability? In order to answer the question, she analyzes the multilayered reality of intimate violence in the Korean American community, particularly focusing on its cultural and theological assumptions embedded in the clergy perceptions and pastoral practices. She then develops a communal and transformative model of pastoral care based on imago Dei. In Chap. 4, David Daesoo Kim examines the current trends in dealing with perpetrators of intimate partner violence and reveals why the existing standardized domestic violence programs that use an accountability modality may be ineffective for Korean male perpetrators. Drawing from affect theory, David Daesoo Kim pays attention to the role of shame as a

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precursor to violence. Kim thus argues that shame, along with its connection to violence, should be the focus and that a treatment approach and an accountability modality should be utilized to adequately address intimate partner violence. By applying Jac Brown’s theory, based on Heinz Kohut’s psychoanalytic theory of self-psychology, to a case study of intimate partner violence, Kim also provides some general guidelines for working with Korean American male perpetrators. Kim then suggests pastoral strategies for Korean American churches that address intimate partner violence. In Chap. 5, Yonghwan Kim confronts the dual discrimination of racism and ageism. Yonghwan Kim observes that Korean American elderly immigrants have the highest rate of depression among the five main elderly Asian immigrant groups (Chinese, Asian Indian, Filipino, Vietnamese, and Korean). Yonghwan Kim suggests that their Confucian cultural identity and orientation lead them to experience more acculturative stresses and identity chaos when they experience racism and ageism because they believe that, based on their old age, they should be respected by others. Kim argues that the dual discrimination of racism and ageism damages their cultural and spiritual identities and their sense of dignity as children of God and this prevents them from finding and making meaning from their immigrant lives. Kim then explores the negative effects of racism and ageism on this population and suggests pastoral strategies to deal with these effects. In Chap. 6, Sophia S. Park argues that in navigating two cultural contexts through adolescence, many Korean American youths find themselves living in-between cultures that negatively impact the formation of self-­ identity and self-esteem. In addition, living in a society where whiteness— culture, worldviews, appearance, and identity—is normalized, Korean Americans youths often find themselves cast into the margins of society. By consulting Sang Hyun Lee, who reframes the space of Korean Americans from marginal—dehumanizing and oppressive space—to liminal—where resistance and creativity is produced, Sophia S. Park posits that the creative potential of the Korean American 1.5 generation are realized through re-authoring stories that exemplify their experience and by creating common stories that sustain the Korean American communities. Park also suggests that pastors, who journey through re-authoring their stories with divine love and presence, can, in-turn, become story companions to Korean American youth and others, constructing faithful, life-giving narratives that empower flourishing.

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In Chap. 7, Kirsten Sonkyo Oh dives into sexuality, a taboo subject among most Korean Americans families. Kirsten Sonkyo Oh observes that, despite the rampant exposure to sexuality in the popular media, Korean American Christian families rarely talk about sexuality as they rigidly hold onto the conservative sexual ethics of Korean culture and evangelical Christianity that emphasize purity, chastity, and holiness of sexuality. Taking into account a growing gap between the promiscuous aspects of modern culture and the traditional sexual ethics of Korean American evangelical churches, Kirsten Oh explores biblically grounded and reflective sexual ethics based on a paradigm of covenantal friendship informed by the Gospel of John that stresses faithfulness, mutuality, and self-sacrifice. In Chap. 8, Angella Son argues that, in addition to acculturative stress, racism heightens the risk of suffering from depression among Korean American young people. Angella Son explores the effect of racism on depression by employing the self-dynamic among self-preservation, self-­ loss, and selfobject-augmentation that she developed drawing on the work of Heinz Kohut. She then suggests that Korean American churches proactively resist racism to enhance self-preservation and to reduce self-loss experiences for Korean Americans. Finally, she offers some specific pastoral strategies for Korean American churches to provide selfobject-­augmentation in order to address the harmful effects of racism on Korean American youth and young adults, as well as the lack of knowledge of and shame attached to mental health disorders, in particular depression, in the Korean American community. Finally, in Chap. 9, Sonia E.  Waters observes research findings that alcohol and drug use is a rising problem in Korean American communities, especially in U.S.-born generations. Sonia E. Waters then reviews the neurobiology of addiction and outlines its causes, framing the spiritual problem of addiction as one of pain. Waters also observes, based on research on Asian Americans, that the problem is related to acculturation challenges, attachment issues, and experiences of racism. Assuming addiction is a disease that arises through our efforts to cope with pain, Waters offers that combating addiction requires both resiliency-building and healing approaches that are specific to the complex life-experience of Korean Americans.

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Notes 1. Ilpyong Kim. Korean-Americans: Past, Present, and Future. (Elizabeth, NJ: Hollym International Corp., 2004), 13. 2. Chung Yong in Chinese and Korean are 中庸, 중용 respectively. 3. Chung Yong as “the Doctrine of the Mean” was first rendered by James Legge, a British missionary, in his first translation of The Chinese Classics. Legge altered the title which then became “The State of Equilibrium and Harmony” when he retranslated Chung Yong as a part of Liji (The Record of Rites) in 1885. 4. The Four Books was a basic text for the national civil service examination between years 1313 and 1905. In contemporary context, it is estimated to be “perhaps the most profound, most philosophical, most metaphysical, and most religious text in the whole body of ancient Confucian literature.” See Ian P. McGreal, ed., Great Thinkers of the Eastern World: The Major Thinkers and the Philosophical and Religious Classics of China, India, Japan, Korea and the World of Islam (New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1995), 56. 5. Wing-tsit Chan, A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963), 96. 6. Jiyuan Yu, “The Aristotelian Mean and Confucian Mean,” Journal of Chinese Philosophy 29, no. 3 (2002): 337. 7. Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary, s.v. “moderation.” 8. Routledge Curzon Encyclopedia, ed. Xinzhong Yao (London & New York: Routledge Curzon, 2003), s.v. “Zhongyong.” 9. Robert C.  Neville, Boston Confucianism: Portable Tradition in the Late-­ Modern World, Chinese Philosophy and Culture (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2000), 175–176. 10. Tu Wei-Ming, Centrality and Commonality: An Essay on Confucian Religiousness (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989), 133. See also Tiziana Lippiello, “On the Difficult Practice of the Mean in Ordinary Life: Teachings from Zhongyong,” in Rooted in Hope, ed. Barbara Hoster, Dirk Kuhlmann, and Zbigniew Wesolowski, Monumenta Serica Monograph Series LXVIII/I (New York: Routledge, 2017), 84–85. 11. Routledge Curzon Encyclopedia, s.v. “Zhongyong.” 12. Roger T. Ames and David L. Hall, Focusing the Familiar: A Translation and Philosophical Interpretation of the Zhongyong (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2001), 151. 13. Chan, A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy, 96. 14. Kanaya Osamu, “The Mean in Original Confucianism.” in Chinese Language, Thought, and Culture, ed. Philip J. Ivanhoe (Chicago and La Salle: Open Court, 1996), 86. See also Rostam J.  Newwith, Law in the

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Time of Oxymora: A Synaesthesia of Language, Logic and Law. Juris Diversitas (New York: Routledge, 2018), 192–193. 15. Ibid, 87. 16. Chi-yun Chang, “The Ta Hsueh and the Chung Yung,” Chinese Culture: A Quarterly Review 28, no. 4 (1987): 20. 17. Shi Zhongwen, “Traditional Culture Embodied in Confucianism and China’s Search for a Harmonious Society and Peaceful Development,” in China in Search of a Harmonious Society, ed. Sujian Guo and Baogang Guo (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2008), 41. 18. Chang, “the Ta Hsueh and the Chung Yung,” 22.

Bibliography Ames, Roger T., and David L. Hall. 2001. Focusing the Familiar: A Translation and Philosophical Interpretation of the Zhongyong. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Chan, Wing-tsit. 1963. A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Chang, Chi-yun. 1987. The Ta Hsueh and the Chung Yung. Chinese Culture: A Quarterly Review 28 (4): 1–34. Kim, Ilpyong. 2004. Korean-Americans: Past, Present, and Future. Elizabeth: Hollym International Corp. Legge, James, trans. 1960. The Chinese Classics, 5 vols. Hong Kong: University of Hong Kong. Lippiello, Tiziana. 2017. On the Difficult Practice of the Mean in Ordinary Life: Teachings from Zhongyong. In Rooted in Hope, Monumenta Serica Monograph Series, ed. Barbara Hoster, Dirk Kuhlmann, and Zbigniew Wesolowski, vol. LXVIII/I, 75–98. New York: Routledge. McGreal, Ian P., ed. 1995. Great Thinkers of the Eastern World: The Major Thinkers and the Philosophical and Religious Classics of China, India, Japan, Korea and the World of Islam. New York: Harper Collins Publishers. Neuwith, Rostam J. 2018. Law in the Time of Oxymora: A Synaesthesia of Language, Logic and Law, Juris Diversitas. New York: Routledge. Neville, Robert C. 2000. Boston Confucianism: Portable Tradition in the Late-­ Modern World, Chinese Philosophy and Culture. Albany: State University of New York Press. Osamu, Kanaya. 1996. The Mean in Original Confucianism. In Chinese Language, Thought, and Culture, ed. Philip J. Ivanhoe. Chicago/La Salle: Open Court. Shi, Zhongwen. 2008. Traditional Culture Embodied in Confucianism and China’s Search for a Harmonious Society and Peaceful Development. In China in Search of a Harmonious Society, ed. Sujian Guo and Baogang Guo. Lanham: Lexington Books.

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Tu, Wei-Ming. 1989. Centrality and Commonality: An Essay on Confucian Religiousness. Albany: State University of New York Press. Yao, Xinzhong, ed. 2003. Routledge Curzon Encyclopedia. London/New York: Routledge Curzon, s.v. “Zhongyong.”. Yu, Jiyuan. 2002. The Aristotelian Mean and Confucian Mean. Journal of Chinese Philosophy 29 (3): 337–354.

CHAPTER 2

The Power of Ambivalence for Korean American Women in the Confucian Context Insook Lee

2.1   Introduction1 Western liberal feminist approaches to women’s issues can be problematic for Korean American2 women in Confucian contexts, particularly as it pertains to issues of women’s social roles, gender identities, political and economic equality, reproductive freedom, and so on. Western liberal feminism is rooted in the claims of individual woman’s rights and freedoms; whereas, Confucian traditions emphasize family, community, harmony, and relationship as their core values.3 Even in a thoroughly globalized world, Confucianism remains an undeniable part of many Asian cultures, but particularly for Koreans whose adaptation of Confucianism became a national religion in 1392. Even so, Confucian society has strongly felt the persistent pressures of modernization along with its Western liberal values. As a result, Confucianism and Western liberal feminism continue to be engaged in a seemingly incompatible value struggle. Many Korean American

I. Lee (*) Pastoral Care and Counseling, New York Theological Seminary, New York, NY, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 A. Son (ed.), Pastoral Care in a Korean American Context, Asian Christianity in the Diaspora, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-48575-7_2

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women have inevitably experienced this culture clash, often externally articulated as the difference between the East and the West but internally expressed as inner conflict or “ambivalence.” This chapter attempts to conceptualize this inner conflict and its impact on Korean American women’s mental health using psychological, philosophical, and feminist theories of ambivalence. As a pastoral psychotherapist, I have worked with Asian women, especially Korean American women, for more than 20 years. My experience has taught me that Asian women’s reactions to both Confucianism and feminism are often ones of ambivalence and uncertainty. These women offer insightful critiques of the patriarchal Confucian society, gender injustice, discrimination, and mistreatment both in the family and society. However, the women are puzzlingly resistant to the core values of Western liberal feminism, which center on women’s individual freedoms and rights. When these common themes are presented, the women immediately retreat to Confucian values of womanhood such as humility, harmony, and self-sacrifice. Although they seek for liberal values of individual freedoms and rights, their Confucian proclivity persists as their ideal, regardless of their critiques of it. These women appear to simultaneously embrace both traditional Confucian and Western liberal feminist ideology without much integration. Freud generally used the term “ambivalence” in this sense of the “simultaneous existence of love and hate toward the same object.”4 This chapter further explores the phenomenon of ambivalence that some, if not all, Korean American women experience when finding themselves at the intersection of Confucian traditions and Western liberal feminism. It is not assumed that all Korean American women necessarily or uniformly experience this phenomenon. Instead, I am suggesting that this phenomenon adds useful insight into the unique experience of Korean American women in a Confucian context. I use Frankfurt’s analysis of ambivalence to explore the contradictions of Confucian and feminism, Swindell’s criticism of Frankfurt’s theory, and Svolba’s defense of Frankfurt’s arguments. I then relate the aforementioned theories to Bednarowski’s feminist concept of ambivalence through the case study of “Yuna.” This method of integration results in what could be called “Confucian feminism.” Although Confucianism and feminism have engaged with each other for over 100 years, the relationship has largely been a “one-sided affair”5 rather than a “balanced one.”6 Mostly this imbalance arises from “feminists criticizing the status and treatment of women determined by Confucianism.”7 Likewise, those feminists who

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focus on women’s oppression take great pains to expose how traditional Confucian society victimizes and marginalizes women. Li argues, Confucianism has finally started to “talk back” to its feminist critics.8 This chapter is one such effort to overcome a “one-sided affair” by providing a space for Confucian traditions to “talk back” to Western liberal feminism. My definition of feminism for this chapter follows Korean American feminist Terry Woo who, as early as 1999, wrote an essay about the relationship between Confucianism and feminism. Using Karen Offten’s statement, Woo identifies various feminisms as being “the impetus to critique and improve the disadvantaged status of women relative to men within a particular cultural situation.”9 Understood this way, Western liberal feminism refers to only one among many possible approaches to women’s issues, an approach based largely on the modern liberal ideologies of individual’s rights and freedoms.

2.2   Harry Frankfurt’s Analysis of Ambivalence American philosopher Harry Frankfurt analyzes freedom of will using the concept of two different orders of desire: a first-order desire and a second-­ order desire.10 A first-order desire is a desire about an object itself, whereas a second-order desire is a desire about a first-order desire. Frankfurt offers the example of an unwilling smoker who wants to quit. The first-order desire for the smoker is that he likes to smoke (he desires smoking). However, the unwilling smoker’s second-order desire is contrary to his first-order desire: he does not want to smoke (he desires not to smoke). It can be said that the smoker does have a desire to smoke but, thanks to his ability to reflect on his first-order desire, he does not want to identify with or be motivated by his first-order desire to smoke. Instead, he views his first-order desire as an outlaw. Frankfurt argues that a person’s will is free only when his first-order desire is in accord with his second-order desire.11 The above smoker’s will is not free but rather “ambivalent” because his first-order desire and second-order desires are in conflict with each other. This ambivalence makes him feel divided and unable to form second-order volition: making a decision and taking an action. Thus, Frankfurt theorizes the concept of ambivalence as occurring only at the level of willing, in which a person engages with the second-order desire and tries to decide whether he wants to pursue his first-order desire or not. In Frankfurt’s view, therefore, ambivalence refers to a conflict or division in a person’s

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will, a mismatch between the first-order desire and the second-order desire. The consequence is the inability to act. J. S. Swindell rejects Frankfurt’s analysis that the ambivalent person has a problem only at the level of “willing.”12 Instead, Swindell argues that ambivalence can occur at both first and second-order desires which he describes as “identifying” and “willing,” respectively. David Svolba, however, defends Frankfurt from Swindell’s criticism. According to Svolba, Frankfurt reasons that a desire becomes internal to a person’s will only if the person already identifies with that desire.13 I agree with Frankfurt that ambivalence occurs when a person has already identified with a first-order desire but experiences conflict on the second-order desire. I follow Frankfurt’s analysis that, in Svolva’s terms, “ambivalence refers to a kind of conflict or division in the agent’s will.”14 For Frankfurt, therefore, ambivalence refers to “agential vice” or a “volitional impairment” because the ambivalent agent is an “irrational agent.”15 He or she is irrational because he or she holds contradictory beliefs and could not possibly satisfy both of them. Such ambivalence leads a person to experience “incoherence,” the complex, inner conflict which people normally try to resolve. Swindell, however, is helpful in distinguishing between two types of ambivalence at the level of willing (Frankfurt’s second-order desire). One is “paralyzing” and the other is “residual.”16 Ambivalence is paralyzing if a person cannot resolve the conflict between his conflicting desires and is completely unable to act. He or she fails to form a will at the second-order desire level. In contrast, ambivalence is “residual” if a person is able to act on a second-order desire that conflicts with a first-order desire: the person, however, continues to be drawn to and significantly influenced by the “outlawed” desire. In other words, the person has managed to form a will but is strongly and residually drawn toward the conflicting alternative (such as the smoker being drawn back to his first-order desire although having acted on his second-order desire of quitting). Swindell calls this person a “residually” ambivalent person. For Swindell, therefore, it is possible for a person to be successful at will-formation but still remain “residually ambivalent.”

2.3   Case Study: Yuna17 Yuna is a single 48-year-old, educated Korean woman who came to the United States in the early 2000s to obtain her graduate degree in Theology. She currently works at a church. She negatively identifies Confucianism

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with her father, who used Confucian values to emphasize his traditional household rules regarding antiquated roles of women and men in society. Notwithstanding, Yuna’s major conflict with her father has been about ritual ancestor worship. When Yuna’s older brother (a Christian) once refused to partake in ancestor worship, her father almost beat him to death. “The ancestor worship days were always terrible because of this conflict,” Yuna said. Her father was violent to her mother, though he “tried to do his best to his children.” He did not use any physical violence toward Yuna (a Christian) but instead relied on forceful conversation. Yuna fought back against her father’s authoritarian behaviors and attitudes. As a result of these experiences, she developed a strong confrontational attitude toward anyone who exhibited the attributes of her father: authority, injustice, and discrimination. When asked what she considered Confucianism to be, she listed her father’s beliefs: the importance of ancestor worship, a difference between men and women and following discriminatory gender rules. After pausing, however, she said, “I don’t feel that I know Confucianism very well. In fact, a couple of times in my life, I thought Confucianism may be different from what my father had said. Is it?” Yuna’s emotional reactions to her father and his Confucianism were “fear, anger, frustration, and [feeling] sick and tired.” She said, “There was nothing to learn from my father. His words and behaviors did not match.” Her father often used the teachings of Confucius and Mencius (two prominent Confucian founders) to gain power that rationalizes his violence, along with his drinking problem, and the maltreatment of his wife and children. Yuna said that he often deplored how Confucian traditions were being destroyed by Western culture and, in particular, by Christianity. Yuna “ferociously rebelled” against her father’s beliefs. However, she admits, “I accepted gender difference [discrimination] as a [normative] way of human life, but I have also always believed that gender discrimination is simply unjust.” She observed many “worse” [than her father’s] cases of gender discrimination happening in the church. She often found herself developing negative transference toward men, especially men of her father’s age, such as ordained elders and deacons. Yuna noted, “I didn’t have any self-doubt on this matter. What I was angry about, instead, was my inability to stand up to speak, to act. I was angry about my helpless and powerless feelings.” Confucianism had had a profoundly limiting and disempowering effect on her ability to act on her convictions.

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Yuna’s exposure to feminism was through a very conservative seminary; feminism was an “abnormal and unauthentic ideology.” It is not surprising that Yuna’s immediate concept of feminism was, “Isn’t it a movement of strong [aggressive] women who demand women’s rights to be just like men’s?” After a pause, she said, “I don’t have a specific thought on feminism. Well, my first impression of feminism was not good … I never thought that Confucian gender discrimination could have anything to do with the issue of feminism. I never had a chance to connect these two ideas.” After contemplating the seeming contradiction between battling her father’s discriminatory attitudes and the feminist project of equal rights, she reverted to her past once more, “I continuously fought back my father. I never gave up.” When asked if there is a way Confucianism and feminism can get together to help women in their search for happiness, she answered, “I have to say there is no point for them to meet. However, when I really come to know what Confucianism is, I may be able to find a way. I may find a way to understand why my father was so attached to Confucian traditions. I also don’t know feminism well. If I know each of them better, I may more actively try to find a resolution.” 2.3.1  Case Analysis The diagram illustrates how Yuna’s case can be interpreted in Frankfurt’s terms of ambivalence (Table 2.1). This table shows all the possibilities for Yuna. In her upbringing, Yuna did not yet form a desire on the second-order level. Using Frankfurt’s analysis, she did not have freedom of will but followed his father’s arbitrary norms of Confucianism. She had no ambivalence but anger and frustration. Only when she, as a grown-up, had self-evaluative ability did she develop “ambivalence” which, Frankfurt argues, can occur only on the second-order desire level of willing. Ambivalence occurred when Yuna became aware of her second-order desire. She did not want to want her first-order desire of “I don’t like feminism.” Although she believed that she did not like feminism, she talked and acted very much as a feminist would—that is, by challenging oppressive forces (in this case her father) and not complying with them. Yuna acted like a feminist without being aware of it. Yuna’s struggle in ambivalence continued to boil to the surface of her awareness and can be summed up as, “I don’t want feminism,” but at the same time “I want feminism,” though she did not use the term “feminism.” Yuna developed ambivalence in the process of forming her

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Table 2.1  Analysis of ambivalence in Yuna’s case

First-­ order desire Second-­ order desire

Second-­ order volition

Group 1

Group 2

I want feminism

I don’t want feminism

I want to want feminism There is no ambivalence I don’t want to want feminism (I cannot endorse my desire for feminism.) There is a contradiction between the first-order desire and the second-order desire. Ambivalence occurs I can’t make a decision, resulting in paralyzed ambivalence: I still can make a decision in either way to act on “I want feminism” or “I don’t want feminism.” There are two kinds of consequences   1. No ambivalence (problem solved)   2. Residual ambivalence (I have decided which desire I want to be willed, but I continue to be drawn to the outlawed desire): neurotic symptoms

I want to not want feminism There is no ambivalence I don’t want not to want feminism (I want feminism.) There is a contradiction between the first-order desire and the second-­ order desire. Ambivalence occurs I can’t make a decision, resulting in paralyzed ambivalence: I still can make a decision in either way to act on “I don’t want feminism” or “I want feminism.” There are two kinds of consequence   1. No ambivalence (problem solved)   2. Residual ambivalence (I have decided which desire I want to be willed. But I continue to be drawn to the outlawed desire): neurotic symptoms

second-order desire: “I don’t want to want the desire not to want feminism” or more simply, “I do want feminism.” If Yuna had been able to claim her first-order desire, she would have then matched her second-order desire which would have allowed her to form second-order volition. Thus, her slide into ambivalence would have been avoided. As Frankfurt claims, Yuna would have had the “freedom to act” on her first-order desire. In reality, however, she did not have freedom of will to follow through with her second-order desire. At this point, Yuna’s agency is in question. Although Yuna “fearlessly” fought against her oppressive father, she did not develop a personal sense of agency because she failed to form second-order volition. She was “torn apart” and paralyzed, “I was angry about my feelings of helplessness and powerless, more angry against myself than against my father. I am unable to stand up against the unjust treatment of women, especially against women leaders.”

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Yuna is unaware of her second-order desire to will and act like a feminist. Instead, she deflects the whole matter, by saying with a smile, “I don’t think we need feminism … Feminism is for those strong women who shout for the same rights as men.” I call Yuna an “unwilling feminist.” Using Frankfurt’s analysis, I propose five categories of Korean American women in terms of Confucianism and feminism. The categories range from: wanton, willing Confucian, willing feminist, unwilling Confucian, and unwilling feminist. First, a wanton refers to a person who has first-­ order desires but does not care about his or her own motives. He or she acts without self-reflection and even does not have a capacity to develop ambivalence. A willing Confucian and a willing feminist have both a first-­ order desire and a second-order desire. These desires match with each other, forming an unequivocal second-order volition. Such individuals are clear about what they want, what they want to want, and what they want to will and act. In this group of people, we do not see evidence of Frankfurt’s ambivalence. An unwilling Confucian and an unwilling feminist are those who suffer from Frankfurt’s ambivalence. An unwilling Confucian refers to a person who desires the Confucian traditions and, at the same time, is drawn to a feminist approach to gender issues. She wants to outlaw her feminist desires but cannot, because she is indecisive about prioritizing the two contradictory desires. She is caught in her own inner turmoil. An unwilling feminist is the opposite. She wants feminist values but cannot endorse her desire for feminism for many reasons, including the threat and fear of social and familial ostracization. Both suffer from Frankfurt’s ambivalence and thus cannot enjoy freedom of will. They are alienated from their own desires, and therefore bystanders of their own actions. Their sense of agency is seriously and dangerously damaged. As mentioned above, Swindell distinguishes between two different types of ambivalence, both of which occur at the level of willing. One is paralyzed ambivalence and the other is residual ambivalence. The former refers to ambivalence that can paralyze a person into permanent and complete inaction. Her psyche is split. Paralyzed ambivalence can lead to the psychotic symptoms such as schizophrenia or severe cases of borderline personality disorder. Psychologists, including Freud, actually claim that severe degrees of ambivalence lead to “ego-splitting”—a topic for another paper. In contrast to paralyzed ambivalence, a person with residual ambivalence is one who decides which desire she wants to will to act. In other words, she can form both a second-order desire and a second-order

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volition. However, she continues to be seriously affected by the desire she has outlawed. Her outlawed desire continues to haunt her when she attempts to actualize her willed decision. Those who experience residual ambivalence may develop neurotic symptoms such as obsessive-compulsive disorders or short-term chronic depression. I consider Yuna to be a mild case of paralyzed ambivalence, who is often angry that she cannot stand up against the unjust treatment of women at her work place. She is divided between her desire to speak up and her inability to act on these desires. While Swindell’s category of paralyzed and residual ambivalences is helpful to understand ambivalence, I suggest that in Yuna’s case, Logi Gunnarsson’s “radical ambivalence” has a better explanatory power. Gunnarsson argues that “being radically ambivalent is, in some but not all cases, the only way for the ambivalent to be true to herself.”18 According to him, a radically ambivalent person decides to pursue both courses of action, while still striving to reach an “all-things-considered evaluation between them.”19 The radically ambivalent person has not yet decided in favor of one option but wills to act on both options. Gunnarsson argues, “Strictly speaking … only the radically ambivalent agent and not the residually ambivalent person is really ambivalent”20 and “in certain cases, [it is] the only response which enables the ambivalent person to be true to her ambivalence and herself.”21 In other words, a radically ambivalent person is an agent who owns her ambivalence by diligently deliberating available options, without hastily succumbing to an immature resolution that is not true to herself. However, I contend that “being radically ambivalent” is still not enough for Korean American women in the Confucian context who want to reclaim their sense of agency. Christian feminist Mary Farrell Bednarowski’s “creative ambivalence” is an important addition to the construction of Confucian feminism. Bednarowski defends “a virtue of ambivalence.”22 She sees women’s relationship to their religious traditions or communities as “being simultaneously outsiders and insiders.”23 Their religions often oppress and discriminate by excluding them from positions of public authority. On the other hand, their religions help shape, sustain, and nourish them. According to Bednarowski, many women speak of themselves as “both nurtured and wounded by [their] tradition.”24 Bednaworski argues that the dual existence as insiders and outsiders creates ambivalence, grounded both in a “deep sense of belonging, familiarity, and commitment and an equally strong sense of alienation and distrust.”25 Bednarowski describes such women’s dual relationship to their religions and traditions as

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“walking in two worlds,” “defecting in place,”26 a “two-edged sword,” and as being “resident aliens.”27 She argues that women’s ambivalence should be deliberately cultivated rather than be considered “a vice to be avoided.”28 She calls such cultivated ambivalence variously a “willed ambivalence, sustained and cultivated ambivalence, aware ambivalence, piety of ambivalence, and creative ambivalence.”29 Yuna should transform her ambivalence into Bednarowski’s “cultivated ambivalence” in order to rediscover her sense of agency. The first step for Yuna is to become aware of her ambivalence regarding Confucianism and feminism. Only her cultivated ambivalence would enable Yuna to undertake the “triple task” of Bednarowski’s feminist agency: keeping “constant critical distance from her community, cultivating her deepest insights, and striving for innovation.”30 Such a triple task in a “cultivated ambivalence,” I believe, is essential to constructing Confucian feminism. The relationship between Confucianism and feminism has been largely a “one-sided affair,”31 meaning that feminists unilaterally criticize Confucianism. Only recently, Confucianism has finally started to “talk back” to its feminist critics.32 Using the resource of radical ambivalence, I argue, Korean American women in the Confucian context could “talk back” to feminist critics and defenders of Confucian traditions as well. Korean American women, as both insiders and outsiders of their traditions, will be able to construct a new space, a space in which women’s happiness and well-being are considered seriously. Living at such a borderline that a cultivated ambivalence creates, Korean American women can hope for a new birth of something that their willed ambivalence, like a midwife, will help to bring. Living in this creative space of ambivalence requires emotional and psychological strength and spiritual discipline— the power to transform paralyzed ambivalence into a more productive ambivalence.33

2.4   Conclusion Since Western liberal feminism began to influence the Confucian society in the 1990s, Korean and Korean American women have continuously tested its viability in their own cultural soil. During this process, they encountered a dilemma between the two radically different ideologies— Confucianism and Western liberal feminism. By rejecting their Confucian heritage, Korean and Korean American women ran the risk of becoming outsiders in their own community and family. On the other hand,

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rejecting the feminist spirit forced Korean and Korean American women to tacitly comply with gender injustice and patriarchal oppression perceived to be embedded in Confucianism. This dilemma often puts Korean and Korean American women in a precarious, ambivalent position toward both feminism and Confucianism. This ambivalence may cause significant internal conflict which can lead to mental problems, such as depression and a split sense of identity. This chapter examined how such ambivalent feelings could be understood, resolved, and taken care of in a Confucian cultural context. Rather than treating Korean and Korean American women’s ambivalence as a liability, pastoral caregivers must help them transform it into a creative and dynamic resource that simultaneously critiques and contributes to both Confucian traditions and Western liberal feminism. Through this re-imagining of ambivalence, Korean and Korean American women in the dilemma can fully develop their own optimal sense of agency and creative identity.

Notes 1. A major portion of  this chapter was  previously published under “The Power of Ambivalence” in the Journal of Pastoral Psychology (67: 4, January 1, 2018). It is reprinted here with permission by Springer Nature. 2. Confucianism extends to Korea, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, and Vietnam. My research findings with Korean American women can also be applicable, though with caution, to women in the previously mentioned countries who are in a similar context. 3. Confucianism reflects inherent superiority of men and inferiority of women. For instance, women’s lives are dictated by the rule of three obediences—obedience to the father in childhood, to the husband during marriage, and to the son in old age. Moreover, women are defined in terms of relationships, that is, wise or sacrificial mother and submissive wife. 4. Sigmund Freud, “Totem and Taboo,” In The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud Vol. 21, ed. and trans. J. Strachey (London: Hogarth, 1953), 157. 5. Terry Woo, “Confucianism and Feminism,” in Feminism and World Religions, ed. A. Sharma and K. K. Young (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1998), 110. 6. Sandra A.  Wawrytko, “Prudery and Prurience: Historical Roots of the Confucian Conundrum Concerning Women, Sexuality, and Power,” in The Sage and the Second Sex: Confucianism, Ethic, and Gender ed. Chenyang Li (Chicago: Open Court, 2000), 190.

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7. Woo, “Confucianism and Feminism,” 110. 8. Wawrytko, “Prudery and Prurience,” 195. 9. Woo, “Confucianism and Feminism,” 111. 10. Harry Frankfurt, The Importance of What We Care About (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 14–16. 11. Ibid, 24. 12. Jennier. S. Swindell, “Ambivalence,” Philosophical Explorations 13, no. 1 (2010): 23–34. 13. David Svolba, “Swindell, Frankfurt, and Ambivalence,” Philosophical Explorations 14, no. 2 (2011): 221. 14. Ibid. 15. Frankfurt, The Importance of What We Care About, 99. 16. Swindell, “Ambivalence,” 29. 17. To keep the woman’s identity anonymous, a pseudonym is used and only the  information pertaining to  aid in  understanding the  issue of  ambivalence in her cultural context are provided. Informed Consent was obtained from the participant included in the case study. 18. Logi Gunnarsson, “In Dense of Ambivalence and Alienation,” Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 17, (2014): 11. 19. Ibid, 17. 20. Ibid. 21. Ibid, 18. 22. Mary F.  Bednarowski, The Religious Imagination of American Women (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999), 20. 23. Ibid, 17. 24. Ibid, 19. 25. Ibid, 2. 26. Ibid, 30. 27. Ibid, 31. 28. Ibid, 20. 29. Ibid, 42. 30. Ibid, 20. 31. Woo, “Confucianism and Feminism,” 110. 32. Wawrytko, “Prudery and Prurience,” 195. 33. Bednarowski, The Religious Imagination of American Women, 20.

Bibliography Bednarowski, Mary F. 1999. The Religious Imagination of American Women. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Frankfurt, Harry G. 1988. The Importance of What We Care About. New  York: Cambridge University Press.

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Freud, Sigmund. 1953. Totem and Taboo. In The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud Vol. 21, ed. and trans. J. Strachey, 57–145. London: Hogarth Press (Original Work Published in 1913). Gunnarsson, Logi. 2014. In Dense of Ambivalence and Alienation. Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 17: 13–26. Svolva, David. 2011. Swindell, Frankfurt, and Ambivalence. Philosophical Explorations 14 (2): 219–225. Swindell, Jennifer S. 2010. Ambivalence. Philosophical Explorations 13 (1): 23–34. Wawrytko, Sandra A. 2000. Prudery and Prurience: Historical Roots of the Confucian Conundrum Concerning Women, Sexuality, and Power. In The Sage and the Second Sex: Confucianism, Ethic, and Gender, ed. Chenyang Li, 163–198. Chicago: Open Court. Woo, Terry. 1998. Confucianism and Feminism. In Feminism and World Religions, ed. A.  Sharma and K.K.  Young, 110–147. Albany: State University of New York Press.

CHAPTER 3

Intimate Violence and Pastoral Care in the Korean American Community Jaeyeon Lucy Chung

3.1   Introduction In one of the most comprehensive national survey reports on the violence against women sponsored by the National Institute of Justice and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, two researchers Patricia Tjaden and Nancy Thoennes made important discoveries. First, intimate partner violence in the US society is pervasive. More than 1.5 million women are physically and/or sexually abused by intimate partners each year in the United States.1 The estimates are even higher according to the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, with intimate violence each year affecting more than five million American women.2 Second, Tjaden and Thoennes note that women tend to experience more chronic and injurious physical assaults at the hands of intimate partners than do men. Intimate violence is also accompanied by emotionally abusive and controlling behavior. In addition, they uncover that Asian/Pacific Islander communities tend to report lower rates of intimate violence compared to other minority groups such as African Americans and Native Americans.3

J. L. Chung (*) Pastoral Theology, Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, Evanston, IL, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 A. Son (ed.), Pastoral Care in a Korean American Context, Asian Christianity in the Diaspora, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-48575-7_3

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Intimate violence, defined as intentional emotional, psychological, physical, sexual, or economic abuse or threats of abuse involving an intimate adult partner,4 is indeed a serious public health and community issue in the twenty-first century.5 While intimate violence occurs across ethnic and cultural groups, this issue in ethnic minority groups, particularly in Asian American immigrant communities including Korean Americans, has been largely ignored by scholars and policy makers until recently. There is a paucity of national representative research of intimate violence among Korean Americans, and yet, a growing body of research clearly illustrates the gravity of the issue and discusses the urgent need for prevention, intervention, and public education. Research also indicates that most intimate violence sufferers in the Korean American community hardly seek help, and if they ever do, they primarily resort to their respective churches. What we should note regarding the distinctive role of the church for the Korean immigrant community is that there is an exceptionally high church affiliation among Korean immigrants. Korean American churches constitute the dominant form of social organization in the Korean American community and approximately 75% of Koreans living in the United States attend churches on a regular basis.6 Since Korean Americans turn to the church for mental health and intimate violence issues, instead of utilizing governmental and community health services due to stigma and shame, Korean American church’s response to intimate violence is crucial. There is, however, only a handful of research available that speculates the views and practices of Korean American clergy and lay leaders toward intimate violence. Another issue I notice in relation to the church/clergy practices regarding intimate violence is that while cultural and theological assumptions embedded in the perceptions and attitudes of the clergy and congregation could play a crucial role in their care activities for intimate violence sufferers, the work of investigating operational values and theologies has received little attention. This overlook is a very critical issue since many intimate violence sufferers have been doubly victimized by traditional Korean cultural values as well as theological interpretations that idealize suffering and further sacrifice. Without deconstructing the undergirded assumptions and reconstructing a new normative theology informed by the experiences of the wounded, it is not possible for the congregation to provide intimate violence sufferers and survivors with pastoral care of healing and transformation.

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Considering intimate violence as a critical pastoral theological issue in the Korean American community, I ask a two-fold fundamental question in the article: What causes and perpetuates intimate violence among Korean Americans, and how can the church facilitate a theological vision of redeemed dignity and embraced vulnerability in the wounded community? In order to answer the question, I will first analyze the multilayered reality of intimate violence in the Korean American community, particularly focusing on its cultural and theological assumptions embedded in the clergy perceptions and pastoral practices. I will then develop a communal and transformative model of pastoral care based on imago Dei in the following sections.

3.2   Multilayered Reality of Intimate Violence Among Korean Americans While the Asian population has rapidly grown in recent decades, Mikyong Kim-Goh and Jon Baello note that social scientific knowledge about this group, especially awareness of intimate violence among its members remains very limited.7 In a study on intimate violence among Asian American women, Mihoko Maru et al. show that their rates range widely from 20% to 90% in an array of community convenience samples, whereas the national average of lifetime intimate violence among White women is approximately 25%.8 In another study on “Domestic Violence in Asian & Pacific Islander Homes,” Mieko Yoshihama and Chic Dabby report that 21–55% of Asian women report experiencing intimate physical and/or sexual violence during their lifetime.9 These limited statistical reports seem to indicate at most the equivocal aspect of Asian American intimate violence rates. What, then, about Korean American women’s intimate violence rates? Angela Han and her colleagues argue that one of the most serious problems faced by Korean communities in the United States is spousal abuse. To be more specific, they discovered that Korean immigrant families have the highest incidence of domestic violence among different Asian American groups in Los Angeles County.10 Similarly, a local study with 150 Korean immigrant women residing in Chicago shows the high intimate violence rates of 60%.11 This local study, however, reveals a drastic statistical difference from another local phone interview study conducted with 256 Korean immigrant husbands in the Chicago and New  York areas,

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according to which only 18% and 6.3% of the respondents acknowledge minor and severe physical assault of their partners, respectively.12 Such a radical statistical difference seems to indicate not only the individual perceptional difference on intimate violence between Korean immigrant women and their husbands but also the collective cultural denial to acknowledge the issue on the part of Korean immigrant husbands. Despite the discrepancy in perceptions between women and men, one needs to be reminded that there is prevalence of intimate violence in the Korean American community. Why, then, is intimate violence so prevalent among Korean immigrants? Why is intimate violence more prevalent in the Korean American context? In answering the questions, we should be careful not to reduce the motivating factors to an individual or personal level. Sung Seek Moon correctly points out that the trend of intimate violence within Korean American families cannot be explained away by such individual factors as “different communication styles . . . marital dissatisfaction, alcohol, and hostility.”13 Many Korean American scholars have commonly associated intimate violence with systematic factors such as a traditional cultural background (e.g., saving face and emphasis on group harmony) or particular institutional characteristics (e.g., social discrimination, economic hardship, and lack of information about American culture).14 As for the cultural background, the Confucian cultural influence seems to be the most dominant factor in many cases of intimate violence. One especially needs to attend that the traditional Korean value for many Korean immigrant families is deeply saturated by Confucian cultural ideas which emphasize the importance of “hierarchy, patriarchy, and family ties over individualism.”15 These cultural values play a significant ideological role in terms of condoning, perpetuating, and even causing intimate violence among Korean immigrant families. Besides cultural aspects, other factors such as the immigration status of many Korean American families significantly affect the prevalence of intimate violence. Immigration often entails substantive personal and social adjustment to those migrants. Unfortunately, many Korean immigrants, especially men, come to experience “adjustment problems” due to cultural conflicts, role changes, low socioeconomic status, and the experience of racial discrimination.16 As Han et al. illustrate, “Korean immigrant men experience psychological stress from losing their previous occupational status, as their self-esteem and social status are dependent in part on their occupation.”17 It is not too much to conjecture that these men who have

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adjustment struggles tend to take their frustration out on their spouses or intimate partners in negative and aggressive manners. We should also note that Korean immigrant families sometimes experience changes in gender roles, and this can also contribute to the occurrences of intimate violence. Y. Joon Choi and Elizabeth Cramer, for example, observe that “stressful economic circumstances, adherence to Korean cultural values and norms, and changes in gender roles and relationships within the immigration process were found to be important factors contributing to the occurrence of domestic violence within Korean families.”18 Related to the prevalence and risk of intimate violence in the Korean American community, another important question to ask is, “What prevents intimate violence sufferers from reporting and seeking help?” Recall Tjaden and Thoennes’ findings from the National Violence Against Women Survey that Asian American women are less likely to report incidents of intimate violence than women of other racial and ethnic backgrounds.19 Among Korean American victims of intimate violence, the main reason for the reluctance to seek help from the outside, including counseling, is often described as saving face, called chae-myun in Korean culture, which may also be the case for not seeking help from the police. In addition, systematic factors play an important role. Woochan Shim and Myung Jin Hwang in their qualitative research on Korean American domestic violence cases explore the cultural and systematic barriers that prevent them from seeking help. These barriers are due to cultural aspects as well as victims’ unique immigration statuses. Indeed, victims do not seek assistance because of such obstacles as lack of information and resources necessary to survive, fear of the unknown world without their husbands, and the victims blaming community.20 Asian cultural themes and family values have been implicated as reasons why many of these women fail to seek help from outside interventions when abuse occurs. Especially when it comes to seeking help from the police, women of color and women from refugee communities are found to avoid police involvement because of the fear that it would bring shame and dishonor to the family.21 This hypothesis resonates with the findings of Tjaden and Thoennes who suggest that many victims of intimate violence do not consider the justice system a viable or appropriate vehicle for resolving conflicts with intimates.22 As Tjaden and Thoennes imply with their discovery, intimate violence perpetuated against women, especially Asian/Korean American women, is not primarily a matter of batterers’ personal or interpersonal issues, but often part of a systematic pattern of

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dominance and control. How is then such a systematic pattern played out against women? Lee and Bell-Scott offer us a critical perspective regarding this. They particularly attend to many Korean immigrant women’s experience of “isolation.” According to an interview study conducted in 1996, more than half of the Korean American women interviewed confessed that they were isolated from their family of origin and their friends due to restrictions imposed on them by their husbands.23 The systematic pattern of domination and control renders Korean immigrant women isolated from the larger society deepening their fear, economic dependency, and potential loss of their livelihood. Given that a considerable portion (75%) of Korean immigrant families are affiliated with churches, we cannot but raise this following question: How do clergy and church leaders respond to intimate violence victims who seek help? Before investigating the question, we should note that Korean American pastors are primarily recognized as “the most influential community leaders in the Korean American community.”24 Although only a few social scientific resources are available at the moment regarding how Korean American clergy are responding to intimate violence, they seem to demonstrate a certain pattern—individualization, spiritualization, and moralization. First, by individualization, it means that Korean American clergy tend to regard the occurrences of intimate violence as an individual matter between the abused and the abusers, rather than as a cultural and systematic issue of the Korean American community. The typical trait of the individualization includes such tendencies of Korean American clergy and church leaders to view abusers as sick people who need help and to counsel victims to endure their suffering. Individualization of intimate violence also lets Korean American clergy focus on working toward reconciliation of couples. Individualization tends to reduce the cases of intimate violence to the abuser’s sickness or personal weakness without paying proper attention to the pain and safety of the abused or sometimes even putting burden on abused women to work harder not to cause abuse by their husbands. Despite their awareness of the seriousness of intimate violence in the Korean American community as well as their difficulty in dealing with intimate violence cases, thus, many Korean American clergy first try to work toward reconciliation of couples, and only when this effort is unsuccessful, they refer the couples to other resources or even do not take any action.25

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Second, by spiritualization, it means that Korean American clergy perceive the intimate violence issue as a lack of faith and spiritual maturity. Combined with individualization, spiritualization of intimate violence typically renders the issue privatized entailing a congregational response to it with silence. One study that explores Korean American intimate violence victims and their children’s experiences seeking help from clergy reveals that women victims’ revelations of intimate violence in their Korean American churches were mostly met with silence.26 When clergy and congregation members intervened, they advised victims to be patient and pray to God or sometimes actively worked to keep the couple together, ignoring abused women and their children’s safety.27 Spiritualization of intimate violence is particularly problematic because it renders Korean American clergy reluctant to refer victims to outside resources, considering it as a “spiritual” issue.28 Lastly, by moralization, it means that when Korean American clergy and church leaders respond to intimate violence, they prioritize certain moral ideals such as keeping marital relations over other pressing needs, that is, the protection of the victims’ safety. It is unfortunate that when wounded women pursued a divorce from the perpetrators, they were often shunned by the entire congregation.29 Clergy’s reluctance to condemn perpetrators and advocate victims could be related to their perceptions regarding intimate violence as well as moral assumptions embedded in their preaching and care practices. We should particularly note the potential danger of the clergy’s moralizing response because it may pressure or steer the victimized women to forgive their abusive partners under the guise of fulfilling Christian moral ideal (such as self-sacrifice or self-denial) by rendering them even more vulnerable to further intimate violence. Above, we have analyzed key patterns of Korean American clergy’s pastoral care responses to intimate violence by focusing on three aspects: Individualization, spiritualization, and moralization. Although these patterns are problematic given that they tend to perpetuate intimate violence rather than resolve it, we should note that these patterns are deeply rooted in undergirded theological belief shared by many Korean American clergy members. In the following section, I attempt to deconstruct this undergirded theological idea with a view to replacing it with a more adequate and relevant theological thought.

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3.3   A Theological Reflection: Bearing a Cross or Living Out Imago Dei What is the undergirded theology that lies behind the Korean American clergy and church leaders’ patterned pastoral response to intimate violence in the Korean American congregations? I would call this embedded theology a “theology of cross-bearing,” which is deeply influenced by patriarchy and Korean Confucian ideas. The theology of cross-bearing is centered around Matthew 16:24—“Then Jesus told his disciples, ‘If anyone wants to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me’” (NRSV). The theology of cross-bearing is typically played out in many Korean American congregations in such a way to emphasize women’s complete sacrifice and self-denial as the ideal model for a Christian way of life through sermons and Bible studies. Korean American sociologist Jung Ha Kim illustrates the key characteristics of the theology of cross-bearing with following traits: “justifying suffering and oppression as the ‘natural’ and expected reality of women’s lives, and elevating their suffering as worthwhile, virtuous, and ‘Christian.’”30 The theology of cross-bearing is especially problematic to Korean and Korean American women congregants because instead of challenging biased cultural norms such as patriarchal moral ideals, it consolidates and petrifies such norms and ideals by ordaining them with even higher religious and moral authorities. The above-mentioned tripartite patterns of individualization, spiritualization, and moralization are an inevitable outcome of their uncritical appropriation and application of the theology of cross-bearing into their ministerial practices, particularly into their various cases of intimate violence. We should take note that as Choi and Cramer point out, Korean American church leaders turn out to be one of the most important resources for abused women who rely on more frequently than other professional help.31 Unfortunately, many abused women who would seek practical help from their religious leaders may not get what they are really in need of due to the misappropriated theology of cross-bearing. In her book, Counseling Women: A Narrative, Pastoral Approach, Christie Neuger observes that “pastors have not been very useful to women and children who have experienced abuse in their families.”32 She cites that clergy effectiveness is consistently low, probably due to clergy endorsement of traditional teachings concerning the sanctity of marriage.33 Similarly, Shannon-Lewy and Dull’s more recent study on the clergy involvement with domestic violence confirms that the majority of

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victims interviewed were dissatisfied with cleric assistance and many clerics were not competent at effectively handling domestic violence cases, partly due to traditional theological values.34 This is even more so for many women and children in Korean American congregations. The lack of deep and comprehensive understanding of their pastoral role concerning intimate violence is a critical reason. Korean American clergy and church leaders lack critical self-reflection on their assumed theology and its based pastoral practices, especially about their pastoral responses to intimate violence. What they first need to realize is how their assumed theology of cross-bearing has to do with their patterned approach to intimate violence: “you have to carry your own cross” (individualization); “you need to pray and try to forgive your husband as Jesus did through the crucifixion” (spiritualization); and “a divorce is unacceptable for those who follow Jesus” (moralization). Korean American clergy and church leaders should also be aware that their lack of understanding would eventually bring a negative impact upon their congregation. Ironically, Neuger reports that although women committed to their religious traditions often turn to pastors for help after having experienced intimate violence, they are much more likely to leave their religious practices and affiliations than are non-abused women.35 Part of the reason is that they have experienced revictimization through silence and silencing and view the church’s betrayal as symbolic of God’s betrayal.36 Theology matters when it comes to the clergy’s pastoral response to intimate violence. How could we then construct a new theological model for Korean American congregations which resists intimate violence and affirms the dignity of all? The new theological model would substitute for the theology of cross-bearing. Briefly though (for the lack of space), I attempt to formulate an alternative pastoral theological idea, which I would call a “theology of living out imago Dei.” Why theology of living out imago Dei? How would it help Korean American clergy and pastoral caregivers respond rightly to the cases of intimate violence? From a theological perspective, while many Korean American clergy and church leaders commonly adopt the hermeneutics of “suffering” in interpreting the issue of intimate violence, this becomes the real source of the problem because it almost logically leads them to the theology of cross-bearing. This theological approach emphasizes: “Just as Jesus has suffered for all of us, we need to carry our cross of suffering, and this includes the suffering of intimate violence.” Such a message can be damaging and deadly to the intimate violence sufferers having them

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revictimized. This becomes the reason why it is essential to develop a different hermeneutic perspective. Substituting the hermeneutics of “suffering,” I argue that Korean American clergy and pastoral caregivers should adopt the hermeneutics of “vulnerability.” In her book, The Power and Vulnerability of Love, Elizabeth Gandolfo provides us with an in-depth theological anthropological insight on human vulnerability by defining its notion as “the universal, though diversely experienced and often exacerbated, risk of harm in human life.”37 She then adds that vulnerability is an inevitable dimension of the human condition as a form of givenness.38 The concept of vulnerability becomes crucial especially in the context of intimate violence due to the situational circumstance in which the victim experiences her vulnerability in a most personal and intensive way. Gandolfo distinguishes two aspects of vulnerability by making a distinction “between vulnerability as a fundamental and unavoidable feature of the human condition and the violation of human vulnerability in situations of injustice, poverty, oppression, and violence.”39 This distinction is critical since it would help Korean American clergy and church leaders see more clearly what is theologically at stake in the context of intimate violence and how they should approach it. If Korean American clergy and pastoral caregivers look at intimate violence from the hermeneutics of vulnerability rather than from that of suffering, then they could begin to interpret it as an unjust violation of the victim’s vulnerability, rather than as the victim’s suffering to be endured. While Gandolfo’s analysis of human vulnerability offers us a critical hermeneutic tool, we need to go a little further to discover a more definitive theological ground that would neutralize and replace the assumed theology of cross-bearing. We discover an alternative theological ground by perceiving that human vulnerability implies intrinsic human worth, which I call dignity. In the context of intimate violence, what happens is not just physical, emotional, or psychological damage inflicted on the abused. As a result of intimate violence, the victim’s dignity is severely violated as well. From a theological perspective, since human dignity originates in the notion of “imago Dei,” it is right for Gandolfo to state that while human vulnerability and the horrors it can entail may destroy our bodies, minds, and psyches, this inherent dignity as imago Dei cannot be taken away.40 It seems then evident why Korean American clergy and church leaders should employ the theology of imago Dei instead of the theology of cross-­ bearing when they approach the case of intimate violence. The doctrine of imago Dei is central to theological thinking about the human including

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men and women. According to Genesis 1:26–27, God created human beings in the image of God. As feminist theologian Mary Fulkerson states, the notion of imago Dei conveys theologically appropriate affirmation of the inherent goodness and intrinsic worth of the humans, although the biblical writings also refer to the originally authentic human nature that was fallen and damaged.41 While the notion of imago Dei implicates human dignity and vulnerability, we should be reminded that as Gandolfo emphasizes, “the primordial dimension of divinity is invulnerable love that preserves the fundamental dignity of the human person as imago Dei.”42 Thus far, we have developed a new theological framework for Korean American clergy and church leaders in the context of intimate violence. In the following section, I outline an alternative pastoral care model by constructively applying the theology of living out imago Dei to the situation of intimate violence.

3.4   Toward a Communal and Transformative Pastoral Care In this section I focus on developing practical strategies against intimate violence. In doing so, I argue that we should emphasize the congregation’s communal and empowering role and engagement. Why is the congregation’s role critical in the context of intimate violence? We should recall that in the Hebrew Bible, the people of Israel as a covenanted community that belonged to God were expected to live out the image of God. Similarly, in the New Testament, the church as a newly established covenant community through Christ is universally called to live out the image of God. This is the reason why the imago Dei in the Judeo-Christian tradition has both relational (humanity’s relationship with God) and communal (the church as a covenanted community) aspects. This fundamental theological understanding becomes a pastoral theological direction for the Korean American church especially regarding how Korean American clergy and church leaders should approach the context of intimate violence. Intimate violence is no longer regarded as an individual, spiritual, and moral issue of the unfortunate victims; instead, it becomes an essentially relational and communal issue which challenges the church calling for its transformative, pastoral caring engagement. As revealed in the previous sections, the church often functions as a hurting community by shunning the intimate violence victims and

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ignoring their pain rather than as a healing and caring community. Womanist pastoral theologian Stephanie Crumpton rightly points out that the church does not always liberate and empower African American women against violence, although it is a primary contributor of psychological and moral messages impacting their sense of humanity.43 As another pastoral theologian James Poling espouses, the church has caused the deepest wounds some of us carry because “our expectations that the church will be a warm, nurturing, and healing community make us vulnerable to being hurt and betrayed.”44 Concerning the issue of intimate violence, it is critical for the church to view individuals’ suffering and pain as the community’s brokenness and accountability. Facing such a serious and prevalent issue of intimate violence in the Korean American community, the church should ask itself whether it has been a safe and healing community or a victims-shaming and abusers-protecting community. In Psalm 147:2–3, “The Lord builds up Jerusalem; [God] gathers the outcasts of Israel. [God] heals the brokenhearted, and binds up their wounds (NRSV),” the psalmist reveals God who protects the marginalized and heals those violated and damaged. Likewise, God calls us to build a healing and transforming community in which intimate violence sufferers and survivors can share their stories of pain and horror without shame and stigma, violent actions of abusers are stopped and condemned, and the congregation works together to mend the wounds and transform the wrongful cultural and systematic forces. Then, what should the church congregation do to empower abused women and live out imago Dei as a community of communal and transformative care? I would like to suggest three pastoral care strategies briefly. First, the church as a “remembering community” should provide intimate violence sufferers and survivors with an environment where they feel safe enough to speak their untold stories of trauma and they are remembered. While Choi’s research suggests that most Korean American clergy participants were interested in engaging in prevention and education, but not in intervention regarding intimate violence,45 Neuger emphasizes the importance of the short-term crisis intervention when women and children are under intimate violence.46 The primary guiding principles in crisis care should be to make sure that the abused are safe from harm and to provide them with empathic listening and support. As Neuger succinctly illustrates, intimate violence sufferers and survivors generally are in distress not because they have characterological or behavioral deficits but because they have had minimal opportunity to process and integrate a traumatic history

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into the rest of their lives.47 Remembering the wounded women and their experiences as well as joining them in giving them a voice is a fundamental step for pastoral caregivers to take. Second, the church as a “resisting community” should participate in dismantling the dominant, patriarchal narratives that perpetuate intimate violence and challenging the theology of cross-bearing that tends to legitimate abused women’s suffering. In the previous section on theology, I have discussed how critical it is to deconstruct the problematic cultural and ideological assumptions and to develop a new normative theology that affirms human dignity and embraces vulnerability. The church in the context of intimate violence should continue to examine its hurtful messages critically and to struggle to live out imago Dei in its communal life. Korean American clergy should also proactively deliver a strong pastoral theological message against intimate violence to their congregations. The clergy might also consider organizing a thematic Bible study program in which the participants may learn not only multiple aspects related to intimate violence (from psychological to legal) but also fundamental biblical and theological principles related to it by facilitating open discussions. Lastly, the church as a “transforming community” should collaborate with other public health and service organizations to bring intimate violence victims to safety while condemning the perpetrators. Feminist pastoral theologian Pamela Cooper-White argues that “the most important thing we can do is to join in coalition with others in our communities, our nation, and the world, to end violence against women, and intimate partner violence in particular.”48 For the church to become a redeeming community, the congregation should first examine how it could become a hospitable and welcoming place for outside community organizations and public institutions. In doing so, the role of clergy is crucial as they attempt to help the church become a visible and available space for the greater community as well as its members. The clergy and church leaders should reach out to their communities by participating in community organizations and activities with the purpose of mediating the church’s congregational needs (helping the victims of intimate violence) and the community’s available sources (from a personal to professional level).

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3.5   Conclusion In this article, I have identified intimate violence as a critical pastoral theological issue in the Korean American community and explored cultural, theological, and systematic factors that lie within the complex reality of intimate violence among Korean Americans, particularly Korean American congregations. Through an in-depth literature review and analysis, I have discovered that there is distinctiveness in the experience of Korean American intimate violence sufferers and survivors as well as perceptions and attitudes revealed in the care practices of Korean American clergy and church leaders. In addition to traditional Korean Confucian values and patriarchal cultures, I have found that theological assumptions centered around the notions of cross-bearing and suffering are deeply embedded in the pastoral and congregational practices regarding intimate violence. Challenging these perspectives, I have suggested a new alternative theological framework based on dignity, vulnerability, and imago Dei. This theology will eventually help Korean American clergy and pastoral caregivers view intimate violence as a violation of human vulnerability caused by cultural and systemic forces, not as a personal or spiritual issue, and then, empower the abused by listening to their stories of pain and joining in coalition to end the violence. In sum, the Korean American church should become a remembering, resisting, and transforming community in which the brokenhearted are consoled, the vulnerable are embraced, and the violated are redeemed. In the end, pastoral care and theology against intimate violence matter.

Notes 1. Patricia Tjaden and Nancy Thoennes, “Full Report of the Prevalence, Incidence, and Consequences of Violence against Women: Findings from the National Violence against Women Survey,” Research Report (Washington, DC: National Institute of Justice and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2000), iii. 2. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “Understanding Intimate Partner Violence,” 2006. http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/dvp/ipv_factsheet. pdf (accessed January 24, 2019). 3. Tjaden and Thoennes, “Full Report of the Prevalence, Incidence, and Consequences of Violence against Women,” iv. 4. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “Understanding Intimate Partner Violence.”

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5. Historically called “domestic violence,” intimate partner violence is still referred to as “domestic violence” or “spousal or wife abuse” in many countries. In this article I choose to use the term “intimate violence” because the term “domestic violence” encompasses child or elder abuse as well as violence against any member of a household, and also because “spousal or wife abuse” presupposes the heterosexual, marital relationships. This article addresses violence against women in all types of intimate relationships. 6. Pyong Gap Min and Jung Ha Kim, eds., Religions in Asian America: Building Faith Communities, (New York: AltaMira Press, 2002), 4. 7. Mikyong Kim-Goh and Jon Baello, “Attitudes toward Domestic Violence in Korea and Vietnamese Immigrant Communities: Implications for Human Services,” Journal of Family Violence 23, no. 7 (2008): 647. 8. Mihoko Maru et al., “The Relationship between Intimate Partner Violence and Suicidal Ideation among Young Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese American Women,” Women & Therapy 41, no. 3–4 (2018): 340. 9. Mieko Yoshihama and Chic Dabby, “Facts & Stats Report: Domestic Violence in Asian & Pacific Islander Homes.” Asian Pacific Institute on Gender-Based Violence, 2015, https://s3.amazonaws.com/gbv-wpuploads/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/05001647/Facts-Stats-ReportDV-API-Communities-2015.pdf (accessed January 24, 2019). 10. Angela Han et al., “Partner Violence against Korean Immigrant Women,” Journal of Transcultural Nursing 21, no., 4 (2010): 371. 11. Ibid. 12. Yoshihama and Dabby, “Facts and Stats Report,” 7. 13. Sung Seek Moon, “Domestic Violence in the Korean American Community: A Multicultural, Multimodal, Multisystems Approach,” in Domestic Violence in Asian American Communities: A Cultural Overview, ed. Tuyen D. Nguyen, 71–88. (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2005), 72. 14. Youn Mi Lee and Patricia Bell-Scott, “Korean Immigrant Women’s Journey from Abused Wives to Self-Reliant Women,” Women & Therapy 32 (2009): 377. 15. Han et al., “Partner Violence against Korean Immigrant Women,” 372. 16. Han et al., “Partner Violence against Korean Immigrant Women,” 373. 17. Ibid. 18. Y.  Joon Choi and Elizabeth Cramer, “An Exploratory Study of Female Korean American Church Leaders’ Views on Domestic Violence,” Social Work & Christianity 43, no. 4 (2016): 4. 19. Tjaden and Thoennes, “Full Report of the Prevalence, Incidence, and Consequences of Violence against Women,” 23.

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20. Woochan Shim and Myung Jin Hwang, “Implications of an Arrest in Domestic Violence Cases: Learning from Korean Social Workers’ Experiences in the U.S.,” Journal of Family violence 20, no. 5 (2005): 318. 21. Marsha Wolf et al., “Barriers to Seeking Police Help for Intimate Partner Violence,” Journal of Family Violence 18, no. 2 (2003): 124. 22. Tjaden and Thoennes, “Full Report of the Prevalence, Incidence, and Consequences of Violence against Women,” 51. 23. Lee and Bell-Scott, “Korean Immigrant Women’s Journey from Abused Wives to Self-Reliant Women,” 379. 24. Y.  Joon Choi, “Korean American Clergy Practices Regarding Intimate Partner Violence: Roadblock or Support for Battered Women?” Journal of Family Violence 30 (2015): 295. 25. Ibid, 297. 26. Shimtuh, Korean American Domestic violence Program, “Domestic Violence Needs Assessment Report,” http://www.kcceb.org/site/wpcontent/uploads/2017/06/Korean-American-Community-of-the-BayArea-Domestic-Violence-Needs-Assessment-Report-2000_KCCEB. pdf?x40303, 18 (accessed Jauuary 25, 2019). 27. Ibid, 19. 28. Choi, “Korean American Clergy Practices Regarding Intimate Partner Violence,” 299. 29. Shimtuh, “Domestic Violence Needs Assessment Report,” 19. 30. Jung Ha Kim, Bridge-Makers and Cross-Bearers: Korean American Women and the Church, (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1997), 82. 31. Choi and Cramer, “An Exploratory Study of Female Korean American Church Leaders’ Views on Domestic Violence,” 4. 32. Christie Neuger, Counseling Women: A Narrative, Pastoral Approach, (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001), 96. 33. Ibid. 34. Colleen Shannon-Lewy and Valerie Dull, “The Response of Christian Clergy to Domestic Violence: Help or Hindrance?” Aggression and Violent Behavior 10, no. 6 (2005): 656–657. 35. Neuger, Counseling Women, 96. 36. Ibid. 37. Elizabeth Gandolfo, The Power and Vulnerability of Love: A Theological Anthropology, (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2015), 3. 38. Ibid, 4. 39. Ibid, 6. 40. Ibid, 200. 41. Mary Fulkerson, “Contesting the Gendered Subject,: A Feminist Account of the Imago Dei,” in Horizons in Feminist Theology: Idenity, Traditions, and Norms, eds. Rebecca Chop and Sheila Davaney, (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1997), 10.

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42. Gandolfo, The Power and Vulnerability of Love, 259. 43. Stephanie Crumpton, A Womanist Pastoral Theology against Intimate and Cultural Violence, (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 2. 44. James Poling, “The Congregation as a Healing Community,” in Mutuality Matters: Family, Faith, and Just Love, edited by Herbert Anderson et al., (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2004), 227–228. 45. Choi, “Korean American Clergy Practices Regarding Intimate Partner Violence,” 298–299. 46. Neuger, Counseling Women, 115. 47. Ibid, 120. 48. Pamela Cooper-White, “Intimate Violence against Women: Trajectories for Pastoral Care in a New Millennium,” Pastoral Psychology 60 (2011): 841.

Bibliography Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 2006. Understanding Intimate Partner Violence. http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/dvp/ipv_factsheet.pdf. Accessed 24 Jan 2019. Choi, Y. Joon. 2015. Korean American Clergy Practices Regarding Intimate Partner Violence: Roadblock or Support for Battered Women? Journal of Family Violence 30 (3): 293–302. Choi, Y.  Joon, and Elizabeth Cramer. 2016. An Exploratory Study of Female Korean American Church Leaders’ Views on Domestic Violence. Social Work & Christianity 43 (4): 3–32. Cooper-White, Pamela. 2011. Intimate Violence Against Women: Trajectories for Pastoral Care in a New Millennium. Pastoral Psychology 60 (6): 809–855. Crumpton, Stephanie. 2014. A Womanist Pastoral Theology Against Intimate and Cultural Violence. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Fulkerson, Mary. 1997. Contesting the Gendered Subject: A Feminist Account of the Imago Dei. In Horizons in Feminist Theology: Identity, Traditions, and Norms, ed. Rebecca Chop and Sheila Davaney, 99–115. Minneapolis: Fortress Press. Gandolfo, Elizabeth. 2015. The Power and Vulnerability of Love: A Theological Anthropology. Minneapolis: Fortress Press. Han, Angela, Eun Jung Kim, and Sheryl Tyson. 2010. Partner Violence Against Korean Immigrant Women. Journal of Transcultural Nursing 21 (4): 370–376. Kim, Jung Ha. 1997. Bridge-Makers and Cross-Bearers: Korean American Women and the Church. Atlanta: Scholars Press. Kim-Goh, Mikyong, and Jon Baello. 2008. Attitudes Toward Domestic Violence in Korean and Vietnamese Immigrant Communities: Implications for Human Services. Journal of Family Violence 23 (7): 647–654.

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Lee, Youn Mi, and Patricia Bell-Scott. 2009. Korean Immigrant Women’s Journey from Abused Wives to Self-Reliant Women. Women & Therapy 32 (4): 377–392. Maru, Mihoko, Tanya Saraiya, Christina Lee, Ozair Meghani, Denise Hien, and Hyeouk Hahm. 2018. The Relationship Between Intimate Partner Violence and Suicidal Ideation Among Young Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese American Women. Women & Therapy 41 (3–4): 339–355. Min, Pyong Gap, and Jung Ha Kim, eds. 2002. Religions in Asian America: Building Faith Communities. New York: AltaMira Press. Moon, Sung Seek. 2005. Domestic Violence in the Korean American Community: A Multicultural, Multimodal, Multisystems Approach. In Domestic Violence in Asian American Communities: A Cultural Overview, ed. Tuyen D.  Nguyen, 71–88. Lanham: Lexington Books. Neuger, Christie. 2001. Counseling Women: A Narrative, Pastoral Approach. Minneapolis: Fortress Press. Poling, James. 2004. The Congregation as a Healing Community. In Mutuality Matters: Family, Faith, and Just Love, ed. Herbert Anderson, Edward Foley, Bonnie Miller-McLemore, and Robert Schreiter, 225–239. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. Shannon-Lewy, Colleen, and Valerie Dull. 2005. The Response of Christian Clergy to Domestic Violence: Help or Hindrance? Aggression and Violent Behavior 10 (6): 647–659. Shim, Woochan, and Myung Jin Hwang. 2005. Implications of an Arrest in Domestic Violence Cases: Learning from Korean Social Workers’ Experiences in the U.S. Journal of Family Violence 20 (5): 313–328. Shimtuh, Korean American Domestic Violence Program. 2000. Korean American Community of the Bay Area Domestic Violence Needs Assessment Report. http://www.kcceb.org/site/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/KoreanAmerican-Community-of-the-Bay-Area-Domestic-Violence-NeedsAssessment-Report-2000_KCCEB.pdf?x40303. Accessed 25 Jan 2019. Tjaden, Patricia, and Nancy Thoennes. 2000. Full Report of the Prevalence, Incidence, and Consequences of Violence Against Women: Findings from the National Violence Against Women Survey. Research Report. Washington, DC: National Institute of Justice and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, November. Wolf, Marsha, Uyen Ly, Margaret Hobart, and Mary Kernic. 2003. Barriers to Seeking Police Help for Intimate Partner Violence. Journal of Family Violence 18 (2): 121–129. Yoshihama, Mieko, and Chic Dabby. 2015. Facts & Stats Report: Domestic Violence in Asian & Pacific Islander Homes. Asian Pacific Institute on Gender-­ Based Violence. https://s3.amazonaws.com/gbv-wp-uploads/wp-ontent/ uploads/2018/12/05001647/Facts-Stats-Repor t-DV-APICommunities-2015.pdf. Accessed 24 Jan 2019.

CHAPTER 4

Exposing the Shame That Binds Us in Intimate Partner Violence David Daesoo Kim

4.1   Introduction Shame is a difficult aspect to address therapeutically in male perpetrators of intimate partner violence especially since male perpetrators of intimate partner violence tend to have limited options to address their violent behavior, typically anger management and psychoeducation.1 Furthermore, the programs for the perpetrators of intimate partner violence overall have moved away from treatment models to behavior modification models that focus on holding the perpetrator accountable for their actions without necessarily equipping them with inner ability.2 For instance, couples counseling has been long banned from the list of acceptable treatment for domestic violence. As far back as 1987, the battered women’s movement took the position, rightly so, that couples counseling was to be discouraged even when an abused partner wanted to participate in counseling with her violent male partner. One of the earliest declarations of opposition to couples counseling comes from social worker named Susan

D. D. Kim (*) Research Institute for Counseling & Education, Norcross, GA, USA © The Author(s) 2020 A. Son (ed.), Pastoral Care in a Korean American Context, Asian Christianity in the Diaspora, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-48575-7_4

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Schechter, who accurately described couples counseling as “an inappropriate intervention that further endangers the woman.”3 Schechter explains that couples counseling encourages the abuser to blame the victim by examining her “role” in his problem. By seeing the couple together, Schechter believes that the therapist erroneously suggests that the victimized partner should be responsible for the abuser’s behavior. Furthermore, there have been reports that many women have been brutally beaten following couples counseling sessions. Today’s advocates have incorporated these same negative evaluations of couples counseling into both practice and policy perspectives. For this reason, any other forms of treatment, including couples counseling, became unavailable to male perpetrators. Take, for example, the policy developed by the Georgia Commission on Family Violence to end the use of couples counseling and other forms of treatment models in domestic violence cases. The Georgia Commission on Family Violence’s Protocol for Batters Classes states the following: Traditional therapy approaches to intervention with batterers, for example, stress management, anger control, insight therapy, and couples therapy are not recommended and are generally inappropriate because they do not address the motivating factors that results in the perpetration of family violence. They have been demonstrated to be ineffective and may jeopardize the safety of the victim/partner.4

In couples therapy, when a person has used violence against a partner and the partner chooses to raise that issue as a primary concern, the usual response, whether during the session, on their way home, or at home, is often to threaten, intimidate, and abuse until that primary concern is silenced. Therapists should always prioritize the safety of the victim and help the perpetrator to accept responsibility for their violence. It is the conviction of domestic violence program policy makers that it is unsafe to engage in couples counseling until time has demonstrated that the perpetrator can hear and respect the partner’s point of view without abuses. While other treatment models, such as stress and anger management, can be useful to the perpetrator, learning to reduce stress and/or manage anger does not necessarily alter the belief that domination of a partner is appropriate nor does it challenge the abuser’s willingness to enforce this belief using whatever tactics necessary. Insight therapy may, in the long run, help a victimizer see the connection between negative past

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experiences and their choice to abuse a partner.5 Although these sorts of personal growth modalities are clearly beneficial, domestic violence programs in Georgia and across the states have moved away from these treatment approaches to solely focus on immediate behavioral change to end the battering or to end physical violence. However, the accountability model emphasizing immediate behavioral change is limited in that it tends to focus solely on changing the perpetrator’s actions and attitude and does not address the underlying psychological and emotional issues, in particular, shame experiences that bind the abusers in repeated failures and relapses into violent behaviors.6 Korean and Korean American male perpetrators are no exceptions, and current approaches tend to recapitulate their shame-behavior, through which they build more resistance to accepting their responsibility. Therefore, drawing on psychoanalytic methods, I offer a different approach to the underlying dynamics of violent behavior in intimate partner relationships with particular reference to the role of shame as a precursor to violence. I argue that this approach focuses on the level of shame and its connection to violence, and that it requires not only accountability emphasized by the current domestic violence programs but also a treatment for the individual perpetrator in order to adequately address the issue of violence. What I propose is both accountability and treatment approaches to perpetrators in intimate partner violence, through which we can recognize that many Korean and Korean American men are actually acting out against shame-prone rejection. Drawing from Jac Brown’s model, which utilizes a psychoanalytic theory of Heinz Kohut’s self psychology, I suggest some general guidelines for working with violent Korean and Korean American men that incorporate aspects of shame. As a Korean American male therapist who has been working on mental health related issues with a focus on intimate partner violence, I have worked with many Korean and Korean American men who are court mandated to be in treatment for domestic violence since 2002. While I have used many different models that are currently approved by the Georgia Commission on Family Violence, which are designed to hold the perpetrators accountable by changing their behavior mainly through psychoeducation, I find Brown’s approach (currently used in Australia) which utilizes psychoanalytic theory of self psychology to be the most effective when dealing with perpetrators who are shame-prone to rejection. This approach has been effective for perpetrators of domestic violence whom I have

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worked with, regardless of their racial/ethnic backgrounds, including Korean and Korean American men.

4.2   Connection Between Shame and Violence from Affect Theory Shame is commonly defined as an intense negative emotion characterized by the perception of a global devaluation of the self.7 While many scholars have written about the link between shame and violence, James Gilligan8 went so far as to say that all forms of violence are anticipated by feelings of shame and humiliation. In turn, individuals with high levels of shame-­ proneness may believe that resorting to aggression and violence is the only possible way to get rid of their shame feelings. To demonstrate some level of connection between shame and violence, I consult J.  P. Tangney’s research that draws a relationship between shame-proneness and aggression that is mediated by externalizing anger. Tangney’s research has centered on indices of anger, hostility, and verbal aggression in nonclinical samples of children, adolescents, and adults. Using Anger Response Inventory (ARI), Tangney and others found a positive correlation between shame-proneness and physical aggression in independent samples of adults, adolescents, and children.9 Furthermore, they also found a relationship between shame-proneness and verbal aggression for adults, college students, adolescents, and children. Guilt-­ proneness, on the other hand, was negatively related to verbal and physical aggression consistently across all the participants. In two separate samples of undergraduates, Delroy L. Paulhus and his colleagues10 found a positive relationship between shame-proneness and total aggression on the Buss-­ Burkee Aggression Questionnaire and a negative relationship between guilt-proneness and total aggression. In a study of children between 5 and 12 years of age, externalizing symptoms (e.g., aggression and delinquency) were positively related to shame-proneness for boys and girls.11 Tangney argues that the connection between shame and violence in real life is difficult to demonstrate because perpetrators frequently justify their violence in terms of unfair treatment by their partners, entitled revenge, their determination to control their partners, or simply a reaction to their anger over which they feel they have very little control. Tangney says that the relationship between shame-proneness and aggression is mediated by an externalization of blame and/or anger, which includes violence.12

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4.3   A Case Study of a Korean Male Perpetrator13 Peter Kim, a man in his late 30s, originally came to see me after his third DUI (driving under the influence). In the beginning of our work together, we did not address his violent acts toward his spouse. But as we explored ways in which his alcohol abuse was impacting his marriage, we began to address shame as it is related to both alcohol abuse and violence against his spouse. Peter identifies himself as an American-born Korean. Peter remembers being from the only Korean family in his hometown throughout his early years. Peter moved to Georgia for college and graduate schools (a master’s degree and a PhD) and he met Jeni through a mutual friend. Jeni came to the United States to explore graduate schools. Their courtship was relatively short, but they fell in love and married only six months after they first met. They have been married for eight years and they attend a Korean immigrant church in Georgia. When Jeni visited her parents-in-law after honeymoon, her father-in-­ law showed her his family tree emphasizing how important it is to have a son(s) in his family. Peter and Jeni tried to conceive for many years, but after exploring different options to conceive, Peter was diagnosed with male infertility. Peter kept this information from his parents and Jeni began to feel more pressure from Peter’s family to try harder. When Jeni complained about Peter’s parents, Jeni learned that Peter hated his father for being so authoritative in his family. Furthermore, Peter’s father was physically violent toward his family members. Peter grew up witnessing the physical abuse of his own mother. Whenever his needs or demands were not immediately attended to, Peter’s father beat Peter’s mother, who believed that she should obey him under any circumstances. His father used biblical passages to reinforce his authority as the head of the family. Peter’s father also had high expectations for Peter. Peter said that his father would also hit him whenever he brought home a “bad” report card from school. Peter’s father hoped that his son would achieve his unfulfilled dream of becoming a highly educated, white collar worker. As he was eager to please his father and to receive compliments from him, Peter manipulated his grades when he brought home poor grades from school. When his father was violent to his mother, Peter often resisted his father by siding with his mother, which resulted in him being humiliated and beaten. Whenever he was beaten, his mother was overwhelmed with sorrow for him and comforted him. Her unconditional acceptance of Peter led him to become dependent on her. She encouraged him to become a

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proud son and later a husband and father. Peter grew up thinking that a man always had the right to exercise power in one’s household, including physical and verbal violence against his own family members. Peter’s mother, a devout Christian, repeatedly emphasized that Peter was the head of the family after he got married. Accordingly, he wanted his wife to recognize him as such, to praise him, and to give him full support. He wanted her to be always dependent on him and be obedient to him. However, the way Jeni was raised by her parents was different from Peter’s family. Jeni’s parents used to tell her that she should have her own career and have her own life. Growing up as an independent woman, which made her a strong and competent person, Jeni did not always adhere to her husband’s demands. Whenever he had difficulties with his wife, he went to his mother for comfort. His mother, in turn, blamed Jeni for not being submissive to her husband. When Jeni expressed her desire to explore her own career path, Peter felt powerless and disrespected. He also felt a strong sense of inferiority. Peter wanted to receive more recognition from her. But when Jeni did not give him her full attention in the way his mother did, he became discouraged and angry. When he felt humiliated by Jeni, he used many different forms of violence to cover his shortcomings, including physical and verbal violence toward Jeni to show her that he was “superior” to her. Two years into their marriage, Jeni demanded that they live away from his parents who lived in the same neighborhood. Jeni could not stand her mother-in-law’s criticisms and wanted to build their lives elsewhere. Jeni persuaded her husband to move to another town, 50  miles away from where her in-laws lived. When Peter did not have his mother living in close proximity to provide an outlet to complain about his wife, he became more frustrated and felt like he was forced to abandon his family of origin. Peter did not stop calling his mother to complain about Jeni. In turn, these calls encouraged his mother to criticize Jeni for a lack of concern and care for his son. Whenever Jeni complained about his mother’s calls, Peter abused her verbally and physically. This case illustrates the interdependent relationship between a mother and son and how it plays a decisive role in intimate partner violence (in this case a husband abusing his spouse). A Korean mother cannot think of herself without her son. Since there is an excessive overdependent relationship between mother and son, they are caught in the web of an enmeshed relationship. As a result, even as an adult, he is still dependent on his mother. After marriage, he is also dependent on his partner, asking

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her to assume a maternal role to meet his dependency needs. Peter can be called a “mama’s boy.” Peter is not capable of exercising his own independence to navigate through his own domestic conflicts. Whenever he experiences trouble, he refers it to his mother. Even though he is a fully grown adult, he relies on the fact that his mother, who now lives 50 miles away, can control his wife. This overdependent relationship between a mother and son blocks the process of separation-individuation for Peter, making him more dependent on others to soothe his own internal emotional conflict. This often makes him feel inadequate and shameful. After marriage, he transferred his dependency to his spouse. If Jeni cannot fulfill his need for this void, he feels frustrated and helpless. Peter found satisfaction in victimizing Jeni, whom he feels has “caused” him humiliation. In a case like Peter’s, what would be the best way to deal with his shame and violence? What can a therapist do in such cases?

4.4   Guidelines for the Exploration and Treatment of Shame with Perpetrators Jac Brown is a clinical psychologist who currently teaches at Macquarie University and holds a private practice in Sydney. Brown’s research on domestic violence has influenced sociological theories of intimate partner violence and contributed clinical implications for dealing with shame and violence. Moreover, his research has moved to how domestic violence programs view perpetrators from simply needing to hold men accountable to a treatment modality for shame-prone male perpetrators. I have adopted his program as I work with Korean and Korean American male perpetrators. Compared to the Duluth Model14 that I have used in the past, I find Brown’s approach, which employs a psychoanalytic theory of Heinz Kohut’s self psychology, much more comprehensive and effective because it appropriately confronts the perpetrator by exposing the underlying emotional and psychological issues, especially shame, he has had. For clarity, I limit my discussion to Brown’s approach without delving in details about self psychology. In the following, I demonstrate how I worked with Peter based on Brown’s five stage-model15 that begins with (1) engaging the perpetrator, (2) identifying and acknowledging feelings, (3) identifying and acknowledging shame, (4) containing the shame experience, and (5) structuralizing feelings.

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4.4.1  Engaging the Perpetrator Perpetrators of domestic violence often have a history of disturbed relationships and a tendency to engage in maladaptive interpersonal behavior. Searching for a compassionate understanding of why the client is engaging in these behaviors is critical to being able to help change the behavior. It is always crucial to create a safe space where the client (perpetrator of violence) will feel accepted and feel free to explore their thoughts and feelings in order for the client to make any significant changes in their behavior. While it is important for Peter to admit his responsibility for his violence, this admission may take considerable time. Without appropriate therapy, the recurring experience of shame can easily prevent the honest admission of responsibility. When I first asked who was responsible for violence, Peter said, “depending on who is asking.” If I am asking, he would say his spouse, whereas if it is the social worker (who evaluates how soon a perpetrator would go back to his partner), he would say that he was responsible for the domestic violence. Clearly, Peter must admit his responsibility for his violence as an important part of the treatment. However, this admission may need to take place within the context of ongoing treatment, rather than at the starting point of the treatment. Requiring Peter to acknowledge his responsibility for violence in the beginning of the program, which can illicit Peter’s shame experiences, might make it difficult to retain him in treatment, let alone change his violent behavior. While Peter’s narratives are not adequate justification for his violent behavior, his stories still need to be fully heard by the therapist as an important phase of the treatment.16 4.4.2   Identifying and Acknowledging Feelings Brown employs the therapeutic process in self psychology that emphasizes empathic attunement17 where the perpetrator’s feelings are identified as a way of increasing understanding and acceptance. This process of identifying and acknowledging feelings is a process where affect is mirrored in the context of a significant therapist figure, which facilitates the process of transference and increases therapeutic intensity. Thus, the therapeutic experience with the therapist allows for the growth of the client’s self, moving from the common merger or enmeshed relationship, experienced with his partner, to more mature experiences of relationship with others. For some perpetrators, this will be the first time that they will be able to

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identify any feelings apart from anger. For Peter, he was frequently able to talk on a rational level about his experience of violence as a way of justifying himself, but it was difficult for him to identify and acknowledge his feelings that lead to violence. Peter was unaware of any feelings other than anger, often using anger regularly or trying to hide it, only to explode when it becomes overwhelming. Peter needed to learn to tune into his feelings: The process of empathic attunement is helpful with this. Often the feelings identified seemed so intense that he was able to acknowledge only subtle versions of their negative feelings, such as “annoyed” instead of “angry,” or “unsettled” instead of “distressed.” Without acknowledging intense negative feelings, the possibility of recognizing or acknowledging shame is very remote in the initial stages of treatment. However, when these subtle feelings are identified and acknowledged, their more intense versions can begin to be tolerated, creating a way for the acknowledgement of shame and humiliation that underlie many of the other negative feelings.18 For Peter, this experience was the first time that he was able to identify any feelings apart from anger. For him, even becoming aware of and/or acknowledging anger before a violent episode was a new experience. Within the context of the therapeutic bond of acceptance, Peter became increasingly able to tolerate shameful feelings through empathic attunement, or amplification of affect by the therapist, eventually even becoming aware of his own shame. 4.4.3  Identifying and Acknowledging Shame One of the most difficult feelings for male perpetrators to identify and acknowledge is shame since it is such an immobilizing and passive emotion, striking at the core of masculinity. As it frequently seems to underlie anger, it is an important step for these men to identify it, and also to tolerate it in the presence of another. Thus, noting and acknowledging a range of feelings that may be directed toward the therapist is an important step, which eventually may include shame.19 For Peter, identifying and acknowledging shame was about exposing his inability to protect his mother from his father’s violence; feeling inadequate in the relationship with his partner; and feeling unfilial for his inability to conceive a child due to male infertility. As an initial step toward acknowledging shame, it is easier to acknowledge a milder version of shame—such as embarrassment—before being able to tolerate the intense affect of shame. This process can begin by acknowledging a range of feelings that are already in

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the room, that are directed toward me, such as anger, and which eventually may include shame. Helping Peter to tolerate shame was a way of ensuring that shame does not lead to violence and aggression. In the case of Peter, anger management programs may interfere with the process of acknowledging shame because of their emphasis on cognition and their use of a group context where shame can be too intense to ever be expressed in such a public forum.20 It is thus recommended that anger management programs are incorporated later in the therapeutic process. 4.4.4  Containing the Shame Experience Once shame has been tolerated in the therapy room, it needs to be contained or contextualized, breaking the link between shame and violence. Whereas shame may alert the individual to any wrongdoings toward another person, it creates other problems often associated with guilt, anxiety, and depression. For Peter, shame was the foundation of his experience of mistreatment by his caregivers in the past, which made it even more difficult to acknowledge and tolerate it. Shame, like some other feelings that are very intense, needs to be carefully managed. To prevent the feeling from becoming overwhelming, thinking about it rationally by using a more cognitive approach was helpful in the later stage of the treatment. Peter shared that once the shame was experienced and he was able to tolerate it, he experienced freedom from angry feelings, which opened a new level of honesty in connecting and communicating with others.21 4.4.5  Structuralizing Feelings In learning to tolerate a range of affects, it is helpful to be able to locate them in the body and to describe the sensations they create. I often asked Peter where he felt them in his body. Peter said that he felt heat on his hands and sometimes on his face. Exploring the bodily associations that the feelings have with experiences from the past may allow for a greater understanding of such feelings. Connecting cognition to the feelings provides a new structure that takes past experience of shame out of the feeling realm and therefore may decrease some of the intensity associated with them. This will allow for easier access to these feelings, instead of pushing them down until they build up into intense rage and violence. It is at this stage that some of more cognitive anger management strategies advocated

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by Kevin Howells and his colleagues22 can be helpful. However, moving to this strategy too quickly could jeopardize the important step of acknowledging and dealing with feelings. During this stage, Peter became aware of his shame and began to tolerate it in therapy for the first time. Peter acknowledged his violent behaviors and also verbalized the link with shame that he felt at the time. He was subsequently able to confront his parents about their attempts to control him. As he was able to trust the therapist, he began to acknowledge his shame regarding many other experiences in the past as well as the present. These experiences helped him to become more direct in acknowledging his feelings and in developing more intimate connections, allowing him to have a freer access to his other emotions. Peter has learned to be more kind to himself and to be more fully present to Jeni, which has given him the ability to reconnect and reattach with his spouse in deeper and satisfying ways. Shame-prone clients believe that they are broken. In their efforts to overcompensate their sense of brokenness, they believe that they have to be “perfect.” For Peter, accepting that he is “good enough” was a milestone.

4.5   How Can Community of Faith Respond? As a psychotherapist who is also theologically trained, I sit across from many women of various denominational churches. While the 2018 Georgia Domestic Violence Fatality Review23 shows that 32% of women are affiliated with Christianity, these statistics are from women who actually report the abuse. All the women I serve in domestic violence cases are affiliated with local churches. The struggle is real for women who are verbally, emotionally, physically, sexually, and spiritually abused by the men who promised to honor and cherish them. Some of these men use the cover of the church to hide their manipulative behaviors. One of my clients gave me permission to tell her story. She and her husband served as pastors in the south. Throughout their 25-year marriage, he physically, verbally, and emotionally abused her, even in front of their children. She had no options for help, because domestic abuse would mean their removal from ministry. She loved the people and the region where they served and believed that God wanted them to serve this community. Finally, as her children reached adulthood, they begged her to separate from their father in order to save her life. She currently lives alone, dealing with the damaged effects of Post

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Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), guilt, and health issues caused by years of trauma. While some pastors provide caring counsel when women come forward, many victims hear the same answers when they dare to ask for help. When it comes to domestic violence, pastors often don’t know how to respond to victims. A great number of ministry leaders still quote passages such as Ephesians 5:22, 1 Peter 3:1–6, and Titus 2:3–5 as they tell women to submit, to pray for their husbands, to have a quiet spirit, and be obedient. These practices don’t work even within “healthy” relationships. Submission to an abuser only gives him license to further abuse. As Duluth and other domestic violence programs point out, the main characteristic of an abusive relationship is where the abuser’s desire for power and control is at the root. When the church affirms an abusive man’s role as the head of the house, it gives permission to men who need to be in control. It sanctions abusive behaviors and leaves the wife with no options. Abusive behaviors such as calling her names, shaming her in front of the children, criticizing what she wears, controlling the finances, and forcing her to have sex often lead to more violent behaviors. Church leaders who “require” victims to forgive and reconcile do not fully understand the scope of the trauma. The woman I described earlier often believed that her husband’s tearful apologies would change his behavior. Yet, after years of manipulation and abuse, she has learned to distrust her own feelings and thoughts. It has become impossible for her to discern what is true for her. How can ministry leaders help these women so they don’t become another example of tragic “statistics”? I like to start with what not to do. As explained previously, because of the danger of offering couple’s therapy for women who are experiencing physical violence from their husbands, pastors should not offer couple’s pastoral counseling because it is often the first step that many pastors take to “fix” the problem. Secondly, the church should not offer “cheap grace.”24 Churches are often too quick to forgive and reconcile. But when we look away from or fail to do what is in our power to put an end to abuse, we are really contributing to the violence and even perpetrating a form of emotional abuse. Cheap grace allows churches to ignore abuse. Third, listen and validate the stories of women for whom it is one of the most embarrassing and shameful experiences to share with another person. It is never the first abusive experience that she shares with another. It is usually after many years of abuse when she finally is ready to share her story. Sharing her story is usually a sign of resilience and wanting to survive, and many times wanting to move forward with

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her life. Because she has been conditioned to question her own experience, she needs external validation to recognize her own suffering. Ministry leaders can no longer deny that abuse happens within the church and must acknowledge the truthfulness of abuse experiences of women. Fourth, train leaders. This means that all church leaders need to know current policies on what constitutes domestic violence, who they should call or report a possible federal crime under the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), what are victims’ rights, and what kinds of resources and help are available. All of these questions need to be part of regular pastoral staff training, including those who are volunteering at church such as Sunday school teachers and counselors. Fifth, the church can provide practical help by offering financial support by providing a safe space. Physical safety is always the first priority. Once safety is secured, it becomes daunting to figure out how the victim is going to plan out how she is going to support herself and most often her children without the financial support of her spouse. Finances are one of the biggest reasons why many women stay with their abusive partners. Although some churches have benevolence funds to pay for rent and electricity bill for victims of domestic violence, it is not a sustainable model. Currently, I am working with church members who are able to provide long term employment. This means that members of faith community have to respond together in creating community support for women in abusive relationships. In my experience, this has been one way that church can positively respond to women experiencing domestic violence. Finally, men need to step up and take responsibility for our own violence. After all, if men were to stop killing women, we would have no need of shelters, protective orders, and prison time for perpetrators. This work is not something that is out there. It starts right here with me. This means that this work to end violence against women has to start and stay with examining yourself. You have to identify both your strengths and your limitations. It’s not about whether or how you transcend those limitations. It is that you have to know that they are there and how you will address them. Please allow me to share my own example of my own biases. I was going through my own training by Men Stopping Violence Against Women (MSV) in Decatur, Georgia in early 2000s. Men who came to these meetings were violent men who were released from prison and were mandated to go through this program so that they could be reunited with their families. In the beginning of the training, I thought that somehow I was better than them because I was there voluntarily to become more

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aware of my male privilege, whereas these men were forced to be there by the court system so that they could learn not to be violent to their partners. In the middle of 26-week program, I began to recognize my own violence. While my violence is not physical, it has many different faces as physical assault is only one form of violence. I began to realize that I use my social privilege to manipulate situations and people to favor my personal advancement. When we put power and control as the center of analysis when making violence assessments, I began to understand that I was as violent as all of the men. Working with many “Peters” and “Jenis” has allowed me to critically reflect on what it means to provide “care” for those who struggle with intimate partner violence, toxic masculinity, sexism, and other related matters. It has further challenged me to critically think about the connection between the work of “care” and of “justice” when the emotional wounds and pains we humans experience internally are not separated from systemic injustice that continues to render people to suffering. As a therapist who seeks to walk faithfully with those who suffer, I see the work that I do, that is the work of care, cannot be separated from the work of justice. When we set up and help other abused women among us, we also influence the next generation. As children watch the church to become a force for good, they can begin to trust ministry leaders with their own faith walk. And the community sees the church as the place that practices unconditional protective love.

Notes 1. Some programs are affiliated with probation departments and courts, or are located in prisons and jails. According to Saunders, there were over 3246 programs in the United States as of 2016. See Julia C.  Babcock, et al., “Domestic Violence Perpetrator Programs: A Proposal for EvidenceBased Standards in the United States,” Partner Abuse, 7, no. 4 (2016): 359. 2. Valeria Condino, et  al., “Therapeutic Interventions in Intimate Partner Violence: An Overview,” Research in Psychotherapy: Psychopathology, Process and Outcome (RIPPO) 19, no. 2 (2016): 241. DOI: https://doi. org/10.4081/rippo.2016.241. 3. Linda Mills, Violent partners: A Breakthrough Plan for Ending the Cycle of Abuse. (New York: Basic Books. 2008), 251. 4. Georgia Commission on Family Violence’s Protocol for Batterers Classes, 2019. https://www.biscmi.org/other_resources/docs/georgia.html

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5. Eckhardt I.  Christopher, et  al., “The Effectiveness of Intervention Programs for Perpetrators and Victims of Intimate Partner Violence,” Partner Abuse 4 (2013):198. 6. Natlie Hundt and Dana Holohan, “The Role of Shame in Distinguishing Perpetrators of Intimate Partner Violence in U.S.  Veterans,” Journal of Traumatic Stress 25, no. 2 (2012): 191. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/ jts.21688 7. June P.  Tangney and Ronda Dearing, Shame and Guilt (New York: Guilford Press. 2002), 3. 8. See James Gilligan, Violence: Reflections on a National Epidemic, 1st ed. (New York: Vintage Books, 1997). 9. June P Tangeny, et al.. “Shame into Anger? The Relation of Shame and Guilt to Anger and Self-Reported Aggression,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 62 (1992): 669. 10. Delroy L Paulhus, et  al., “Two Replicable Suppressor Situation in Personality Research,” Multivariate Behavioral Research 39 (2004): 301. 11. Tamara J Ferguson, et  al., “Guilt, Shame, and Symptoms in Children,” Developmental Psychology 35, no. 2 (1999): 347. 12. David S Bennett, Margaret Wolan Sullivan, and Michael Lewis, “Young Children’s Adjustment as a Function of Maltreatment, Shame, and Anger,” Child Maltreatment 10, no. 4 (2005): 311. 13. The case study consists of composites of stories from my counseling practice. Names and identifying information have been changed for anonymity and privacy. 14. The Duluth Model is based on bringing awareness of violent and non-­ violent control tactics used by the perpetrator of violence and, to a lesser extent, learning skills. Topics that are covered in the Duluth Model include masculinity, healthy relationships, conflict resolution, cultural traditions, anger management, fatherhood skills, criminal sanctions, substance abuse, childhood trauma, and stress. See Ellen Pence and Michael Paymar. Education Groups for Men Who Batter: The Duluth Model. (New York: Springer Publishing. 1993). 15. Jac Brown, “Shame and Domestic Violence: Treatment Perspectives for Perpetrators from Self Psychology and Affect Theory,” Sexual and Relationship Therapy 19, no. 1 (2004): 39–55. 16. Ibid, 51. 17. Ibid. 18. Ibid, 52. 19. Ibid. 20. Ibid, 53. 21. Ibid.

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22. See Howells, Kevin, et al., “Anger Management and Violence Prevention: Improving Effectiveness,” Australian Institute of Criminology. (2002). http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.580.4974& rep=rep1&type=pdf 23. Georgia Domestic Violence Fatality Review, 2019. https://gcfv.georgia. gov/annual-stats-facts 24. Marie Fortune, “Forgiveness: The Last Step,” in Abuse and Religion: When Praying Isn’t Enough, ed. Anne L. Horton and Judith A. Williamson (New York: Lexington, 1988): 217.

Bibliography Babcock, Julia C., Nicholas A. Armenti, Clare Cannon, and Katie Lauve-Moon. 2016. Domestic Violence Perpetrator Programs: A Proposal for Evidence-­ Based Standards in the United States. Partner Abuse 7 (4): 355–460. Bennett, David S., Margaret Wolan Sullivan, and Michael Lewis. 2005. Young Children’s Adjustment as a Function of Maltreatment, Shame, and Anger. Child Maltreatment 10 (4): 311–323. Brown, Jac. 2004. Shame and Domestic Violence: Treatment Perspectives for Perpetrators from Self Psychology and Affect Theory. Sexual and Relationship Therapy 19 (1): 39–55. Condino, Valeria, Annalisa Tanzilli, Anna Maria Speranza, and Vittorio Lingiardi. 2016. Therapeutic Interventions in Intimate Partner Violence: An Overview. Research in Psychotherapy: Psychopathology, Process and Outcome (RIPPO) 19 (2). https://doi.org/10.4081/rippo.2016.241. Eckhardt, Christopher I., M.  Christopher Murphy, J.  Daniel Whitaker, Joel Sprunger, Rita Dykstra, and Kim Woodard. 2013. The Effectiveness of Intervention Programs for Perpetrators and Victims of Intimate Partner Violence. Partner Abuse 4: 196–231. Ferguson, Tamara J., Stegge Hedy, Erin R. Miller, and Michael E. Olsen. 1999. Guilt, Shame, and Symptoms in Children. Developmental Psychology 35 (2): 347–357. Fortune, Marie. 1988. Forgiveness: The Last Step. In Abuse and Religion: When Praying Isn’t Enough, ed. Anne L. Horton and Judith A. Williamson, 215–220. New York: Lexington. Georgia Commission on Family Violence’s Protocol for Batterers Classes. 2019. https://www.biscmi.org/other_resources/docs/georgia.html Georgia Domestic Violence Fatality Review. 2019. https://gcfv.georgia.gov/ annual-stats-facts Gilligan, James. 1997. Violence: Reflections on a National Epidemic. 1st ed. New York: Vintage Books.

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Howells, Kevin, Andrew Day, Susan Bubner, Susan Jauncey, Paul Williamson, Ann Paker, and Karen Heseltine. 2002. Anger Management and Violence Prevention: Improving Effectiveness. Australian Institute of Criminology. http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.580.4974&rep= rep1&type=pdf Hundt, Natlie, and Dana Holohan. 2012. The Role of Shame in Distinguishing Perpetrators of Intimate Partner Violence in U.S.  Veterans. Journal of Traumatic Stress 25 (2): 191–197. https://doi.org/10.1002/jts.21688.2012. Mills, Linda. 2008. Violent Partners: A Breakthrough Plan for Ending the Cycle of Abuse. New York: Basic Books. Paulhus, Delroy L., Richard W. Robins, Kali H. Trzesniewski, and J.L. Tray. 2004. Two Replicable Suppressor Situation in Personality Research. Multivariate Behavioral Research 39: 301–326. Pence, Ellen, and Michael Paymar. 1993. Education Groups for Men Who Batter: The Duluth Model. New York: Springer Publishing. Tangeny, June P., P.  Wagner, C.  Fletcher, and R.  Gramzow. 1992. Shame into Anger? The Relation of Shame and Guilt to Anger and Self-Reported Aggression. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 62: 669–675. Tangney, June P., and Ronda Dearing. 2002. Shame and Guilt. New  York: Guilford Press.

CHAPTER 5

Pastoral Care for the Spiritual and Mental Health of Elderly Korean American Christians: Confronting Ageism Through Autobiography Groups Yong Hwan Kim

5.1   Introduction I spent almost four years, from 2001 to 2004, as the director of the older adult group at my church in Korea. During that time, I sometimes confronted strong objections to investing part of the church’s budget in the older adult group that was often considered useless and unproductive. These objections claimed that those funds should go to the Sunday school for children, teenagers, and young adults because they were the future of the church. The objections came mainly from middle-aged church members. After I started my studies on aging in the United States, I realized that these objections originated from ageism. I did not realize that the

Y. H. Kim (*) Presbyterian Theological Seminary in America, Santa Fe Springs, CA, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 A. Son (ed.), Pastoral Care in a Korean American Context, Asian Christianity in the Diaspora, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-48575-7_5

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stereotypes and negative attitudes toward the older population had been there in my Korean congregation. The prejudice did not stop with the laity but even other pastors who worked with me in the church did not want to be in charge of the older adult group. I was not an exception. I did not like being with the elderly people when I started my ministry because of my own prejudice against them. Based on Confucian culture and biblical teaching, Korean churches were one of the places where elderly people were supposed to be respected the most in Korean society, but misinformation and misunderstanding about aging and elderly people, the absence of a theology of aging, and ageism covertly existed in the people of the church I served including myself. I have continued to have similar experiences where I now live in Southern California. From my experiences of teaching a course on aging and Christian counseling and from my conversations with Korean American pastors in Southern California, I have learned that ironically aging and elderly Korean American church members are not an interest of my seminary students and ministers, even though elderly Korean immigrants constitute the majority of their church membership. Because of the decrease in the number of newly arrived Korean immigrants to the United States and the long history of Korean American churches, the rate and the number of elderly church members are consistently increasing in Korean American churches. However, I have found that some Korean American churches in Southern California do not provide ministries for the elderly, or, if they do, it occupies a very small fraction of church investment including a small budget allocated to the older adult group. The ministries for this population seem to be superfluous add-ons from these ministers’ perspectives. Ministry for the older population is designed mainly to provide opportunities and places for singing, dancing, drawing, eating, and making friends. Korean American ministers seem to lack proper information about aging and the possibility of spiritual development in older adults and appear to be disinterested in psychological growth for this population. They seem to think that it is enough to treat elderly people as a population who just need help in social aspects. It is thus imperative to raise awareness about aging and develop a theology of aging in order to address the discrimination of ageism. My theology of aging is based on Kierkegaard’s concept of human being and I will briefly describe it here. Kierkegaard sees a human being as a self that is “composed of infinitude and finitude,” and as a conscious synthesis between the infinitude and the finitude.1 M.  Jamie Ferreira calls this

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synthesis “the locus of becoming a self” with the help of human consciousness. The infinitude’s pole includes the eternal, the spiritual, and the possible and the finitude’s pole includes the temporal, the secular, and the necessary.2 A mere human does not have a dynamic interaction between these two poles and Beabout appropriately calls this mere human being “an inert relation” that means that “the two poles are just there together.”3 Becoming oneself means, to Kierkegaard, to become concrete. In order to become concrete, the self engages in the process of “an infinite moving away from itself in the infinitizing of the self, and an infinite coming back to itself in the finitizing process” because, to Kierkegaard, becoming concrete requires a synthesis which is “neither to become finite nor to become infinite.”4 If I apply Kierkegaard concept of human being to aging and elderly people, elderly people can become themselves by embracing of the finitude pole of their changes accompanied by the aging process, such as their physical and intellectual decline, reduction of financial asset, loss of human relationship, and the infinitude pole of their continuity in spite of aging process, such as the image of God, spiritual progress, and human dignity. In my theology of aging, only when there is a dynamic integration of these two poles, elderly people can become the self that God designed for them to be. Particularly, Korean American elderly need to maintain the balance between these two poles to overcome ageism and other cultural and emotional barriers related to their social status as immigrants. Based on my theology of aging, I will discuss (1) ageism; (2) situation of Korean American elderly; and (3) pastoral care strategies for Korean American elderly.

5.2   Ageism5 The term ageism was coined by Robert N. Butler in 1968, and his concept of ageism was introduced to the public in 1969.6 To him, ageism was “negative attitudes and practices that lead to discrimination against the aged.”7 He further defined ageism as follows: Ageism can be seen as a systematic stereotyping of and discrimination against people because they are old, just as racism and sexism accomplish this with skin color and gender. Old people are categorized as senile, rigid in thought and manner, old-fashioned in morality and skills. . . Ageism allows the

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younger generation to see older people as different from themselves; thus they subtly cease to identify with their elders as human beings.8

Thus, Butler saw ageism as sharing a common factor with racism and sexism in that they all involve judging someone based on only one aspect, while disregarding other aspects of the person. Later, Butler presented a more systematic definition of ageism: (1) prejudicial attitudes toward older persons, old age, and the aging process, which includes attitudes held by older adults themselves; (2) discriminatory practices against older people; and (3) institutional practices and policies that perpetuate stereotypes about older adults, reduce their opportunity for life satisfaction, and undermine their personal dignity.9

In this expanded definition, Butler describes ageism as being characterized by a complex of negative emotion, cognition, behavior, institutional policies, and practices on the individual and societal level toward older people. The manifestation of ageism on both individual and institutional levels includes “stereotypes and myths, outright disdain and dislike, simple subtle avoidance of contact, and discriminatory practices in housing, employment, and services of all kinds.”10 Jody Wilkinson and Kenneth Ferraro affirm that ageism consists of all these interrelated factors and that they all work together.11 Liat Ayalon and Clemens Tesch-Römer’s definition of ageism clearly points out the stereotyping inclination: “As soon as we neglect the differences between individuals, we over-generalise and treat older people, ageing, and old age in a stereotypical manner. This stereotypical construction of older people, ageing, and old age is called ‘ageism.’”12 Ageism leads people to stereotype elderly people, usually in a negative way, and people who have stereotypes against this population are called ageists. Butler concludes that this stereotyping inclination comes from the absence of knowledge about aging and elderly people.13 Butler also mentions in his later definition that ageism can be an attitude held toward older adults by older adults themselves, and I think this could be more problematic to their self-identities than ageism from others because, as Butler points out, their internalized ageism causes them to regard their natural aging process as a social problem.14 In this sense, to Butler, ageism is an unconscious “disease.”15 He argues that this disease originates from “a deep seated uneasiness on the part of the young and middle-aged—a personal revulsion to and distaste for growing old,

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disease, disability; and fear of powerlessness, “uselessness,” and death.”16 Todd D. Nelson cites Georgia Barrow and Patricia Smith’s assessment that ageism is a “third ism” that draws less attention from researchers than racism and sexism because of its deep internalization in American culture, and as a result, its existence and its negative influences on society are veiled.17 Valerie Braithwaite affirms Dovido and Gaertner’s idea that the worst aspect of ageism is its unconsciousness and irrecognizability among people.18 This unconscious process of ageism is called “automatic ageism” by Mary E. Kite and Lisa Smith Wagner, meaning that an automatic connection of negative images to elderly people is made by both older and younger adults.19 As a result, as Amy J. C. Cuddy and Susan T. Fiske note, ageism goes unopposed and undetected in the United States.20 What is alarming about ageism is that, as Cruikshank argues, ageism victimizes all people, since most people live to old ages and become subject to discrimination of ageism.21 What effects does ageism have on elderly people? I think internalization of ageism is the most evident negative effect of ageism on elderly people. Elderly people tend to accept ageists’ viewpoints without critique, and they sometimes fail to assess their strengths and willingness to grow spiritually and psychologically. Thomas M. Hess points out that elderly people with internalized ageism might become more dependent on others or, conversely, pretend to be younger than their physical age.22 Hess also mentions that “loss of self-esteem, lowered motivation and confidence in ability, reduced participation in activities, and loss of control” in elderly people might be aggravated.23 Some elderly people are driven by ageism to lead busy lives and to avoid confronting their vulnerability, and they develop the notion that they can still control their level of vulnerability.24 I now turn to the analysis of the situation of ageism against Korean American elderly in light of Butler’s definition of ageism.

5.3   The Situation of the Korean American Elderly The Korean American elderly experience acculturation stresses caused by English deficiency and racism which can potentially harm their self-­ identity. If ageism is also combined with these two factors, their physical, mental, and spiritual health may deteriorate. Every immigrant goes through acculturation process which John W. Berry defines as “a process

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of cultural and psychological changes that involve various forms of mutual accommodation, leading to some longer term psychological and sociocultural adaptations” among two or more cultural groups.25 The acculturation process is accompanied by acculturation stresses that Berry defines as “a response by people to life events that are rooted in intercultural contact.”26 In the process of acculturation, immigrants have to deal with changes in identity, values, behaviors, cognition, and attitudes and this very often causes them to experience stress in many different aspects of their lives. Young-Me Lee reports that common acculturation stressors of elderly Korean immigrants are “discrimination, language inadequacy, the lack of social and financial resources, frustration associated with unemployment and low income, feeling of not belonging in the host society, and a sense of anxious disorientation in response to the unfamiliar environment.”27 She also notes that socially imposed burdens, such as “prejudice, micro-aggression, overt racism, and discrimination,” aggravate physical health problems, and each of these factors is intensified by limited English proficiency.28 Moreover, she calls elderly Korean immigrants’ lack of English proficiency as “newly acquired social disability” and points out its negative influences of lowering their self-esteem and status and authority in families.29 Along with limited proficiency in English, being treated unfairly on account of racial prejudices, such as “being insulted, being made fun of, or being treated rudely and/or unfairly,”30 can also increase the amount of pressure and tension experienced by members of the Korean American elderly. Racism kindles the feeling of being alienated and rejected from the host society and causes them to choose to be separated from the host culture and to stick to their own cultural heritage.31 A more harmful effect of racism on this demographic is that they regard themselves as “unwanted, inferior, or unfairly stereotyped” minority groups in the host society.32 Ageism adds more pressure on the Korean American elderly’s already existing acculturation stresses and aggravates the effects of racism. As defined by Butler, ageism is prejudice against elderly people because of their old age and oftentimes this prejudice makes them feel unwelcome in their churches and communities. Ageism is a discriminatory practice, an example being treated as a child by externally considerate communication styles, such as infantilizing them by using “elder-speak” (high pitched and loud communication) and patronizing languages, such as “Dear,” “Honey,” or “Sweetie.”33 Another example of discriminatory institutional practices and policies founded on ageism is the idea that the elderly should

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quit their jobs because of their old age despite being capable of performing their jobs proficiently. Because of English deficiency and the external appearance of old age among the population, they experience stronger, deeper, and multi-layered prejudices of being treated as unwanted beings in the society, more discriminatory practices in the job market, and difficulties of getting information about social welfare. These all factors are related to their high rate of depression and lowered self-esteem. Nam Soon Park and her colleagues report that elderly Korean immigrants have the highest depression rate and levels among the five major Asian American ethnic groups (Chinese, Asian Indian, Filipino, Vietnamese, and Korean).34 Their Confucian cultural identity and orientation lead them to experience more acculturative stresses and identity chaos when they experience ageism because they believe that, based on their old age, they should be respected by others. The discrimination of ageism also damages the cultural and spiritual identities of the Korean American Christian elderly and their sense of dignity as children of God. They may also struggle with finding meaning in their new lives as immigrants.

5.4   Pastoral Care Strategies for Korean American Elderly There are many possible pastoral care strategies to address ageism and assist Korean American elderly to thrive socially, psychologically, and, most of all, spiritually. They are special seminars about aging, designating a room for them with ondol,35 if possible for a fellowship at church, various social activities, perhaps monthly, regular Bible studies, a formation of prayer chains among elderly for others, various volunteering activities, writing the autobiography, intergeneration activities such as intergenerational autobiography, and storytelling and reading between elderly and children and youth. Among these strategies, I now focus on one of the pastoral strategies, writing the autobiography, and discuss it in detail since it effectively attends to ageism and elderly’s meaning in life, both psychologically and spiritually. According to Margaret Morganroth Gullette, ageism is “a decline narrative,” and overcoming ageism means having a narrative of progress in the aging process.36 I present regular and spiritual autobiography groups for elderly Korean American church members to address ageism. Through these groups, the members can construct their own

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progressive and spiritual narratives. Autobiography is a reminiscence technique through which a person reviews his or her own past life. According to Cynthia Kellam Stinson, many researchers have provided evidence for the effectiveness of structured autobiographical reminiscence group therapy in improving the well-being of elderly people, because it places emphasis on positive memories.37 James E. Birren and Donna E. Deutchman describe reminiscence “as the process of recalling the events of one’s past, a process upon which the more structured guided autobiography is built.”38 An autobiography group is a form of overt life review when its participants tell their memories to those who will listen. An autobiography group extends autobiography into the participants’ interrelationships with other group members and expand opportunities to deal with one’s psychological and spiritual issues. Autobiography groups can produce therapeutic effects in elderly participants by helping them review their lives from their present perspectives and by affording them insight into their past lives.39 This insight, which may come as an “aha” moment, can help them reconcile longtime issues. Birren and Deutchman observe that the insights from an autobiography group help elderly people view and deal with their various losses from a perspective that balances them with their achievements and successes.40 Therefore, an autobiography group produces therapeutic results for elderly participants through providing them with different lenses to reinterpret their past lives and present losses. A balanced perspective on what one has lost and what one still has is one of the keys for an elderly person’s accommodation to the aging process. “Aha” moments from autobiography group work are cognitive and psychological shields with which participants can protect themselves from the cognitive, emotional, and behavioral attacks of ageism. These insights provide them with spiritual as well as cognitive and emotional strengths, because when they experience the “aha” moment, they can re-experience the guidance of God in their past life and confirm God’s consistent presence in their current lives. Re-experiencing and confirming God’s presence leads them to evaluate their lives from God’s perspective and to maintain a sense of their dignity as God’s children. For more spiritual “aha” moments, pastoral caregivers need to develop guided spiritual autobiography groups in which group members explore God’s guidance and presence in their past and current spiritual lives. The ten autobiography themes James Birren and Kathryn Cochran recommend are the following: The major branching points in your life, your

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family, the role of money in your life, your major life work or career, your health and body, your sexual identity, your experiences with and ideas about death, your spiritual life and values, your goals and aspirations, and wrapping it up.41 Pastoral caregivers can create two different autobiography groups—regular and spiritual—in which the members go through a more holistic life review journey, expecting deeper cognitive, emotional, and spiritual “aha” moments. The themes for a spiritual autobiography group could be rebirth, falling in love with God, my church life, my spiritual wilderness, God’s presence in my immigrant life, God’s miracles in my life, prayer, God’s image in me, my aging, and my expectation for heaven. Pastoral caregivers could also develop their own themes or decide the themes with their church members. Recognizing the continuity of their identities, elderly people can confront the socially imposed identity of discontinuation and displacement and rewrite the ageists’ stories filled with stereotypes and prejudices. Ageists do not pay attention to older adults’ stories of continuity through their lifespan nor their inner strengths; they focus only on their deterioration, losses, and discontinuity in terms of jobs, health, relationships, finances, and appearances. But sharing life stories in a group setting gives elderly participants a chance to realize that their lives are still running as they did before, albeit in a little bit different way, and that they are still themselves; they are not inferior to but different from their past selves. This gives them hope that they are still growing and can find meaning in growing old in God. In addition to autobiography groups with the elderly, intergenerational autobiography groups can be an indispensable tool for bridging elderly people and younger members and helping them take the perspectives of the other, allowing the younger generation to reduce stereotypes and prejudice toward older adults.42 According to this view, the segregation of older adults from the younger generation causes ageism because segregation leads members of the younger generation to see elderly people as members of an outgroup (“them” as opposed to “us”) and reinforces their prejudices. Intergenerational autobiography groups provide both elderly people and younger members with the opportunity to understand each other not as outgroup members but as persons.43 In the PEACE (Positive Education about Aging and Contact Experiences) model, Sheri R. Levy proposes two important ways in which we can confront ageism: “(a) education about aging including facts on aging along with positive older role models that dispel negative and

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inaccurate images of older adulthood; and (b) positive contact experiences with older adults that are individualized, provide or promote equal status, are cooperative, involve sharing of personal information, and are sanctioned within the setting.”44 Levy points out that accurate information about aging and older adults contributes to more positive attitudes toward older adults. She also notes that if people of younger generations cooperatively seek common goals with older adults in individualized, equal, oneto-one interactions in which both generations can share personal information, such as life lessons and significant events (which are main themes of autobiography groups), it helps younger people reduce ageism against older adults.45 She insists that a life review method, such as an autobiography group, is an effective way through which younger generations can come into contact with older adults and improve their attitudes toward them.46 Ashley Lytle and Sheri R.  Levy have proven the effectiveness of the PEACE model in two different studies, one with 1354 undergraduates and another with 2505 participants (ages 18–59 years) in a nationwide online community. They have found that even online education about aging and extended contact in which younger generations communicated with friends who have positive relations with older adults reduced younger generations’ ageism against older adults.47 In spite of limited opportunities to come into contact with older adults, younger people can reduce their ageism through indirect contact with members of their age cohort who have positive experiences with and accurate information about older adults. I think this is a way autobiography groups can contribute to positive views of older adults. From intergenerational autobiography groups, younger people are educated about aging and older adults and share life stories with older adults. This positive experience produces candidates who can provide their friends and colleagues with the opportunities of the extended contacts and can contribute to the reduction of ageism. However, in the Korean American church context, in which language barriers exist between Korean-speaking elderly church members and English-speaking teenagers and young adults, an intergenerational autobiography group is not ideal if the group cannot provide translators for both groups. Thus, I recommend that Korean American churches offer intergenerational autobiography groups for elderly church members and Korean-speaking young and middle-aged members. Since, as Butler points out, middle-aged people tend to show their ageism toward both older and younger adults,48 their participation in an autobiography group gives them

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opportunities “to understand how older members adjust to life at a slower pace as well as stay active in the local community through volunteerism and independent living.”49 Elderly people, as well as middle-aged and young adults, gain opportunities to deconstruct their mutual stereotypes and prejudice through cross-generational contacts.50

5.5   Conclusion We live in an ageist society. Ageism is universal, ubiquitous, and global. Youthfulness and preventing the effects of aging are the goals of many people. People do not want to accept that they are aging, and elderly people are regarded as social enemies who remind other generations of their unavoidable future. Most people in this society, even in the church, think aging is a bad thing and want to escape from it, while forgetting it is a very natural process. We need to accept our own aging as a natural part of life. If people feel uncomfortable with the older adult population, they need to check their anxiety about aging and death, and it will be better for them to increase their contact with this population. As immigrants, the Korean American elderly have gone through the intense stresses of the acculturation process. Their sense of identity and self-confidence has been damaged by their lack of English proficiency and the external pressures of racism. They have been discriminated against on the basis of their race and color of their skin for a long time and now, they are also facing discrimination on account of their age and number of wrinkles. This multi-layered discrimination causes them to experience more difficulties in finding the meaning of life than their American counterparts. As described by Gullette, ageism is a negative narrative regarding older adults and aging. Among many pastoral strategies, autobiography groups can help elderly people overcome ageism by revising negative societal narratives regarding natural aging processes that have been imposed on them by society and younger generations and by constructing their own stories of progress. Intergenerational autobiography groups are a crucial route through which younger members can overcome their own ageism by learning about elderly people’s strengths and potentials. The use of such groups has the potential to reduce negative stereotypes about aging and to create a context for understanding aging as a normal stage of development, one to be approached not with fear or dread but with an understanding of its natural role in the human life cycle. In this way, these groups

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can allow for fruitful interactions across generations, in which younger individuals can benefit from the experience and wisdom of their elders, and elderly people can continue to feel like productive members of society. Church versions of spiritual autobiography groups are recommended. In such groups, members can focus on their past and current spiritual lives more than in regular autobiography groups. Along with offering autobiography groups, I strongly recommend that pastoral caregivers for elderly people be equipped with knowledge regarding aging and older adults. Butler insists that confronting the myths and the primitive disease of ageism starts with having knowledge of aging and elderly people.51 Only when pastoral caregivers have knowledge of this subject can they be prophetic voices for the elderly population in their congregations and society. Hess points out that “stereotypes and beliefs regarding the negative aspects of aging are less strong in those who have high levels of knowledge about aging, frequent exposure and interactions with older adults, and are able to assume the perspective of older adults.”52 My hope is that our churches will lift up their prophetic voices for their elderly members and become resources for increasing knowledge about aging, interactions with the elderly, and consideration of older adults’ voices.

Notes 1. Søren Kierkegaard, The Sickness unto Death, trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980), 29. 2. Jamie M.  Ferreira, Kierkegaard (Malden, MA; Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009), 152. 3. Beabout, Freedom and Its Misuses: Kierkegaard on Anxiety and Despair (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1996), 87. 4. Kierkegaard, The Sickness unto Death, 29–30. 5. For more details, see Yong Hwan Kim, “Understanding and  Reframing Korean American Elderly Experiences of Despair: A Practical Theological Approach” (Ph.D. diss., Claremont School of Theology, 2016). 6. Robert N. Butler, “Dispelling Ageism: The Cross-Cutting Intervention,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 503 (May, 1989): 139. Most materials on ageism assert that Butler coined the term ageism in 1969, but he clearly states in this article that the term was coined in 1968. 7. Ibid. 8. Ibid. 9. Robert N. Butler, “Ageism: A Foreword,” Journal of Social Issues 36, no. 2 (Spring, 1980): 8.

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10. Butler, “Dispelling Ageism,” 139. 11. Jody A.  Wilkinson and Kenneth F.  Ferraro, “Thirty Years of Ageism Research,” in Ageism: Stereotyping and Prejudice against Older Persons, ed. Todd D. Nelson (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002), 339. 12. Liat Ayalon and Clemens Tesch-Römer, “Introduction to the Section: Ageism—Concept and Origins,” in Contemporary Perspectives on Ageism, eds. Liat Ayalon and Clemens Tesch-Römer (Cham, Switzerland: Springer International Publishing, 2018), 1. 13. Butler, “Dispelling Ageism,” 138. 14. Butler, “Ageism: A Foreword,” 8. 15. Butler, “Dispelling Ageism,” 138. 16. Robert N.  Butler, “Age-ism: Another Form of Bigotry,” Gerontologist 9 (1969): 243. 17. Todd D.  Nelson, ed. Ageism: Stereotyping and Prejudice against Older Persons (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002), ix. 18. Valerie Braithwaite, “Reducing Ageism,” in Ageism: Stereotyping and Prejudice against Older Persons, ed. Todd D.  Nelson (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002), 327. 19. Mary E. Kite and Lisa Smith Wagner, “Attitudes toward Older Adults,” in Ageism: Stereotyping and Prejudice against Older Persons, ed. Todd D. Nelson (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002), 130. 20. Amy J.  C. Cuddy and Susan T.  Fiske, “Doddering but Dear: Process, Content, and Function in Stereotyping of Older Persons,” in Ageism: Stereotyping and Prejudice against Older Persons, ed. Todd D.  Nelson (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002), 3. 21. Cruikshank, Learning to Be Old: Gender Culture, and Aging, 2nd ed. (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2009), 140. 22. Thomas M. Hess, “Attitudes toward Aging and Their Effects on Behavior,” in Handbook of the Psychology of Aging, eds. James E. Birren, et al. (Boston: Elsevier Academic Press, 2006), 387. 23. Ibid. 24. Cruikshank, Learning to Be Old, 166. 25. John W. Berry, “Acculturation: A Conceptual Overview,” in Acculturation and Parent-Child Relationships: Measurement and Development, eds. Marc H.  Bornstein and Linda R.  Cote (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., 2006), 13. 26. John W. Berry, “Stress Perspectives on Acculturation,” in Acculturation: Conceptual Background and Core Components, eds. David L. Sam and John W. Berry (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 43. 27. Young-Me Lee, “Immigration Experience among Elderly Korean Immigrants,” Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing 14, no. 4 (2007): 403–404. 28. Lee, “Immigration Experience among Elderly Korean Immigrants,” 125–126.

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29. Ibid. 30. Kunsook Song Bernstein et  al., “Acculturation, Discrimination and Depressive Symptoms among Korean Immigrants in New  York City,” Community Ment Health Journal 47, no. 1 (2011): 25. 31. Schwartz et al., “Rethinking the Concept of Acculturation: Implications for Theory and Research,” American Psychologist 65, no. 4 (2010), 241. 32. Ibid, 242. 33. Kane, Green, and Jacobs, “Pastoral Care Professionals in Health and Mental Health Care: Recognizing Classic and Newer Versions of Ageism,” Journal of Pastoral Care & Counseling 65 no. 4 (2011): 2. 34. Nan Sook Park et al., “An Empirical Typology of Social Networks and Its Association with Physical and Mental Health: A Study with Older Korean Immigrants,” Journals of Gerontology, Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences 70, no. 1 (2015): 68. 35. In Korean traditional architecture, Ondol is an underfloor heating system that uses direct heat transfer from wood smoke to heat the underside of a thick masonry floor. In modern usage, it refers to any type of underfloor heating, or to a hotel or a sleeping room in Korean (as opposed to Western) style (Wikipedia 2018). 36. Margaret Morganroth Gullette, Agewise: Fighting the New Ageism in America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011), 54, 147. 37. Cynthia Kellam Stinson, “Structured Group Reminiscence: An Intervention for Older Adults,” The Journal of Continuing Education in Nursing 40, no. 11 (2009): 526. 38. James E. Birren and Donna E. Deutchman, Guiding Autobiography Groups for Older Adults: Exploring the Fabric of Life, Johns Hopkins Series in Contemporary Medicine and Public Health (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991), 14. 39. Birren and Deutchman, Guiding Autobiography Groups, 3. 40. Birren and Deutchman, Guiding Autobiography Groups, 55. 41. James E. Birren and Kathryn N. Cochran, Telling the Stories of Life through Guided Autobiography Groups (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001), 55–135. 42. Dagmar Grefe, “Combating Ageism with Narrative and Intergroup Contact: Possibilities of Intergenerational Connections,” Pastoral Psychology 60, no. 1 (2011): 101. 43. Ibid, 102. 44. Sheri R.  Levy, “Toward Reducing Ageism: PEACE (Positive Education about Aging and Contact Experiences) Model,” The Gerontologist 58, no. 2 (2018): 226. 45. Ibid, 228. 46. Ibid, 229.

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47. Ashely Lytle and Sheri R.  Levy, “Reducing Ageism: Education about Aging and Extended Contact with Older Adults,” The Gerontologist 59, no. 3 (2019): 581. 48. Butler, “Age-ism,” 244. 49. Grefe, “Combating Ageism,” 103. 50. Ibid. 51. Butler, “Dispelling Ageism,” 138. 52. Hess, “Attitudes toward Aging,” 388.

Bibliography Ayalon, Liat, and Clemens Tesch-Römer. 2018. Introduction to the Section: Ageism—Concept and Origins. In Contemporary Perspectives on Ageism, ed. Liat Ayalon and Clemens Tesch-Römer, 1–10. Cham: Springer International Publishing. Beabout, Gregory R. 1996. Freedom and Its Misuses: Kierkegaard on Anxiety and Despair. Milwaukee: Marquette University Press. Bernstein, Kunsook Song, So-Youn Park, Jinah Shin, Sunhee Cho, and Yeddi Park. 2011. Acculturation, Discrimination and Depressive Symptoms Among Korean Immigrants in New York City. Community Mental Health Journal 47 (1): 24–34. Berry, John W. 2006a. Acculturation: A Conceptual Overview. In Acculturation and Parent–Child Relationships: Measurement and Development, ed. Marc H.  Bornstein and Linda R.  Cote, 13–30. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Berry, John W. 2006b. Stress Perspectives on Acculturation. In Acculturation: Conceptual Background and Core Components, ed. David L.  Sam and John W. Berry, 43–57. New York: Cambridge University Press. Birren, James E., and Kathryn N. Cochran. 2001. Telling the Stories of Life Through Guided Autobiography Groups. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Birren, James E., and Donna E. Deutchman. 1991. Guiding Autobiography Groups for Older Adults: Exploring the Fabric of Life, The Johns Hopkins Series in Contemporary Medicine and Public Health. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Braithwaite, Valerie. 2002. Reducing Ageism. In Ageism: Stereotyping and Prejudice Against Older Persons, ed. Todd D.  Nelson, 311–337. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Butler, Robert N. 1969. Age-ism: Another Form of Bigotry. Gerontologist 9: 243–246. Butler, Robert N. 1980. Ageism: A Foreword. Journal of Social Issues 36 (2): 8–11. Butler, Robert N. 1989. Dispelling Ageism: The Cross-Cutting Intervention. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 503: 138–147.

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Cruikshank, Margaret. 2009. Learning to Be Old: Gender, Culture, and Aging. 2nd ed. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Cuddy, Amy J.C., and Susan T.  Fiske. 2002. Doddering But Dear: Process, Content, and Function in Stereotyping of Older Persons. In Ageism: Stereotyping and Prejudice Against Older Persons, ed. Todd D. Nelson, 3–26. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Ferreira, M. Jamie. 2009. Kierkegaard. Malden/Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. Grefe, Dagmar. 2011. Combating Ageism with Narrative and Intergroup Contact: Possibilities of Intergenerational Connections. Pastoral Psychology 60 (1): 99–105. Gullette, Margaret Morganroth. 2011. Agewise: Fighting the New Ageism in America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Hess, Thomas M. 2006. Attitudes Toward Aging and Their Effects on Behavior. In Handbook of the Psychology of Aging, ed. James E. Birren, K. Warner Schaie, Ronald P. Abeles, Margaret Gatz, and Timothy A. Salthouse, 6th ed., 379–406. Amsterdam: Elsevier Academic Press. Kane, Michael N., Diane L.  Green, and Robin J.  Jacobs. 2011. Pastoral Care Professionals in Health and Mental Health Care: Recognizing Classic and Newer Versions of Ageism. Journal of Pastoral Care & Counseling 65 (4): 1–9. Kierkegaard, Søren. 1980. The Sickness Unto Death. Trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Kim, Yong Hwan. 2016. “Understanding and Reframing Korean American Elderly Experiences of Despair: A Practical Theological Approach.” Ph.D. Dissertation, Claremont School of Theology. Kite, Mary E., and Lisa Smith Wagner. 2002. Attitudes Toward Older Adults. In Ageism: Stereotyping and Prejudice Against Older Persons, ed. Todd D. Nelson, 129–161. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Lee, Young-Me. 2007. Immigration Experience Among Elderly Korean Immigrants. Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing 14 (4): 403–410. Levy, Sheri R. 2018. Toward Reducing Ageism: PEACE (Positive Education About Aging and Contact Experiences) Model. The Gerontologist 58 (2): 226–232. Lytle, Ashely, and Sheri R. Levy. 2019. Reducing Ageism: Education About Aging and Extended Contact with Older Adults. The Gerontologist 59 (3): 580–588. Nelson, Todd D., ed. 2002. Ageism: Stereotyping and Prejudice Against Older Persons. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Park, Nan Sook, Yuri Jang, Beom S. Lee, Jung Eun Ko, William E. Haley, and David A. Chiriboga. 2015. An Empirical Typology of Social Networks and Its Association with Physical and Mental Health: A Study with Older Korean Immigrants. Journals of Gerontology, Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences 70 (1): 67–76.

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Schwartz, Seth J., Jennifer B. Unger, Byron L. Zamboanga, and José Szapocznik. 2010. Rethinking the Concept of Acculturation: Implications for Theory and Research. American Psychologist 65 (4): 237–251. Stinson, Cynthia Kellam. 2009. Structured Group Reminiscence: An Intervention for Older Adults. The Journal of Continuing Education in Nursing 40 (11): 521–528. Wikipedia. 2018. Ondol. Last Modified 8 February 2019. https://en.wikipedia. org/wiki/Ondol Wilkinson, Jody A., and Kenneth F.  Ferraro. 2002. Thirty Years of Ageism Research. In Ageism: Stereotyping and Prejudice Against Older Persons, ed. Todd D. Nelson, 339–358. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

CHAPTER 6

In-Between Cultures to In-Both: Creating Common Stories of Korean American Youth Sophia S. Park

6.1   Introduction1 Navigating the adolescent years is hard—but doing so as a Korean American 1.5 generation2 in the United States is even more challenging. On top of the expected physical and emotional changes, Korean American youth have to contend with two variant cultures. Moreover, cultural misunderstandings between parents and children sometimes create confusion in identity formation. Navigating two cultural contexts through adolescence, many Korean American youth find themselves living in-between cultures. Not being able to fully fit in either the Korean or the American western cultures negatively impacts their formation of self-identity and self-esteem. Living in a society where whiteness (culture, worldviews, appearance, and identity) is normalized, Korean American youth find themselves cast into the margins of society, internalizing what others have told them. Sang Hyun Lee, however, reframes the space of Korean

S. S. Park (*) Pastoral Clinical Mental Health Counseling, Neumann University, Aston, PA, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 A. Son (ed.), Pastoral Care in a Korean American Context, Asian Christianity in the Diaspora, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-48575-7_6

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Americans from marginal, dehumanizing, and oppressive space, to liminal, where resistance and creativity is produced. I thus argue for the creative potential of the Korean American 1.5 generation, who no longer finds themselves in-between cultures but instead in a state of embrace of in-both. Their creative potential empowers Korean American youth to re-author their own story, where their idiosyncratic ways of being are affirmed, their strengths of bi-cultural experience are lifted up, and where they find healing and nurturing from creating stories that sustain Korean American communities and hold and affirm their place. There are many common themes among Korean American adolescents growing up in two cultures—that is, high expectations of grades, authoritative parents, parents that work long hours in their business, eroding relationships with parents due to widening language and cultural gaps, and disconnect with friends. While not all Korean American youth live feeling isolated, many experience living in-between cultures, living without a sense of who they are or where they belong. Adolescence is a time for the formation of self-identity, growing independence, venturing into society, and maintaining careers and different levels of relationships. Interactions with peers, colleagues, and romantic partners, however, continue to remind individuals that they are subtly different from their western friends. Witnessing the shared “symptoms” of distress among Korean American counselees, I have continued to ask myself “Why is there the prevalence of suffering due to lack of self-identity among Korean Americans?” “What makes it so difficult to fully develop a self-identity while living in two cultures? “How can Korean American families and communities cultivate an environment where Korean American adolescents can foster a healthy self-­ identity during their adolescent years?” To address these questions, I start by describing the reality of Korean American youth and the effects of growing up as a bi-cultural person in the United States. I also address the effects of participating in an educational system that legitimizes truths of the dominant world, and the effects on the formation of a healthy self-identity for Korean American youth. Environments where the “truths” of the 1.5 generation are not readily acknowledged, the essential social and cultural conditions needed to develop a healthy sense of self is often missing, and therefore, development of a healthy self-identity can be challenging. More alarming is that such restraining social conditions can impede Korean American youth from the freedom to seek what “healthy” self-identity looks like for them, let alone allowing their potential to flourish. I thus examine the social

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forces that keep them invisible, contributing to the “symptoms” of growing up in two cultures. Furthermore, recognizing the potentiality that bi-­ cultural contexts can provide for Korean American youth, I propose pastoral strategies for churches to support Korean American families and to help their children thrive, especially the development of a common story of Korean American Adolescents. In doing the above, I will use two counseling cases as well as stories of other Korean American youth.

6.2   The Reality of Living In-Between Cultures 6.2.1  First Story: Introducing Joon3 Joon was born in South Korea and came to America at the age of five. Joon is a Korean American male in his late twenties, single, and in graduate school. He smiled often throughout the counseling sessions but it was soon evident that his smile did not align with his deeper emotions. Rather, it was a veil to hide his resentment and anger toward his father, but even more so toward himself. While he originally came for counseling for direction in life after graduate school, the counseling soon focused on relationship problems and his feelings of helplessness, loneliness, and depression. Joon describes his father as being authoritative, demanding, expecting too much from Joon. His father “strongly encourages” or “discourages” Joon in most things in life. He is never satisfied. Joon remembers many outbursts of anger from his father when Joon did not adhere to his “advice” or when his standards were not met. Whenever Joon tried to explain his actions, he was scolded for being disrespectful for talking back. All his life, Joon has wanted his father’s acceptance but could not receive his validation. He feels resentful toward his father and more so toward himself for not standing up for his own wishes. Joon did not like to go to school when he was a child. He remembers playing alone in kindergarten. Some of his classmates were very mean. As early as second grade, Joon remembers being called names. Joon grew up in a city with hardly any Koreans, and only a handful of Asians. Joon knew he looked different than his peers. With a better command of English, Joon eventually made some friends. He remembers making the effort to fit in by observing what his friends did, imitating them, and acting based on what they liked. By high school, Joon became more social but tried not to stand out. On many occasions, he downplayed his Korean-ness. One of his vivid memories of embarrassment was during a World History class

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when he recalls feeling mortified while watching a video on Chinese civilization. He started to get sweaty and dizzy, feeling that the room was closing in on him. He felt like everyone was looking at him as the only Asian in the room. He adds how intense the feelings continue to be. Currently at school, Joon’s friends are mostly non-Koreans. He hung out with Korean students too and enjoyed the gatherings, but he felt a persistent cultural gap and did not feel that he could be close friends with them. There was, of course, the language barrier, but the cultural barriers were greater. Although he felt very welcomed from his Korean group, Joon often felt like a “guest” and an “outsider.” Joon describes himself as an easygoing, well-rounded person who gets along with everyone. He added, with a sense of pride, that he has never gotten into any confrontation, has no enemies, but doesn’t have close friendships either. He calls himself a follower, rather than a leader. Joon states that he enjoys being around friends but, at times, he feels a void. He is unable to describe his feelings—only loneliness while being in the midst of friends. After a long pause and several attempts to put these feelings into words, he finally blurted out, “I don’t know who I really am. I don’t like myself when I’m around people. What’s wrong with me?” These questions of self and self-­ identity had haunted Joon for a long time. Joon went on to describe a couple of occasions where his western friends told him he needed to stand up for himself and to have a “backbone.” Even though he knew it was meant out of genuine concern, he felt embarrassed, weak, and ashamed because he knew they were right. 6.2.2  Second Story: Life of Christina Christina is a 22-year-old, single, Korean American female. Christina is an only child. Her parents left her in Korea in the care of her grandparents while they came to America for business opportunities. Christina recalls feeling abandoned while waiting and wondering when her parents would come back for her. After two and a half years, at the age of six, Christina joined her parents in the United States. As their business had already been set up, Christina was left with a nanny she did not know. Again, she was left every day to wonder when her parents would be coming home. The most notable memory of her mother is being awakened and being given new toys by her. Her room was filled with toys, clothes, and shoes. Christina does not remember wanting anything because she received them even before she asked.

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Christina started with kindergarten and remembers crying because she did not want to go. She did not know English and could not understand what others were saying. She remembers playing alone with the toy kitchen set. One time a boy came and snatched away a cup from her hand and all Christina did was just cry softly. Christina says she was very shy and could not defend herself. During her elementary years, Christina would come home from school to an empty house, lock the door, eat food on the table, and watch TV until her mother came home after dark. Christina remembers feeling lonely and scared. This arrangement of staying home alone continued until high school. In order to avoid being alone, Christina started hanging around with friends and going over to their houses or hanging out with them at her house. They smoked, sometimes drank, and occasionally took drugs. Christina became sexually active in the ninth grade. Her grades started to fall and her relationship with her mother deteriorated. The two of them had yelling matches quite often. By this time, Christina had lost most of her Korean language abilities. She understood some but would pretend not to understand when it was convenient. Out of frustration, her mother would blurt out in broken English and end up shouting at her in Korean. Christina would yell back in English knowing that her mother would not be able to understand her foul language. The fights always ended when her mother broke down crying. Christina describes her parents as having been very strict. They demanded a lot from her academically. Christina’s mother painstakingly recalls how Christina was a straight A student up until entering high school. From then, their relationship crumbled and they realized they could not control her anymore. However, as dutiful parents with financial means, they continue to provide for her financially, paying tuition, room and board, car and insurance, and spending money. Christina feels they “owe” her for not being there when she needed them. Their relationship has become superficial to the point where they can no longer talk about their hopes and expectations of each other. Christina still feels resentful toward her mother for “abandoning” her and “choosing money” over her. Her mother, however, feels that she did everything to provide for Christina. Their respective misunderstandings, resentful feelings, and language barriers prevent them from any meaningful connection. Currently, Christina suffers from depression and shopping addiction and engages in excessive drinking and partying. She gets very anxious when she is alone in her apartment and has had a couple of anxiety attacks.

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As observed in both Joon and Christina’s stories, Korean American youth are living simultaneously in two cultures that are vastly different in terms of language, values, and way of life. At home, parents who are set in their own cultural values, norms, and customs continue to practice, teach, and enforce their Korean Confucian values brought over from their ancestral land to their children. For instance, the role prescriptions, family obligations, hierarchical relations, lack of emotional expressiveness, and collectivist values associated with the traditional family systems of Korea contrast sharply with the emphasis on individualism, self-sufficiency, egalitarianism, expressiveness, and self-development in the dominant western American culture. This was evident in the way Joon’s father dictated what he thought was best for his son in following the patriarchal cultural ways of Korea. Even though Joon’s father had the best interest of his son at heart, hierarchal structural relationships provoked resentment in Joon that led to rifts in the father-son relationship. In addition, intercultural dialogue can be challenging within families because of language barriers as well as a lack of awareness of and an inadequate approach to cultural differences. Although they may understand broadly what the other is saying, both often face challenges in communicating to each other effectively, especially with sensitive, emotionally laden topics. Christina held a lot of resentment toward her mother for “abandoning” her, first for leaving her with grandma while her parents went to the United States and later when she was alone for long hours after school while her mother worked to support her. This deep sense of abandonment gets triggered by the most simple disagreement between the two and has formed the relational pattern of intensifying emotionally until one or both disengage by walking out. While her mother tries to explain the agony she had to face when leaving Christina home, she conveys that she made sacrifices as well by closing her business early to take Christina to piano lessons. While there are two compelling “truths” to both sides, when Christina gets triggered by feelings of abandonment, the cycle of shouting matches begins. Without the ability to express or understand each other’s highly nuanced language of one’s deeply hurt emotions, many words are thrown at each other but not received. This leads to frustration, separation, and isolation for both. While living in the midst of people, many are isolated because they experience a lack of emotionally intimate and emotionally supportive family relationships. Struggling hard to fit into either or both cultures, these young people find themselves in the place in-between: In the middle of the values of

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western society and the Korean family. Shuttling back and forth from culture to culture and trying to fit in can negatively impact the formation of a healthy sense of self. Many children feel like “nomads,” living in cultures that do not reflect who they are. Living in-between cultures comes at a steep emotional cost. For the 1.5 generation, pain comes in the form of loneliness, from their inability to hope or to find sustaining, empowering relationships. While the emotional security that comes from engaging in quality relationships is necessary to form one’s identity, Korean American adolescents often experience a tangible relational disconnect with others in society, others within one’s own family, and also with oneself. The question of “Who am I?” is internally reinforced and infiltrates every aspect of one’s being. The consequence could be that members of the 1.5 generations experience life with a severely damaged sense of self. Naturally, behaviors are shaped by the modeling of other people, the mirroring back of who they are, and reinforcements by cultures they are a part of. However, when 1.5 generation are mirrored back with different cultural values that tell them that they do not “quite fit” into the different cultural standards of each culture, insecure self, whose actions rely on cues from the outside, is formed. As a result, as can be seen with Joon, his lack of decision-making abilities and “not having a back-bone” were considered “odd” and “not healthy” by his western friends. It is important to remember that growing up in two or more cultures will form worldviews and behaviors that are not fully consistent with either of the cultures. These idiosyncratic behaviors cannot be attributed as having “deficient character” but have been shaped out of coping and “trying to fit” into two vastly different cultural groups.

6.3   Life in the Dominant Western Society Being accepted and belonging in a peer group is essential for developing self-identity and self-esteem. Unfortunately, living in the dominant western society as Korean Americans can be like trying to fit into clothing that just doesn’t fit. Korean American adolescents, with changing voices and growing body parts, experience heightened sensitivity to how they are perceived, especially since, in society, “body” is not neutral.4 Korean American youth embody certain physical characteristics such as skin color, hair texture, and eye shape that are attributed to people of Asian origins. They often experience rejection because they do not possess characteristics that dominant cultures see as acceptable and valuable. And possessing a

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“body” that does not fit the dominant narrative of “whiteness” or “normal” subjects them to being dismissed and ridiculed. Pain for Korean Americans comes from facing the adversity stemming from racism and ethnic prejudice and not being accepted as “one of us” by the dominant culture. Moreover, Marcelo Suarez-Orozco asserts that “while immigrant children of color perceive that mainstream Americans do not welcome them, identifying wholeheartedly with a culture that rejects you has psychological costs usually paid with the currency of shame, doubt, and even self-hatred.”5 Korean American youth, too, pay the psychological price, often leading to depression. People in power within dominant societies name minorities through stereotypes and dictate their social locations.6 Stereotypes of groups of people limit the diverse richness of the ethnic/cultural group and reduce the complicated lives of each person. For the dominant culture, stereotypes provide simple but biased lenses in which complex persons and ethnic groups are reduced, sacrificing one’s individuality and personhood. The power of stereotype, once cast, marks the person with an image which cannot be denied or rejected. Common stereotypes that are given to Korean American adolescents are “computer geeks,” “musical whizz,” “karate kid,” and “model minority.” While many people assert that at least the stereotypes given to Asians are positive that contains advancement in certain desirable skills, being seen through the lens of stereotypes still limits one’s potential and reduces possibilities of self-discovery and the formation of an individual identity. The myth of the “model minority,” according to Tran, “is sustained by misconceptions, misrepresentation, and lack of nuanced empirical data.”7 She adds that “The broad stroke of “Asian Americans” obscures the vast ethnic differences, socioeconomic disparities, and the significant under-educated and poor percentage of people”8 within Asian Americans. Even though some Asian Americans are well educated and experience financial security, they are still the minority and within the Asian Americans group, many others are uneducated, living in broken families, and/or poverty. Branding together groups of dissimilar people in these ways ignores particular situations of hardship that some Asian American individuals and families are under. Not acknowledging the poor and underserved within the 1.5 generation Korean American families sends the message that they are not working hard enough as they do not measure up to other Asians, leaving them feeling ashamed. This highlights personal deficit as the cause of poverty rather than the structural racism and societal

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discrimination that keeps the underserved in their place. Moreover, being rewarded for “model behaviors” allows that the very real problems, from discrimination to depression, go unaddressed. It is not only that the dominant culture that imbibes and believes these distortions, but these barrage of misinformation are internalized by Korean Americans as well. When there is no awareness of words to define the self, one can only accept what has been defined for you, internalizing the stereotypes and applying them to one’s own character. For whites of European descent, their constructed ethnic identities are largely subjective, individualistic, and voluntary in nature. For them, “the construction of ethnic identity is largely a volitional process, having the choice to decide on one’s self-identity, and pursue it in order to attain a sense of self-­ fulfillment. Since their identities are neither contested nor resisted by others, these identities are generally “optional” and are highly symbolic in nature.”9 For racial minorities, however, their racial/ethnic identity formation process involves a continuing negotiation between what the dominant society “decides” about who they are and the individual’s self-ascription of “who you think you are.”10 For many Korean American youth, in the throes of emotional and psychological vulnerability from not knowing where they belong, self-discovery is a very difficult task. Moreover, the powerful internalization of stereotypes is detrimental to the formation of self-identity and the self-esteem of Korean American youth. Classrooms are not neutral spaces either. Knowledge and theories taught in modern western schools were not built with different bodies in mind or with due consideration of different minds in diverse bodies.11 Rather, Gloria Ladson-Billings finds that “schools, society, and the structures and products of knowledge are designed to create individuals who internalize the dominant worldview. The hegemony of the dominant paradigm makes it more than just another way to view the world – it claims to be the only legitimate way to view the world.”12 Participating in an educational community where the “truths” are constructed upon western assumptions and worldviews invalidates the presence and the legitimacy of knowledge from all other groups of students. To be in a place where one’s presence is invalidated means to be marginalized.13 By being left out of the dominant culture’s stories, Korean American students and other minorities have been cast to the intellectual and emotional margins of the classroom. In addition to being marginalized intellectually, minority students become the target of jokes, thus casting them emotionally into the

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margins as well. As with Joon, most, if not all Korean Americans have been made fun of at school by other students. However, many Korean American students are victimized by teachers as well. While there are incidents of rude name callings in the spirit of being “funny” by teachers, many come in the form of micro-aggression14 where the slights and snubs are subtle, and therefore, difficult to prove the intentionality of them. I have heard several instances where the student with the last name of Kim had been called by teachers “Kimchi” and “Kimpossible,” borrowed from a children’s cartoon character. Or that when a white and Korean student talk in class, the latter gets called out and given detention whereas the white student gets a verbal warning. Many times, the myth of the “model minority” works against Asian students. Because Asian students are stereo-typed as “smart,” “obedient,” when they behave well and score well on a test, the “gold” standard is assumed. However, when an Asian student misbehaves, this behavior gets noticed because it goes against the pre-conceived image of how an Asian student should be behaving. Thus, when the same Asian student talks again, this time, this misbehavior gets amplified in the teacher’s mind as the teacher recollects the prior time this Asian student talked in class. As a result, minority students, including Korean Americans, have experienced being misunderstood and treated more harshly than their western peers. Dealing with the effects of anger and the resentment of being unfairly treated by teachers is bad enough. However, the reactions and reprimands these students get from their parents only amplifies the child’s stress and anger. Being from a culture where teachers and educators are to be respected, and where humility is practiced, parents tend to give the benefit of the doubt to the teacher. When the children angrily spills out what happened at school, they do not feel believed, and even if the parents say they believe them, the admonition is always, “obey the teacher,” “be better,” and “just behave.” Children and adolescents, in turn, experience a lack of support from their parents, feeling that the parents are not on their side and their feelings are not taken seriously. They do not have the opportunity to process their sense of injustice which leads to a dimished sense of importance and contributes to lower self-esteem. I have had many Korean American students pour out emotions while recounting stories of how parents did not believe their experience of discrimination. Rather, the parents told the angry child to always listen to the teachers as the teachers know best. Even when the parents believe their child, they still default to “listen to your teacher.”

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When a church leader hears similar stories from youth, or from a parent sharing the pain of listening to their child tell of unfair treatment, it is important for the church leaders to understand that the expressed anger and rage of the youth are real and warranted. It is important to listen to their side of the story, acknowledge their hurt feelings of disappointment, embarrassment, resentment, or anger, believe their stories, and be on their side. When storytellers feel like their stories are believed, they start to believe in themselves. Their feelings need to be heard because feelings are the underlying driving force of behaviors and only when they are believed, they will be empowered to act. Having trust in one’s feelings builds the confidence needed to take defensive and proactive actions against any oncoming form of injustice. Speaking up for one’s justice is important not only to feel reprieve, but also as an empowering act that builds self-­ confidence. On the contrary, being silent can lead to feelings of powerlessness, lessened self-confidence, further marginalization, and depression. Not being believed will only reinforce disempowerment and incapacity.

6.4   Pastoral Strategies: Claiming a Common Story of Korean American Adolescents How then can the 1.5 generation use their creative potential to pull themselves out of the cultural trench they seem to be in and claim a life of potential? How can they be empowered to extend themselves into the in-both culture of their origin and the dominant western culture and live in the tension? Sang Hyun Lee’s notion of liminal space is helpful here. Lee, in his book, From a Liminal Place: An Asian American Theology, portrays this in-between place as a liminal space. He borrows the definition of liminality from Victor Turner’s Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-­ Structure, as “a transitional time in which persons are freed from social-structure hierarchy and role playing and, therefore, may be more open to what is new, experience a close communion with other persons (communitas), and become capable of prophetic critique of the existing social order.”15 Lee chooses to use the cultural in-between space as liminal space over marginal space and explains that whereas marginalization is dehumanizing and oppressive, “the liminal space that also results from marginalization, has the potential of being used as creative space of resistance and solidarity.”16 Lee argues that Jesus came into the world and started his ministry

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in Galilee, the land of “impure” people who are either Gentiles or those who were associated with foreigners.17 The Son of God made a strategic alliance with Galileans, a liminal and marginal people, in order to redeem ultimately the whole humankind.18 Lee applies this point to the Korean American community that God can use Korean Americans, as marginalized and liminal people, “for the sake of the values of God’s reign.”19 I thus suggest that Korean American churches accept Lee’s notion of liminal space, especially in caring for Korean American adolescents as a location for exploration of their potential. God can be found in the liminal space and “God chooses the liminal margins of this world as the strategic place”20 for God’s redeeming activities. By taking the in-between space as liminal space, the creative potential of the Korean American 1.5 generation no longer find themselves in-between cultures but can embrace in-both. This requires a new sense of identity that reflect embracing in-both cultures. One way to take the in-between space of Korean American youth as liminal space is to develop a shared story by embracing their in-between-ness. The stories of the lives of the Korean American 1.5 generation have not been collected—at least not from the “insider’s” perspective: Told by the 1.5 generation. Storytelling and thus, creating a common narrative, can help build self-identity but also help find meaning in one’s life. According to Michael White and David Epston, founders of Narrative Therapy, it is the stories that people tell and hold about their lives that determine the meaning they give to their lives. They found that persons tend to seek out counseling when stories “about them” did not quite represent their lived experience, and when their vital aspects of their experience contradicted dominant narratives about them. These two reasons resonate with many of the lived experiences of Korean Americans as they have tried to “fit in” to the narratives created by the dominant culture that have missed or mis-represented vital aspects of lived experience of the 1.5 generation. Living with stories that do not match internal experiences and reflect less positive perceptions impacts negatively on one’s sense of self, inhibiting one’s ability to affirm certain aspects of the self.21 It is imperative for Korean American 1.5 generation to create common stories that can provide “a larger framework that provides a more or less cohesive, thematic organization of the multiple stories [they] have lived in the past, are living in the present, or imagine [they] may live in the future.”22 Taking a Narrative Therapy method, the Korean American 1.5 generation can re-author their own identity with stories from their social

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location, or emic perspective, rather than accept what others have written for them. In order to define or redefine the identity of the 1.5 generation, it is important to first recognize that one cannot belong fully in either the dominant western or the Korean culture, but can instead claim their own cultural location, the in-between space of cultures, as a liminal space of creativity and openness. This is a space which places Korean American “views, preferences, desires, hopes, dreams, and purposes in the center of the conversation.”23 Re-authoring conversations, according to White, will “invite people to continue to develop and tell stories about their lives, but they also help people to include some of the more neglected but potentially significant events and experiences that are “out of phase” with their dominant storylines.”24 The process of re-authoring empowers Korean American youths to reject normative storylines that do not align with who they are, create stories that exemplify their experience, and help to look toward creating desired future stories as well. First, Korean American churches can thus encourage telling of their unique stories and experiences. It is through their “truths” being heard, believed, that the 1.5 generation can start constructing their individual and social identity. Their dignity, with self-confidence, is restored through this storytelling as they are able to claim and be affirmed their place in society. Participating in re-authoring of communal stories of the 1.5 generation is imperative as “Narratives are essential for constructing the worlds we inhabit as well as sustaining the communities that hold us.”25 Living outside of the dominant systems, the Korean Americans are privy to the unique insights into the cultural ways of the majority as well as those living in the margins of society. They can creatively combine the knowledge and insight of the insider with the critical mind of the outsider. Moreover, having been exposed to diverse beliefs and worldviews enables the 1.5 generation to see and consider issues from multiple perspectives, allowing for creative ways to solve problems and to respond to complex situations in multifarious ways and make balanced and fair decisions. Having developed necessary perspectives and skills to navigate the multicultural society, the experience of living in-between cultures have nurtured a compassion toward those who are different and less fortunate. Awareness of pain, suffering, discrimination, and alienation can escape those who live in the dominant culture, where common values and privilege are often taken for granted. However, empathy that is needed to connect and form relationships with people who are different is nurtured in such diverse milieu. The 1.5 generation can use their creativity and empathy to connect with people and bridge cultures.

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Second, Korean American churches are well situated to be in the powerful role to bear witness to the re-authoring of stories of their young members. Pastors can become “story companions”26 who, while journeying through their stories, can listen closely to various stories that will be braided in the formation of their identities. Affirming stories that are meaningful, being present through the painful process of confronting demoralizing stories, and bearing witness in the re-authoring are the important work of pastoral story companions, journeying through the “stories we have been, the stories we are, and the stories we hope to become.”27 Pastors as story companions also bear witness to storying one’s spiritual narratives. “To enter into another’s lifestory is to enter a holy space.”28 Pastoral story companions are invited to listen in the midst of suffering, listen as life unfolds, and listen for the presence of God.29 When one can acknowledge the possibility of God’s presence in his/her daily living, it is possible to weave the divine narrative into the stories that are fashioned.30 Grounded in the profound healing and redeeming love of God, self-identities are restored and re-authored while brokenness is transformed into flourishing, “a process of dwelling and growing in love of God, self, and other.”31 Finally, 1.5 generation can be story companions to one another. Korean American youths, having transformed from the marginal in-between space to embrace in-both can create a “salvational” space to give life to self and to others. Story companions can be a powerful way that the 1.5 generation can become the cultural bridge and create “salvational” space. This is a space where different people can come and interact, building relationships, and engaging in the dialogical co-authoring life-stories. It is not only assisting other people’s re-storying but our own stories being changed by the mutual exchange. As we listen to each other’s stories, our narratives lengthen, add more strands, and our own stories become increasingly intertwined with a multiplicity of other stories.32 Often the stories shared are themes of love and loss, joy and sorrow, despair and hope, and death and life, all of which are deeply theological.33 As story companions listen for and bear witness to the presence of God who accompanies both the storyteller and story listener in the process of constructing a faithful, life-­ giving story, they are both empowered to grow in the love of God, self, others, and all of creation.34 As a cultural bridge and a story companion to different others, this is a way for Korean Americans, as marginalized and liminal people, “to exercise the creative openness of their suppressed liminality for the sake of the values of God’s reign.”35

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Notes 1. The idea of “in-between space” is more fully developed by consulting new materials. It was briefly discussed in “Pastoral Care for the 1.5 Generation: In-between Space as the ‘New’ Cultural Space,” in Women Out of Order: Risking Change and  Creating Care in  a  Multicultural World, eds. Stevenson-­Moessner, Jeanne and  Teresa Snorton (Fortress Press, 2009), 230–242. 2. The term “1.5 generation” has been defined and understood in several ways, including one’s age upon arrival in America or one’s acculturation level. Although this term refers to and includes people who live in bi-­ cultural contexts, and is used interchangeably with “Korean Americans,” I choose to include the use of the “1.5 generation” to highlight the ambiguous location with varying degrees of cultural embodiment on the continuum in the in-­between space of the Korean and American cultures of which they are a part. 3. The case studies consist of composites of stories from my counseling practice. Names and identifying information have been changed. 4. Loida, Martell-Otero, “From Foreign Bodies in Teacher Space to Embodied Spirit in Personas Educadas: or, How to Prevent ‘Tourists of Diversity in Education,’” in Teaching for a Culturally Diverse and Racially Just World, ed. Eleazar S.  Fernandez (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2014), 57. 5. Marcela M. Suarez-Orozo, “The Right Moves? Immigration, Globalization, Utopia and Dystopia,” in The New Immigration Interdisciplinary Reader, eds by Carola Suarez-Orozco & Marcelo Suarez-Orozco (New York: Brunner- Rutledge, 2005), 79. 6. Exclusionary acts of Asian descent have been demonstrated through creating discriminating laws to control the Asian population. For instance, 1924 Immigration Act excluded all classes of Chinese immigrants while extending restrictions to other Asian Groups. Another example would be the Supreme Court ruling in Korematsu v. United States that allowed US citizens of Japanese ancestry, including those born and raised in the United States to be detained in internment camps. Without distinguishing between those born in the United States of Japanese ancestry or non-citizens who immigrated from Japan, the US government classified all persons of Japanese ancestry as “foreign.” 7. Mai-Anh Le Tran, “When Subjects Matter: The Bodies We Teach By,” in Teaching for a Cultural Diverse and Racially Just Word, ed. Eleazar S. Fernandez (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2014), 45. 8. Ibid.

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9. Herbert J. Gans, “Symbolic Ethnicity and Symbolic Religiosity: Towards a Comparison of Ethnic and Religious Acculturation,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 17 (1994): 577–92. 10. Peter Cha, “Racial/Ethnic Diversity and Student Formation” in Teaching for a Culturally Diverse and Racially Just World, ed. Eleazar S. Fernandez (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2014), 71. 11. Martell-Otero, “From Foreign Bodies in Teacher Space,” 53. 12. Gloria Ladson-Billings, “Racialized Discourses and Ethnic epistemologies,” in Handbook of Qualitative Research, 2nd ed., eds. Normat K. Denzin and Yvonne S. Lincoln (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2000), 258. 13. Martell-Otero, “From Foreign Bodies in Teacher Space,” 56. 14. Micro-aggressions are the everyday verbal, nonverbal, and environmental slights, snubs, or insults, whether intentional or unintentional, which communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative messages to target persons based solely upon their marginalized group membership. 15. Victor W.  Turner. Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1969), 94ff. 16. Sang Hyun Lee, From a Liminal Space: An Asian American Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2010), 5. 17. Ibid, 36. 18. Ibid. 19. Ibid, 37. 20. Lee, From a Liminal Space: An Asian American Theology, 35. 21. Karen D. Scheib, Attend to Stories: How to Flourish in Ministry (Nashville, TN: Wesley’s Foundery Books, 2016), 4. 22. Gary M. Keyon and William L. Randall, Restorying of Our Lives:Personal Growth Through Autobiographical Reflection (West Port, CT: Praeger, 1997), 15. 23. Alice Morgan, “Beginning to Use a Narrative Approach in Therapy,” (Dulwich Centre Publications, accessed March 3, 2019), 86. http://www. n a r r a t i v e t h e r a p y l i b r a r y. c o m / m e d i a / d o w n l o a d a b l e / f i l e s / links/0/2/021Morgan_2.pdf 24. Michael White, Maps of Narrative Practice, (New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, 2007), 61. 25. Anderson and Foley, Mighty Stories, Dangerous Rituals Rituals: Weaving Together the Human and the Divin (San Francisco: John Wiley & Sons, 1988), 4. 26. Karen Scheib, Pastoral Care: Telling Stories of Our Lives (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2016), 63. 27. Ibid, 61. 28. Ibid. 29. Ibid. 30. Anderson and Foley, Mighty Stories, Dangerous Rituals, 40. 31. Scheib, Attend to Stories, 88.

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32. William L. Randall, The Stories We Are: An Essay in Self Creation, 2nd ed. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2014), 235. 33. Scheib, Pastoral Care, 77. 34. Ibid, 63. 35. Lee, From a Liminal Space, 37.

Bibliography Anderson, Herbert, and Edward Foley. 1988. Mighty Stories, Dangerous Rituals: Weaving Together the Human and the Divine. San Francisco: John Wiley & Sons. Cha, Peter. 2014. Racial/Ethnic Diversity and Student Formation. In Teaching for a Culturally Diverse and Racially Just World, ed. Eleazar S. Fernandez, 69–87. Eugene: Wipf & Stock. Gans, Herbert J. 1994. Symbolic Ethnicity and Symbolic Religiosity: Towards a Comparison of Ethnic and Religious Acculturation. Ethnic and Racial Studies 17: 577–592. Keyon, Gary M., and William L. Randall. 1997. Restorying of Our Lives: Personal Growth Through Autobiographical Reflection. West Port: Praeger. Ladson-Billings, Gloria. 2000. Racialized Discourses and Ethnic Epistemologies. In Handbook of Qualitative Research, ed. Normat K.  Denzin and Yvonne S. Lincoln, 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks: Sage. Le Tran, Mai-Anh. 2014. When Subjects Matter: The Bodies We Teach By. In Teaching for a Cultural Diverse and Racially Just World, ed. Eleazar S. Fernandez, 31–51. Eugene: Wipf & Stock. Lee, Sang Hyun. 2010. From a Liminal Space: An Asian American Theology. Minneapolis: Fortress Press. Martell-Otero, Loida. 2014. From Foreign Bodies in Teacher Space to Embodied Spirit in Personas Educadas: or, How to Prevent ‘Tourists of Diversity in Education’. In Teaching for a Culturally Diverse and Racially Just World, ed. Eleazar S. Fernandez, 52–68. Eugene: Wipf & Stock. Morgan, Alice. Beginning to Use a Narrative Approach in Therapy. Dulwich Centre Publications. http://www.narrativetherapylibrary.com/media/downloadable/files/links/0/2/021Morgan_2.pdf. Accessed 3 Mar 2019. Park, Sophia. 2010. Pastoral Care for the 1.5 Generation: In-Between Space as the “New” Cultural Space. In Women Out of Order: Risking Change and Creating Care in a Multicultural World, ed. Jeanne Stevenson-Moessner and Teresa Snorton, 230–242. Minneapolis: Fortress Press. Randall, William L. 2014. The Stories We Are: An Essay in Self Creation. 2nd ed. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Scheib, Karen. 2016. Pastoral Care: Telling the Stories of Our Lives. Nashville: Abingdon Press.

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Scheib, Karen. 2018. Attend to Stories: How to Flourish in Ministry. Nashville: Wesley Foundery Books. Suarez-Orozo, Marcela M. 2005. The Right Moves? Immigration, Globalization, Utopia and Dystopia. In The New Immigration Interdisciplinary Reader, ed. Carola Suarez-Orozco and Marcelo Suarez-Orozco. New  York: Brunner- Rutledge. Turner, Victor. 1969. Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. White, Michael. 2007. Maps of Narrative Practice. New York: W.W. Norton.

CHAPTER 7

What’s Love Got to Do with It? Sex and the Korean American College Student and Young Adult Kirsten Sonkyo Oh

7.1   Introduction1 The K-Pop sensation, “Gangnam Style,” went viral as soon as it was released on YouTube in July 2012, which has been viewed over three billion times. Named by Guinness World Records as the most “liked” video on YouTube, it has garnered several music and video awards and has spawned numerous parodies. The beat and music swept the world, making the pop celebrity, Psy (Park Jae-sang), an international sensation whose music was dubbed a “force for world peace” by the former UN Secretary General, Ban Ki Moon. The lyrics flaunt the Gangnam District of Seoul and its lavish, rich, and charmed lifestyle. The song also ridicules the “posers” who want to look rich and famous, while it praises his girlfriend as classy and quiet (while knowing when to get wild and sexy).

K. S. Oh (*) School of Theology, Azusa Pacific University, Azusa, CA, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 A. Son (ed.), Pastoral Care in a Korean American Context, Asian Christianity in the Diaspora, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-48575-7_7

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The music video presents a highly sexualized form of a pelvic-thrusting dance along with suggestive invisible horse riding and lassoing. This song and the enticing music video have many contradictions, jumping from one scene to another in an erratic manner that in many ways reflects the “postmodern young people [who] reside in a milieu of contradictions that do not reduce to neat explanations.”2 A shocking element of the video is that sexuality, including homoeroticism portrayed in parts of the music video, is no longer a taboo subject in a society that traditionally has been shrouded in the Confucian, shame-based heritage of East Asia. These traditional cultural values continue to challenge the increasing sexualization of the socio-cultural milieu. Similar contradictions and challenges also are at play in the United States between the traditional religious beliefs and an eroticizing socio-cultural milieu. Given this complex dichotomy between the traditional moral views on sexuality and the current cultural shifts, what sexual challenges do Korean American Christian college students and young adults face in these social contexts?

7.2   Unplugged: Realities of Korean American Christian College Students and Young Adults The rampant exposure to sexuality through multiple forms of media and the surrounding cultures is most often met with stoic silence within Korean American Christian families. In my conversations with Korean American Christian college students and young adults, I see a common pattern: Korean American parents avoid discussing sex and sexuality with their children unless compelled by a crisis or coerced by school curricula. Even when coerced into “the talk,” what follows is a simple mandate that sex before marriage is wrong and that one should “save” themselves for their marital partners—end of discussion. This message echoes throughout most Korean American churches that college students and young adults attend and/or attended. These Korean American churches often teach a strict notion of sexuality with language of purity, chastity, and holiness; abstinence until marriage is the only appropriate practice for Christians. These churches are partial to the traditional Christian morality and suspicious of sexuality in general. Similar sexual convictions can be found throughout the history of Christianity. For instance, St. Augustine, the bishop of Hippo, noted that sexual pleasure, even in marriage, impeded the pursuit of obedience and faithfulness to God, and celibacy was

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considered the higher choice.3 Under similar influences, Korean American churches and moral conservatives in other Christian communities alike have stressed the maintenance of “virginity.” This “thou shalt not” aspect of sexuality gives the false impression that sex is “dangerous” or “dirty,” but suddenly it must transform into something beautiful and sacred upon marriage. There are socio-relational problems with demonizing sexuality. One of the results of such maligning is that some conservative Christian college students and young adults, caught between sexual desires and moral demands, may blur the lines of sexuality just enough to maintain technical virginity and the label of “purity.” That is, they rationalize that oral sex is acceptable since it does not involve penile-vaginal penetration, which is what they think counts as losing one’s virginity, as they ask, “How far can I go without losing my virginity?”4 A Korean American college student confesses: I believe sex is sacred and it needs to be held until marriage. This message was drilled into me from my family and church. But, when passionate feelings come, I am haunted by images in porn, sexualized music videos, and scenes from movies. More than that the images of my high school boyfriend and what we did sexually haunts me with shame. Don’t get me wrong, we never had sex, but we did everything right up to it. If I didn’t stop him, I would not be a virgin right now.5

While the messages from family and church were able to halt escalating bodily passions, according to the student, psychological and emotional realms are constantly bombarded by our sexualized culture of music, media, and internet porn. The statement reveals the menacing sense of guilt that comes from sexual acts and the shame that invades the essential goodness of one’s personhood. The statement also demonstrates the clear relational connection as Korean American young adults “tend to be more collateral in their relationships with people” than Anglo Americans.6 That is, Korean American Christian young adults maintain a communal sense of responsibility to uphold the messages they hear from their parents and churches. They may not necessarily voice their struggles to their parents or church leaders, but they strive to live by the messages they have received from them. In the statement above, while church and family relationships formed the individuals’ reservations about having sex outside marriage, the

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messages from church and parents were interpreted as giving permission to every other sexual act. However, some feelings of shame and/or guilt after these sexual acts remained. The Korean American cultural milieu in which these young adults find themselves is borne out of the stoic chastity and sacrificial service that has endured throughout history in most Korean cultures and is concomitantly reinforced by evangelical sexual ethics.

7.3   The Korean American Cultural Milieu The developmental stage of young adulthood along with collegiate culture can be summed up by the word “exploration,” which continues to feed into the formation of one’s identity.7 In conjunction with exploration, the conservative sexual ethics, or the behavioral codes built upon “enduring, basic beliefs that typify cultures,” are a part of the identity formation present in the young adult, collegiate developmental phases.8 These convictions are usually formed through the collateral familial or institutional relationships, for example, through conscious and unconscious cultural influence, church teachings, and family expectations. For Korean Americans, Confucianism deeply shapes these conscious/ unconscious cultural convictions. According to Confucius, the roots of a woman’s greatest virtues are maternal rectitude, purity and deference, chastity, and appropriateness. Confucianism took various forms in East Asia, and in particular places like Korea, the adaptation of these virtues was enforced to such a degree that the children of widows who remarried were denied government office, while the families of those widows who committed suicide after their husbands’ deaths were financially rewarded with lifetime tax-exempt status. Such reverence for sexual abstinence was especially administered during the Chosun dynasty (from the fourteenth to the nineteenth century). In this way, while the definition of purity may vary within East Asia, one pervasive emphasis of the conservative sexual ethics espoused by Confucius is the importance of female virginity. On ABC News, 20/20 reported that every year hundreds of women, including a large number of Asian Americans, have reconstructive plastic surgeries to repair their hymens.9 Although it is not a reliable marker of virginity since the hymen can easily be torn during active sports and other vigorous activities, the pressure to present oneself as a virgin by getting one’s hymen repaired through surgery is an attempt to preserve the traditional mark of purity. The importance placed on female virginity may not be a part of the

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broader American cultural reality, but it still remains a requisite formality for numerous Asian American, including  some Korean American, households. Confucianism also places restrictions on a man’s body, as well; it is not to be used for his own pleasure, but rather to serve the community and “bring peace and order to society.”10 Confucius regarded “an active sexual life as depleting a man’s limited vital essence and therefore exhorted men not to waste their creative bodily resources.”11 As such, sexual intercourse was reserved primarily for the purpose of procreation. Given the culturally the conservative sexual ethics, it is no wonder Korean American families refrain from addressing sexuality. In addition, the subject of homosexuality is avoided, perhaps even dismissed in Korean American homes, especially if the parents are religious. Boyoung Lee, a Korean American practical theologian, posits that homophobia is a result of the Confucius-­ oriented preference for male bodies. She writes, “In a culture where men’s bodies and sexuality are regarded as superior to those of women, any non-­ traditional form of sexuality is a danger to this well-established social system.”12 In other words, during sex between men, a man’s body takes the role of a woman’s body, while in lesbian relationships male bodies are not present. In addition, such male-male or female-female relationships from a Taoist perspective not only violate the yin-yang principle of female-male energy but also serve no social purpose since procreation becomes impossible. As a result, homosexuality is maligned and even forbidden. As such, Korean American Christian cultural DNA is doubly reinforced by the teachings of purity and holiness in churches that tend to be morally conservative. These teachings of purity, whether through “Silver Ring Thing” or “True Love Waits” campaigns, reinforce virginity through pledges and purity rings.13 The two-fold conservative sexual ethics of Korean culture and religion make any conversations about sexuality difficult, if not impossible. As Lee aptly puts it, the synergistic conservative sexual ethics may be, “where culture and Christianity become mutual malformers.”14 This two-fold conservative sexual ethics generate significant dissonance for Korean Americans living within the hyper-sexualized culture of North America in which virginity is frequently perceived as something to lose rather than to save.

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7.4   Caught In-Between: Sexuality and Care of Sexual Body Parts Multiple studies conducted in locations across North America showed that Asian North Americans begin sexual intercourse later in life, receive sex education at an older age, are less likely to desire children out of wedlock, and are less sexually promiscuous than their Caucasian counterparts.15 Not surprisingly, the level of acculturation to the North American culture influences one’s understanding of and engagement in sexual activity. A study of Chinese-American college students and young adults in Northern California exhibited “a positive correlation between the level of acculturation to the U.S. and engagement in premarital sexual intercourse, and those Chinese Americans dating only Caucasian Americans consistently had more sexual experience than those dating only Chinese Americans.”16 Additionally, a study conducted at a college in Southern California discovered that both Asian Americans and Caucasian Americans “who were less conventional (they were less religious, and more disposed to engage in variety of risk-taking behaviors) endorsed casual sex (sex without love or commitment)” and had more sexual experiences.17 The intriguing conclusion of the second study was that even though Asian Americans might hold similar attitudes toward casual sex as the surrounding American cultural forces, they engage significantly less in sexual intercourse. One of the reasons is that although family relationships are less determinative as individuals move from early to late adolescence as their autonomy increases, Asian American, especially Korean American, college students and young adults are still influenced by their parents’ disapproval of casual sex. The conservative sexual ethics of the Korean American families and churches predominantly see chastity as the foundation for sexuality. Unfortunately, while the abstinence only programs that hyped “virginity pledges” with purity rings may have resulted in less teen pregnancies, it fostered a proliferation of oral and anal sex to maintain “technical virginity” and  did little to reduce promiscuity and sexually transmitted infections/diseases.18 In other words, while vaginal penetration is delayed in these Korean American young adults, most of them jettisoned the intent of the moralistic message of both their families and churches. The letter of the law (the literal application of the message) may be intact, but the spirit of the law (the intents and purposes of the message) is greatly compromised. The conservative sexual ethics of “thou shalt’s” and “thou shalt

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not’s” are easily abandoned when sexual activity can be used to satisfy emotional needs, to control or coerce someone, and/or to incite simple bodily pleasure.19 Instead of this abandonment sexual ethics as a whole, I offer an alternative: Covenantal Christian sexual ethics that emerge from a reflective, cultural, and theological response to sexuality.

7.5   Covenantal Christian Sexual Ethics: A Biblical and Theological Response I teach a course titled “Christian Values and Human Sexuality” at a Christian liberal arts college and have the privilege to perceive the world of Christian college students through their reflection journals. When I point to research that many Christian emerging adults today are struggling between their intellectual integrity and their faith, between social sciences and Christianity, and between compassion and holiness, the students in my class agree with that statement and share a similar attitude. They want to hold these seemingly contrasting pressures in tension rather than choose one over the other.20 As far as sexual ethics is concerned, they want to figure out a constructive way that respects both openness and faithfulness, compassion and holiness. The complexities of familial and religious moralities that often clash with cultural laxity, therefore, require a more reflective and nuanced sexual ethics. Is there an approach that honors God in the midst of one’s desires? This question proves to be a challenge, since the Korean context and the conservative Christian context seem to confirm similar conservative sexual ethics of purity, while the larger North American popular culture not only pushes against these ethics but seeks to eradicate it. In order to develop an authentic sense of self and continual development of sexual ethics, how then shall we engage these culture-laden clashes, conflicts, and contradictions? Developmental psychologist Robert Kegan proposes a helpful evolutionary model of identity that is built upon a meaning-making process that includes the dynamics of confirmation, contradiction, and continuity.21 Kegan writes that a healthy way to navigate the contradictions, in this case among the hyper-sexualized cultural milieu, the conservative Korean cultural values, and the traditional biblical principles, is to integrate new meaning that merges both “old” convictions and “new” cultural realities to ensure continuity.22 Incorporating both familial/religious and cultural

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constructs of meaning integrates the existing default frameworks into new realities. While this process of integration may seem linear, that is progressing directly from the past to the present, the process is perhaps more cyclical, especially for those who are forming both their Christian and Korean American identities. Peter Phan explicates a helpful framework for the cyclical identity integration in what he terms the “anthropology of time”: We who live in time do not experience the past as something irretrievably lost and gone but as truly present, effectively shaping our identity and our destiny . . . In this human time, the past is gathered up and preserved in our memory, and the future is anticipated and made real in our imagination.23

Employing the framework of Phan’s anthropology of time, one can hold the old (Korean/religious) reality while looking toward the new (emerging adult/collegiate) reality with equal tenacity to imagine and live presently into the future in a more integrated and coherent manner. One may experience a creative space to traverse both cultures by embracing the past and imaging the future to shape the present. Discernment becomes inextricable in this process of anthropology of time. In this space of discernment, one may question what parts of the old and new cultures must be retained and which can be rejected. For instance, there may be some parts of Korean and the traditional church cultures to hold (such as respect and honor within collective communities), while there may be some parts to reject (such as  systems of power and androcentric hierarchy). While we tenaciously hold onto the cultures that have formed the various aspects of our identity, we continue to engage the present culture with others in our communities who are equally  committed to re-imagination and cultivation of a nuanced theology of sex through a more  reflective reading of the Bible. In addition to Kegan and Phan’s developmental continuation through discernment among competing contradictory cultures, for Christians, a theological framework remains essential to any topic involving human sexuality. Here, the concept of covenant offers a meaningful relational bridge to sexuality. Covenant is one of the central concepts in both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, described in Scripture as the promise that connects the divine to both human communities and human relationships. Under the covenanted relationships, God demonstrates what covenant looks like by God’s sacrificial friendship with humanity

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through God’s fierce fidelity. God demonstrates covenant with “those whose concrete choices arise out of certain positive values [or positive regard for the other] that actually transcend culturally bound norms and politically enforced laws.”24 In human to human relationships, covenant is between two equal parties who agree to abide together within set terms. A few of the descriptions of covenant in Scripture point to the bond between friends like Jonathan and David (1 Sam 20), an oath between an individual to a community like Joshua and the Gibeonites (Josh 9), and the pledge between individual within sexual relationships starting with Adam and Eve. Integrated with the sexual union is a command to be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth (Gen 2:24). The reciprocal bonds in a covenantal framework represented in these relationships demonstrate the possibility that one can overcome the limitations of the conservative sexual ethics and sexual libertarianism. In sexual relationships, covenant rejects the communalism of Korean American culture and the conservative Christian teachings that tend to be authoritarian and heteronomous. It also rejects the individualism of American culture that can lead to the use of sexual promiscuity to satisfy one’s own need without regard for the other. Instead, covenant points toward friendship based on love that considers another’s needs before one’s own. A part of that consideration begins with the awareness of one’s own brokenness and insecurity. If left unchecked, these damaged parts of the self can potentially exploit the other for one’s own need-fulfillment. Love is the capacity that can “lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13) so that sexuality in love leads to a deeper relational connection rather than alienation thereafter.25 In other words, covenant with one another is not just an ideal; rather, it upholds a level of intimacy that is profoundly shared so that everyday, ordinary choices are grounded in valuing the other in that relationship. The focus is not on sex, per se, but “on love, justice, desire, mercy, and equality in relating, including sexual relating.”26 These are not mere concepts, but values that tie into relationships between two bonded persons who commit to daily acts of intimacy and fidelity. This kind of interdependent committed love stems from the relational aspect of covenant that risks a lifetime of mutual care, grace, joy, pain, embrace, vulnerability, and accountability in the mundaneness of daily life. In this sense, there is a tenacious commitment to sexual exclusivity reserved for that covenanted person with whom you desire to take the risk of relational and sexual mutuality. It is an adventure that carries no magical guarantees, but does

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entail a pledge that “opposes the promiscuous indulgence and/or predatory, exploitative expression of sexual desire” that promote individualistic desires for self-satisfaction.27 Instead, it seeks to affirm and protect the intrinsic value of the other. In the same vein, the Christian ethicist Lewis Smedes insists that sexual intercourse between human beings happens at the level of ultimate intimacy: “Two bodies are never closer: penetration has the mystique of union, and the orgasmic finale is the exploding climax of one person’s abandonment to another, the most fierce and yet most sensitive experience of trust.”28 In such relationships, deep friendship is at the core around which intimacy forms. That is, “one’s experience of knowing and being known” is accompanied by the profound promise that covenants one to the other;29 sexual intercourse consummates such covenant and deep friendship. And such intimacy cannot be faked through just the physical dimension of merely “having sex.” Additionally, Christian ethicists Glen Stassen and David Gushee contend that sex in the context of covenant is not only enjoyable, but can be character forming: “Sex is not merely a moment of pleasure, like eating a candy bar, but a character-shaping action. And how a society practices its sexuality shapes not only the people in the society but the society itself.”30 The everyday choices one makes because of friendship with God and with one another forms that character. Covenantal relationship is the context where we can experience faithful intimacy that “transcend[s] life’s failings and disappointments” in the commitment to mutual forgiveness, thereby offering healing from those failings and disappointments.31 The Gospel of John lays out the important topic of friendship throughout the book, culminating with Jesus’ words to his disciples in John 15: 12–15: This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father.

The writer of John portrays a “model of friendship [that] emerges as a paradigm for the human vocation to embrace the other” resulting in people “. . . who intend one another’s well-being.”32 The Greco-Roman

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philosophy of Jesus’ time made sacrificial friendship an ideal, so what Jesus said in John 10 about the Good Shepherd laying down his life for his sheep and in John 15 about a friend doing the same may not have been a new concept to his hearers. What is radical about Jesus’ teaching about friendship in John 18 is that Jesus actually lays down his life and enacts the ultimate sacrifice in reality. Jesus’ death on the cross stands in stark contrast to the Greco-Roman ideal in mere words. As such, Jesus’ whole life is an incarnation of the ideal of friendship to protect sacrificially the beloved. Jesus’ demonstration of true friendship rests on the goodness of such relationships in all types of friendships.33 It is a sacrificial tenderness that moves to protect the other. This relational wisdom from the Gospel of John inspires deep friendship. If sexual relationships can be built upon and continue to grow toward such deep friendship, Jesus’ teaching about the kind of accountable, empowering, compassionate, hospitable, and justice seeking—as well as justice making—love in our deep friendship can also encompass our sexuality. Such love flies in the face of the current cultural sexual trend that portrays a cheap, sentimental, delusional love that lasts only through a brief pleasurable phase. This sexual trend only pains and further alienates afterwards because while “we’re up all night to get lucky” in order to hook up and “make my pulse react,” love gets diminished as a “second hand emotion” that is dismissed as a “sweet, old-fashioned notion.”34 Love as only a second-hand emotion that primarily revolves around the no-strings-attached sexual pleasure is widely used in our current North American culture. Indeed, in this cultural milieu the heart is easily broken and definitely needs protection. Lest our lives lead to deeper alienation, deep friendship compels us to re-shape our consumerist culture that often mistakes sex as a self-satisfying commodity. This  robust theology integrates a renewed biblical understanding of friendship with particular  aspects of the conservative sexual ethics to build a covenantal Christian sexual ethics. Such sexual ethics engage a reflective work that continues our identity development in the face of contradictions through the evolutionary model, the cultural continuity through the anthropology of time, and the theological understanding of covenant. The biblical and Christian teachings regarding sexual intercourse are not meant to deprive anyone of sexual pleasure, but to safeguard the sacredness of such intimacy in the mysterious beauty of a profoundly healing friendship. As Christian disciples, this covenant model “enables Christians to steer a course between the rampant libertarianism

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of contemporary culture and a disordered repression of desire.”35 This is the reimaged shape of sexuality to strive for in the midst of the quest for intimacy and connection. In this sense, the human quest for healing makes every human being vulnerable and necessitates the assurance that sexual partners undertake a covenantal risk toward sacrificial mutual care. These aspects of intimacy, fidelity, character formation, and healing are what covenantal Christian sexual ethics entail.

7.6   How Then Shall We Live? As we simultaneously hold the traditional familial and ecclesial cultures and the cultures we presently inhabit, we are shaped by our reimaged sexual intimacy through fidelity within a covenant. In turn, how we live out our sexuality has the potential to shape our character and to promote our healing. Chastity, defined by Christian ethicist Lauren Winner as the “commitment to having sex in its proper place” as a single or a married person, is one of the ways we live out our sexuality in order to live into fidelity within a covenant relationship in the future.36 With this definition, Winner attests to the power of God’s grace to restore us from failed sexual morals to renewed chastity. In this way, fidelity in covenant will go beyond the moralistic ethic that instills the fear of losing “technical virginity”; rather, covenanted relationship that sacrificially values the other in true friendship will reclaim a theology of risk in order to take an adventure for a lifetime that will deepen trust and cultivate healing through vulnerability with a mutually covenanted person. Korean American young adults, especially in their developmental process, have the agency to choose who they are becoming in the context of their  communities (family, friends, church relationships, etc.), and they have the ability not only to shape their own sexual character but also to shape the culture around them by making good, everyday choices as a Christ  follower. Their collateral relationships can be transformed into a positive resource of compassionate communities of accountability where confessions of both temptations and mistakes can be shared. These relationships can be safe places to practice radical tenderness and care by refraining from neither exaggerating nor minimizing sexual sin.37 I encourage Korean young adults to remember that God is there alongside each one of them with radical grace and compassion and to let their sexuality reflect their identity as a person wonderfully and fearfully made by God in God’s very own image. This God enlarges the capacity to love

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in fidelity and in covenant to be tender, vulnerable, humble, accountable, empowering, and compassionate.

Notes 1. While the discussion in this chapter focuses on Korean American college students and young adults, it applies to Korean and other Asian American college students and young adults. A major portion of this chapter was previously published under “Sex” in Intersecting Realities. It is reprinted here with  permission by Wipf & Stock Publishing. Oh, Kirsten S. “Sex.” In  Intersecting Realities: Race, Identity, and  Pop-Culture in  the  Life of  Young Asian Americans, edited by Hak-Joon Lee. Eugene, Oregon: Cascade Books, 2018. 2. Also, for a contextual theological analysis of this video, see Joseph Cheah and Grace Ji-Sun Kim, Theological Reflections on “Gangnam Style”: A Racial, Sexual, and Cultural Critique (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014). 3. This “suspicion” toward sexuality is prevalent throughout the church history, including Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Athenasius, Chrysostom, and more. See Rodney Clapp, Tortured Wonders: Christian Spirituality for People, Not Angels (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Brazos Press, 2004), 51–58. 4. For further reading, see Bonnie L.  Halpern-Felsher et  al., “Oral Versus Vaginal Sex among Adolescents: Perceptions, Attitudes, and Behavior,” Pediatrics 115, no. 4 (2005): 845–851. 5. This and all the following student statements are from a course I teach in which students submit reflection journals. I have permission from the students to use these reflections, but for the sake of anonymity and privacy, their names and all other identifiers have been removed. 6. Derald Wing Sue and David Sue, Counseling the Culturally Diverse: Theory and Practice, 6th ed. (New York: Wiley, 2013), 202. 7. Systematic theologian James McClendon defines culture as a “set of meaningful practices, dominant attitudes, and characteristic ways of doing things that typify a community (or a society or a civilization).” James W. McClendon, Witness, Vol. 3, Systematic Theology, (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2000), 50. 8. Ibid. 9. Cited in Boyung Lee, “Teaching Justice and Living Peace: Body, Sexuality, and Religious Education in Asian-American Communities,” Religious Education 101, no. 3 (2006): 409–410. In addition, see http://abcnews. go.com/2020/WomensHealth/story?id=123701 10. Boyoung Lee, “Teaching Justice and Living Peace,” 410.

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11. Insook Lee, “Homoeroticism and Homosexuality in Korean Confucian Culture,” Sacred Spaces: The E-Journal of the American Association of Pastoral Counselors, 8 (2016): 77. Lee quotes Confucius: “The gentleman should guard against it in youth when the bold and chi [flow of life force] are still unsettled; he should guard against attraction of feminine beauty” (Analects of Confucius, 16:7). It is notable, though, kings or nobilities own more than one wife, even multiple concubines. 12. Boyoung Lee, “Teaching Justice and Living Peace,” 406, 408. According to Lee, Asian persons that identity as lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) or another sexual minority encounter discrimination for both the sexual and racial aspects of their personhood from the Asian community. In fact, any kind of sexuality apart from heterosexuality is seen as Westernization and abandoning one’s ethnic heritage. The notion of the preference for male bodies can also be noted from multiple other cultures, including the Old Testament Hebraic and New Testament Greco-Roman cultures. 13. Donna Freitas, Sex and the Soul: Juggling Sexuality, Spirituality, Romance, and Religion on America’s College Campuses (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008). 14. Boyoung Lee, “Teaching Justice and Living Peace,” 413. 15. Vuying Tong, “Acculturation, Gender Disparity, and the Sexual Behavior of Asian American Youth,” Journal of Sex Research 50, no. 6 (2013): 560. 16. Sumie Okazaki, “Influences of Culture on Asian-Americans’ Sexuality,” Journal of Sex Research 39, no. 1 (2002): 35–36. 17. McLaughlin et  al., “Family, Peer, and Individual Correlates of Sexual Experience among Caucasian and Asian American Late Adolescents,” Journal of Research on Adolescence 7, no. 1 (1997). 18. Judith K. Balswick and Jack O. Balswick, Authentic Human Sexuality: An Integrated Christian Approach, 2nd ed. (Downers Grove, Ill.: IVP Academic, 2008), 146. One study showed that “adolescents perceive oral sex as less risky, more beneficial, more prevalent, and more acceptable than vaginal sex.” The study recommends education about oral sex—“the potential health, emotional, and social consequences and methods to prevent negative outcomes for all sexual activities, including non-coital behaviors such as oral sex”—in order to help adolescents make informed sexual decisions. Bonnie Halpern-Felsher et al., “Oral Versus Vaginal Sex among Adolescents,” Pediatrics 115 (2005), 845–850. 19. Bonnie Halpern-Felsher et  al., “Oral Versus Vaginal Sex among Adolescents,” 849. 20. See http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2013/07/27/why-millennials-areleaving-the-church/

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21. Robert Kegan, The Evolving Self: Problem and Process in Human Development (Cambridge: Harvard University, 1982), quoted in Lee, 417. 22. Ibid. 23. Peter Phan, “Betwix and Between: Doing Theology with Memory and Imagination,” in Journeys at the Margin: Toward an Autobiographical Theology in American-Asian Perspective, ed. Peter Phan and Jung Young Lee (Collegeville, MN: Liturgincal Press, 1999), 128–129. 24. George Mendenhall and Gary Herion, “Covenant,” in The Anchor Bible Dictionary, ed. David Noel Freedman (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 1201. In Hebrews, the writer emphasizes the faithfulness of God (10:23) “who above all is ‘faithful,’ whose promise can be utterly relied.” Jesus Christ is the one who lived out that faithfulness and we as his disciples are called to follow that example. James D. G. Dunn, “Faith, Faithfulness,” in The New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, ed. Katharine D. Sakenfield (Nashville: Abingdon, 2007), 422. 25. All quoted Scripture are from New Revised Standard Version. 26. Elizabeth Stuart, “The Theological Study of Sexuality,” in The Oxford Handbook of Theology, Sexuality, and Gender., ed. Adrian Thatcher (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 28. 27. Balswick and Balswick, Authentic Human Sexuality, 151. 28. Lewis B.  Smedes, Sex for Christians: The Limits and Liberties of Sexual Living (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994), 122. 29. Balswick and Balswick, Authentic Human Sexuality, 88. 30. Glen H. Stassen and David P. Gushee, Kingdom Ethics: Following Jesus in Contemporary Context (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2003), 291–92. 31. Ibid. 32. Mary Hunt, Fierce Tenderness: A Feminist Theology of Friendship (New York: Crossroad, 1991), 29. 33. There are those who choose celibacy for vocation-sake in Christian life and those who remain single for manifold reasons. Those who are single also are fulfilled in their own understanding of self and sexuality through these relationships of deep friendship that mirror the life of Jesus with his disciples. Meaningful forms of sexual expression, albeit different from sexual intercourse, are possible for those who are single. In early church history, the life of singleness was more often preferred, following the Pauline imperative in 1 Corinthians 7. 34. From Pop-Music: “Get Lucky” released in 2013 by Daft Punk and “What’s Love Got to Do With It?” released in 1984 by Tina Turner. 35. Sarah Coakley’s exhortation for Christian discipleship in Stuart, “The Theological Study of Sexuality,” 28. 36. Lauren F.  Winner, Real Sex: The Naked Truth About Chastity (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Brazos Press, 2006), 134. This definition arises from the

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New Testament understanding of distorted sexuality: “fornication” and “sexual immorality”—Acts 15:20; 1 Cor 5:1, 6:13, 18: 7:2, 10:8; 2 Cor 12:21; Gal 5:19; Eph 5:3; Col 3:5; 1 Thess 4:3. 37. For more suggestions like these, see Balswick and Balswick, Authentic Human Sexuality, 157–158.

Bibliography Balswick, Judith K., and Jack O. Balswick. 2008. Authentic Human Sexuality: An Integrated Christian Approach. 2nd ed. Downers Grove: IVP Academic. Cheah, Joseph, and Grace Ji-Sun Kim. 2014. Theological Reflections on “Gangnam Style”: A Racial, Sexual, and Cultural Critique, Asian Christianity in the Diaspora. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Clapp, Rodney. 2004. Tortured Wonders: Christian Spirituality for People, Not Angels. Grand Rapids: Brazos Press. Coakley, Sarah. 2013. God, Sexuality, and the Self: An Essay ‘on the Trinity’. Cambridge/New York: Cambridge university press. Dunn, James D.G. 2007. Faith, Faithfulness. In The New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, ed. Katharine D. Sakenfield, 407–423. Nashville: Abingdon. Freitas, Donna. 2008. Sex and the Soul: Juggling Sexuality, Spirituality, Romance, and Religion on America’s College Campuses. New York: Oxford University Press. Halpern-Felsher, Bonnie L., Jodi L.  Cornell, Rhonda Y.  Kropp, and Jeanne M. Tschann. 2005. Oral Versus Vaginal Sex Among Adolescents: Perceptions, Attitudes, and Behavior. Pediatrics 115: 845–851. http://abcnews.go.com/2020/WomensHealth/story?id=123701 http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2013/07/27/why-millennials-are-leavingthe-church/ Hunt, Mary. 1991. Fierce Tenderness: A Feminist Theology of Friendship. New York: Crossroad. Kegan, Robert. 1982. The Evolving Self: Problem and Process in Human Development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University. Lee, Boyung. 2006. Teaching Justice and Living Peace: Body, Sexuality, and Religious Education in Asian-American Communities. Religious Education 101 (3): 402–419. Lee, Insook. 2016. Homoeroticism and Homosexuality in Korean Confucian Culture. Sacred Spaces: The E-Journal of the American Association of Pastoral Counselors 8: 75–94. McClendon, James W. 2000. Witness, Systematic Theology. Vol. 3. Nashville: Abingdon Press. McLaughlin, Caitlin S., Chuansheng Chen, Ellen Greenberger, and Cornelia Biermeier. 1997. Family, Peer, and Individual Correlates of Sexaul Experience

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Among Caucasian and Asian American Late Adolescents. Journal of Research on Adolescence 7 (1): 33–53. Mendenhall, George, and Gary Herion. 1992. Covenant. In The Anchor Bible Dictionary, ed. David Noel Freedman, 179–202. New York: Doubleday. National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America, ed. 1989. New Revised Standard Version Bible. Grand Rapids: Zondervan. Okazaki, Sumie. 2002. Influences of Culture on Asian-Americans’ Sexuality. Journal of Sex Research 39 (1): 34–41. Phan, Peter. 1999. Betwix and Between: Doing Theology with Memory and Imagination. In Toward an Autobiographical Theology in American-Asian Perspective, ed. Peter Phan and Jung Young Lee, 113–133. Collegeville: Liturgical Press. Smedes, Lewis B. 1994. Sex for Christians: The Limits and Liberties of Sexual Living. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans. Stassen, Glen H., and David P. Gushee. 2003. Kingdom Ethics: Following Jesus in Contemporary Context. Downers Grove: InterVarsity. Stuart, Elizabeth. 2015. The Theological Study of Sexuality. In The Oxford Handbook of Theology, Sexuality, and Gender, ed. Adrian Thatcher. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sue, Derald Wing, and David Sue. 2013. Counseling the Culturally Diverse: Theory and Practice. 6th ed. New York: Wiley. Tong, Vuying. 2013. Acculturation, Gender Disparity, and the Sexual Behavior of Asian American Youth. Journal of Sex Research 50 (6): 560–573. Winner, Lauren F. 2006. Real Sex: The Naked Truth About Chastity. Grand Rapids: Brazos.

CHAPTER 8

Racism as a Heightening Factor in the High Rate of Depression among Korean American Youth & Young Adults (KAY&YA) Angella Son

8.1   Introduction A Korean American female working on her dissertation visited a European American therapist thinking she had depression. She told the therapist that she could be doing more, but that she did not have the motivation or energy to do so. Toward the end of the first session, the therapist told her that she did not have depression. The therapist said that if she was depressed, then many American people would be diagnosed with depression, principally telling her that she was too active to be diagnosed with depression. The therapist continued, saying, “You are active and you are fine. You do not have depression.” The woman was perplexed and could not help but feel even more hopeless in trying to cope with her lack of motivation and her inability to focus her energy on her dissertation. A Korean American male student in high school was considered

A. Son (*) Psychology and Religion, Drew University, Madison, NJ, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 A. Son (ed.), Pastoral Care in a Korean American Context, Asian Christianity in the Diaspora, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-48575-7_8

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developmentally delayed by his family even though he performed above average because he did not match the progress of his siblings. His parents and siblings were always trying to protect him because they thought he needed an extra hand. He did not have any significant friends and was always accommodating to his family. He went to college but did not complete his education. No one knew that he was bullied and isolated by other kids during his elementary and junior high school years. These are but two illustrations of experiences of depression in Korean Americans that were not recognized as such by a therapist or by the family. While the doctoral student’s responsible work ethic and response to cultural expectations of a wife and mother, in some sense, forced her to attend to everyday duties, her life as a doctoral student working on her dissertation was overwhelming. She experienced a chronic backache to the point where she could not bring herself to engage in the creative work of her dissertation. The fact that the high school student was bullied and did not have friends and seemed too agreeable to his family compromised his sense of agency, but no one knew that he was suffering from depression. Studies confirm that Asian Americans are misdiagnosed or underdiagnosed with depression. For instance, Eun Koh’s study revealed that 18.2% of the adult participants fall into a clinical depression category that is two to three times higher than the national average.1 These studies were prompted by an effort to make Asian Americans, and in particular Korean Americans, visible in the mental health care system in order to address repeated under-diagnosis and misdiagnosis of depression among Korean American Youth & Young Adults (KAY&YA), especially by school systems and their consulted health professionals.2 What is alarming is that there exists a consistency in the findings of these studies about the notable higher rate of depression among Korean American young people than those of other racial or ethnic backgrounds, especially European Americans. The rate can be as high as three to four times higher than the national statistics from the National Institute of Mental Health that 12.8% of youths between the ages of 12 and 17 are estimated to have experienced depression for a period of two weeks or longer.3 One of the reasons is that the questions for diagnostic criteria used in those depression studies use the western criteria and they do not sufficiently account for the culturally diverse expressions of depression and do not include the range of symptomologies as more prevalently experienced by non-European Americans. Asian Americans in particular, especially youth, are noted to have the tendency to somatize their psychological problems,4 a reporting which is

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confirmed with studies with Korean Americans5 as well as by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.6 Heesung Choi and her colleagues implemented a study of depression among Korean American youth that reflected somatic symptoms of depression such as headaches, back pain, indigestion, stomach pain, dizziness, insomnia, muscle pain, and irritability and included questions more particular to the expressions of depressed mood. For instance, a Korean American child was considered a problem child by his school because he kept complaining about headache and his school thought he was using it as an excuse to avoid schoolwork. His parents were summoned to his school periodically and they took him to the hospital for his headache. The hospital could not find any cause for headache and his parents also made a similar conclusion about his complaint. They thought that his headache was fabricated and thus focused their efforts on disciplining him, which escalated his complaints about headaches. In this situation, no one could help him because no one realized that his depression was somatized and manifested as his chronic headache. In addition, they found that “Korean American adolescents, particularly the foreign-born, are at higher risk for depression than Anglos,”7 a finding also supported by Hovey et  al.8 Hovey et  al. found Korean American youth were twice as likely to have depression than those of other ethnic/racial groups. The study by Jang et al. shows an even more distressing result—it reported an up to four times greater likelihood of having depression among Korean Americans when compared to other ethnic/ racial groups. They noted the conclusions from other studies on depression rates for European and African Americans in the range from 9% to 16% and compared their result in finding that “approximately 40% of the younger adult sample and 35% of the older adult sample of [Korean Americans] fall within the category of probable depression.”9 These studies are mostly dated mainly because “much of the research on somatization among Asian-Americans was done in the 1980s and 1990s, with much less information done in the past decade.”10 These studies are nonetheless helpful in the case of the doctoral student above. If her therapist was aware of the somatization of depression among Korean Americans, the doctoral student could have been helped with her depression and saved from feeling helpless and confused about her mood state. What these studies neglected, however, is the injurious role of racism existing in our society on their mental health. While there are numerous studies on the effects of racism on depression among African Americans,11

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there is a dearth of studies on the link between racism and depression among other racial groups, notably Korean Americans. A few of the studies on depression among Korean Americans that address marginalization as a factor contributing to depression usually discuss them in the context of acculturative stress or maladjustment to American or even Korean culture.12 While cultural conflict is one of the major causes of depression among Korean Americans, it is a short-sighted approach to assume it to be the all-encompassing, if not the only, reason for depression among Korean Americans. It is important to note racism, that is, the narratives, myths, public rituals, political policies, and programs that establish the recognition and treatment of one group as inferior and another as superior, hidden behind cultural conflicts in this society. While cultural differences are easier to define and be negotiated, racism can be very evasive to define, particularly how it is manifested in specific situations, and is almost impossible to negotiate because of a power differential between the dominant power group and the marginalized group. I thus propose that racism is one of the major causes of the devastating situation in which Korean American young people are at a higher risk of suffering from depression than those from other ethnic/racial backgrounds. To the effect of racism on the high rate of depression among Korean Americans we now turn.

8.2   Racism and Depression Among Korean Americans Some studies performed recently show the connection between racism and depression among Korean Americans. For instance, Thomas DiBlasi, Jin Y. Shin, and Chrales A. Dill’s study on bullying experiences and depression among Korean American junior high students showed that 42.9% of the participants were found to be victims of bullying and that the victims experienced more discrimination. In addition, being treated unfairly and positive stereotyping were the major factors linked to depression.13 This study confirms the experience of the senior high student above who seemed docile to his family but was silently suffering from bullying and depression. If his depression was recognized earlier, he could have thrived as a student and completed his college degree. Another study by Kunsook S.  Bernstein et  al. showed that racism is a more significant factor than acculturative stress because acculturative stress can diminish after a

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duration of time living in the United States, while racism can occur throughout one’s lifetime. They state: “This study included both acculturative stress and discrimination, and examined the effects of both and found a positive relationship between acculturative stress and depression, but discrimination had a relatively stronger effect than acculturative stress.”14 The effect of racism on depression seems rather a natural course of events. Racism, that the dominant power of society does not expect that the minority group can ever measure up to being a full-fledged member of society, robs individuals of their basic human need, the need to belong. In other words, members of the minority groups are not accepted into or seen as belonging to society as regular members, but are instead viewed as inferior or blemished members. No speculation is necessary as to why minority individuals oppressed with racism would be at a higher risk of depression. In order to explore the effect of racism on depression, I employ the self-dynamic among self-preservation, self-loss, and selfobject-augmentation that I developed drawing on the work of Heinz Kohut.15,16 Self-preservation can be best understood through the notion of the nuclear self in Heinz Kohut’s self psychology.17 In The Restoration of the Self, Kohut defines the nuclear self as follows: This structure is the basis for our sense of being an independent center of initiative and perception, integrated with our most central ambitions and ideals and with our experience that our body and mind form a unit in space and a continuum in time. This cohesive and enduring psychic configuration, in connection with a correlated set of talents and skills that it attracts to itself or that develops in response to the demands of the ambitions and ideals of the nuclear self, forms the central sector of the personality.18

This “sense of abiding sameness” or cohesiveness in the nuclear self is a good representation of what self-preservation is. This sense of abiding sameness, however, is not permanently fixed and does not depend on the same lifelong content but relies more on the “unchanging specificity of the self-expressive, creative tensions that point toward the future.”19 In spite of changes we experience due to the more transient aspects of our lives, we can experience this sense of abiding sameness and have the assurance of the continuity of the self in both space and time. The maintenance of this sense of abiding sameness can be seen as

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self-preservation. As a result, if one’s nuclear self is developed or the self becomes cohesive, one is able to maintain one’s self-preservation in spite of many unforeseen changes such as hardships or tragedies in life. Self-­ preservation thus depends on the level of development of the cohesive self. According to Kohut, the development of a cohesive self occurs through the relationship between self and selfobject, an object which is experienced as a part of the self. The development of a cohesive self requires empathic responses from selfobjects to meet three major functions: (1) one’s healthy self-assertiveness needs to be affirmed in order to develop sound ambition and purposes in life (mirroring response); (2) one’s healthy admiration for another needs to be affirmed in order to foster ideals and values in life (idealizing response); and (3) one’s talents and skills needs to develop to match one’s ambition and ideals (“twinship response”20).21 For individuals to mature and be self-assured in facing life’s various and complex challenges in human relationships, we need empathic responses from our surrounding (selfobject), both human and non-human, which is able to see the good in us as we grow (mirroring response); we then eventually form adequate ambitions and purposes in life. We also need empathic responses from our social surroundings (selfobject), both human and non-human, which allows us to share in and own the very greatness we admire in the person, organizations, or community (idealizing response). What is more, we need our social surroundings (selfobject), both human and non-­ human, to make us feel alike and to encourage and facilitate our development of appropriate talents and skills in our pursuit of both our ambitions and ideals in life (twinship response). As the child’s self becomes more and more cohesive, the child’s ability to achieve self-preservation thus increases. Kohut further refines the definition of selfobject that, in addition to facilitating the development of the cohesive self, selfobject provides the needed support to the self in weathering various life challenges that the self is temporarily unable to handle. Kohut states: “The general meaning of the term selfobject as that dimension of our experience of another person that relates to this person’s functions in shoring up our self.”22 I call this selfobject-augmentation, that is, the function of the selfobject in buttressing the temporarily enfeebled self. Unlike self-preservation and selfobject-­augmentation, self-loss or narcissistic injuries occur when the selfobject fails to be empathic to the self. Empathic selfobject experiences shore up the self, but empathic failures on the part of the selfobject disturb the balance in the self, resulting in self-loss. When self-loss is repeated enough, depression results. Kohut writes: “Subsequent to serious and

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prolonged or repetitive failures from the side of the selfobjects, …. joy changes into depression and lethargy.”23 Whether one suffers from depression thus can depend, in addition to parenting, on the ways society as the selfobject recognizes and treats members of the society, that is, depression results from self-loss when the society fails to provide empathic responses. The racist social structure constantly countering with apathetic and deleterious responses can impede self-preservation and inflate self-loss that would likely result in depression among Korean American young people. The lack of empathy from society can cause bewilderment and confusion for Korean American young people. The dissonance between their self-­ assessment within their families and the exterior societal-assessment of them can exacerbate and lead to disorientation or even disintegration of their selves. For instance, a Korean American high school boy who is affirmed and encouraged by his family and others to succeed as a lacrosse player would face a mountainous challenge to carry such confidence in his athletic ability as a lacrosse player if the coach and the teammates kept criticizing his play while ignoring his strengths and he was often placed as a benchwarmer. He may end up becoming a passive player and inadvertently confirm the meta-language of the societal racist structure specifically manifested through the unfair responses from the coach and teammates that are characterized as negative mirroring, idealizing, and twinship responses. This boy’s self is then at risk of becoming depleted or, at worst, disintegrated by self-loss and thus he is at risk of facing depression as his self-state instead of joy-filled self. What should be further noted is that self-loss is not just derived from negative attribution to Korean Americans. Even if a group is positively regarded for a certain aspect by society, if it pegs them to a role and requires what Judith Butler calls performativity that denies its individual members in thriving toward their own purposes and ideals designed in their cohesive selves, it is nonetheless negative experiences to them. It is thus vital to move beyond the dialectic understanding of racism as fostering positive and negative representations for the dominant group and the minority groups respectively, and to understand that depression among minority groups is brought on only by the treatment of the minority groups as less than valuable human beings shaped by the advancement of negative representations in them. Instead, even some positive representations of a minority group can contribute to depression from self-loss among some of its members if the positive representations do not match the designs of their individual cohesive selves, and as a result, they are forced

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to put on the clothes of performativity regardless of its label as positive or valuable. For instance, Asian Americans, including Korean Americans, are not well represented in sports and entertainment sectors because society often demarcates them in the fields of engineering, science, and computer science. If Korean American men or women pursue a career in acting, they are often discouraged and find it extremely difficult to realize their own passion. As a result, while a small number still stays and perseveres, many do not even attempt this career path. This situation creates self-loss in them and drives them toward a risk of depression. Korean Americans also go through a rollercoaster experience of being recognized as a model minority and being treated as perpetual foreigners. Korean Americans are seen positively as a model minority that inadvertently forces them to fit into that role or to experience failure as such. Even when they succeed as a model minority, they are sadly treated as perpetual foreigners that can’t be shed off from their identity. Examining depression within the complexity resulting from the intersection between racism and the development of cohesive self thus affords a far greater and more comprehensive insight into understanding the relationship between racism and depression than if we were to explore plainly the relationship between racism and depression. What is even more tragic is that racism can bring about insidious effects on and degenerate parenting in Korean American families, causing self-loss not only from racially determined responses but also within families.24 Specificially, racism can immobilize, though at varying degrees, Korean American parents to be the best parents that their given abilities allow them to be. Because of their acute sense of differentness, Korean American families often try to fit in with the rest of the society and advance their social status. The parents inadvertently color their best effort with the desire to be accepted by the dominant group and relinquish their authority in defining what is good for their children and thus submit to the authority of “they.” As a result, their children also were prevented from developing their own self determination of what good behavior is and were forced to depend on the opinion of others regarding how they should or should not behave. When an internal ability to measure the goodness in life is not developed within children, their life has no anchor to keep their lives stable but is constantly surfing in waves of various lengths and heights. Racism combined with this acute need to fit in accentuates and complicates the minority groups’ effort to conform to societal expectations of them. The desire to be accepted by their own surrounding community so

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that they no longer have to experience feeling that they are different gets complicated by the societal expectations vis-à-vis designated roles and behaviors of minority persons. Korean Americans are thus in a double bind: having a desire to fit in with the rest of society and being forced to conform to society while such conformity means to loyally maintain one’s minority status of “not fitting in” and never dare to claim a membership in the dominant group. The strategies addressing the effect of racism on depression among Korean American young people are crucial and urgently needed.

8.3   Strategies to Address Depression Among Korean American Young People The urgency to address the high risk of depression among Korean American young people is starkly clear. In order to take up this issue, I propose five suggestions for Korean American churches and the discussion will have to be brief due to limited space. First, Korean American churches should accept the high risk of depression among KAY&YA and normalize mental health. With the rate of depression among KAY&YA as high as 35–40%, Korean American churches must start accepting that their children are susceptible to depression. Instead of saying, “not my kid” or “not me,” they need to consider “perhaps my kid” or “perhaps me.” In addition, Korean American churches and communities should normalize mental health instead of associating shame with mental health conditions. This open and accepting attitude can expand to include other mental health issues and will allow individuals to acknowledge their own mental health issues as well as those of any family members. Shin observes that Korean Americans seek help for mental health care 5.3 years after the onset of the depression in average.25 I had a female client who suffered from depression for more than ten years because the family was not willing to admit to the existence of a mental condition in their family due to the shame they associated with it. It was a very challenging situation and by the time they sought help, her mental health condition was so severe that she did not benefit from counseling as much as she could have if she had sought help earlier. What is saddening is that many of my other Korean American clients were not different from this client. Regardless their age, Korean Americans tend to seek help from mental health professionals at the last minute. It is urgent that Korean American churches normalize mental

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health and face the reality of the pain and suffering of Korean American young people with depression. Second, Korean American churches should acknowledge insidious racism against minority groups, including Korean Americans. Korean Americans often ignore racism thinking that it is only directed at African Americans, but do not realize that they are treated as if they are invisible. They think that if their children do well in school and are equipped for their profession, they can transcend the issues of racism. The reality is that their children inevitably face racism, and that shattered equality and human dignity are often what they experience day to day. Once Korean American churches are courageous and acknowledge racist assaults against them or their victim status in the society, they need to lament how society treats them. This is to fully own their own disappointments, sadness, bewilderment, and so on, to move beyond living as victims. Lamenting is a process that allows them to let go the ideal of the just society and to acknowledge the injustice directed against them. It is a process of active and gracious accepting of an imperfect society that will allow them to proactively deal with the reality in constructive ways to respond to racist treatment from others in society. Third, Korean American churches should pursue elimination of dualism between the spiritual and non-spiritual and actively engage in social justice issues. One way to address a high risk of depression among KAY&YA due to racism is to eliminate the inconsistency caused by the dualistic division of spirituality and social actions that I highlight in Chap. 1. Korean American churches should embrace both a contemplative spirituality in solitude and a practicing spirituality in connectedness. Korean American churches should no longer be silent about racism but should take an activist stance on racism. Korean American church should recognize the problem of racism in society, raise awareness of racism due to the structural oppression in our society, join and collaborate in an effort with African Americans, Latino(a) Americans and others to dismantle racism in society, and provide support to their members, particularly the youth and young men and women, in their effort to resist the harmful effects of racism. Moreover, Korean American churches should examine themselves actively and confront how they participate in and contribute to the racist social structure. Fourth, Korean American churches should engage in education on and provision of resources for mental health and racism. This can be done by “(1) overriding mental illness stigma, (b) demystifying the counseling

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process, and (c) providing hope by sharing more successful stories.”26 In the wake of the April 2007 massacre at the Virginia Tech University, in which a young Korean American student, Seung Hui Cho, shot and killed 32 people and wounded 25 others before killing himself, Korean American churches need to wake up to the reality of mental health issues. Cho’s family and their church could have played an important role in intervention and the healing of Cho’s mental ailment and possibly prevented such an atrocity if they were open to and informed about mental health issues. Moreover, awareness of and constructive responses to racism by Cho, his family, and their church could have mitigated depression in Cho. It is thus imperative for Korean American churches to provide education on and provision of resources to its members regarding mental health issues and racism. Finally, Korean American churches should provide mirroring, idealizing, and twinship responses to church members through church liturgies and events and create environments more pliable for mirroring, idealizing, and twinship responses. Instead of focusing solely on how to grow spiritually, Korean American churches can be mindful about how preaching, worship liturgies, Bible studies, visitations, and fellowship can be opportunities to nurture the members both spiritually and psychologically, that is, utilization of spiritual care to enhance mental health as well as spiritual health. In addition, Korean American churches can facilitate positive mirroring, idealizing, and twinship experiences by offering group sessions on various issues appropriate for youth, college, and post-college young adult groups and include conversations on how to thrive as minorities in their studies and careers. The leaders can intentionally build the conversations around resistance to the racist structure and facilitate a safe place for youth and young adults to talk about their vulnerability as Korean Americans forced to carry certain stereotypes and roles by the dominant power. The groups can also help to develop skills and strategies to resist destructive influences by the racist structure in our society so that they can live as authentic and thriving persons and contribute to society based on their given and developed talents and skills that God has imputed to them. These groups can thus be a place where mirroring, idealizing, and twinship responses can augment their sense of self so that Korean American young people can live a joyous and thriving life with full agency and the assurance of God’s presence in their lives.

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8.4   Conclusion The notable aspects from the examination of depression among KAY&YA point to consensus and urgency. A consensus among studies on depression that there is a higher rate of depression among Korean Americans in comparison to European Americans points to an urgency to address depression among Korean Americans. A consensus among scholars that Korean Americans often somatize their depression symptoms appeals to an urgency for a more particularized depression scale for Korean Americans. A consensus among scholars that racism is the main reason for the high rate of depression among Korean Americans points to an urgency to examine the critical role of the racist structure in our society. A consensus within the Korean American community that exhibits general ignorance or even deliberate neglect of mental health issues indicates an urgency to educate Korean Americans about mental health issues and help Korean Americans utilize mental health professionals and resources. An agreement within the Korean American community that mental health problems exist indicates an urgency for the leadership in Korean American churches to take the initiative in having an open attitude toward seeking help for mental health issues.

Notes 1. Eun Koh, “Prevalence and Predictors of Depression and Anxiety among Korean Americans,” Social Work in Public Health 33, no. 1 (2018): 64. 2. Heeseung Choi et  al., “Psychometric Properties of the DSM Scale for Depression (DSD) with Korean-American Youths,” Issues in Mental Health Nursing, 23 (2002): 735–756. 3. National Institute of Mental Health, Major Depression, https://www. nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/major-depression.shtml (accesssed January 4, 2019). 4. Phillip D.  Akutsu and Joyce P.  Chu, “Clinical Problems That Initiate Professional Help-Seeking Behaviors from Asian Americans,” Professional Psychology: Research and Practice 37 (2006): 407–415; Frederick T. L. Leong and Anna S. L. Lau, “Barriers to Providing Effective Mental Health Services to Asian-Americans,” Mental Health Services Research 3, no. 4 (2001):201–214. 5. Miyoung Kim, “Cultural Influences on Depression in Korean Americans,” Journal of Psychosocial Nursing and Mental Health Services 33, no. 2 (1995): 13–18; Keum Young Chung Pang, “Symptom Expression and

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Somatization Among Elderly Korean Immigrants” Journal of Clinical Geropsychology 6, no. 3 (2000): 199–212. 6. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Mental Health: Culture, Race and Ethnicity—A Supplement to Mental Health: A Report of the Surgeon General, (Rockville, MD: U.S. DHHS, 2001). 7. Heeseung Choi et  al., “Psychometric Properties of the DSM Scale for Depression (DSD) with Korean-American Youth,” 750. 8. Joseph D. Hovey, Sheena E. Kim, and Laura D. Seligman, “The Influences of Cultural Values, Ethnic Identity, and Language Use on the Mental Health of Korean American College Students,” The Journal of Psychology 140, no. 5 (2006): 499–511. 9. Yuri Jang, David A.  Chiriboga, and Sumie Okazaki, “Attitudes Toward Mental Health Services: Age-Group Differences in Korean American Adults,” Aging & Mental Health 13, no. 1 (2009): 131. 10. Cara S.  Maffini and Y.  Joel Wong, “Assessing Somatization with Asian American Clients,” in Guide to Psychological Assessment with Asians, eds. Lorraine T.  Benuto, Nicholas Thaler, and Brian Leany, (New York: Springer-­Verlag, 2014), 357. 11. Drexler James, “Internalized Racism and Past-Year Major Depressive Disorder among African Americans: The Role of Ethnic Identity and Self-­ esteem,” Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities 4, no. 4 (2017): 659–4670; Tony N. Brown et al., “‘Being Black and Feeling Blue’: The Mental Health Consequences of Racial Discrimination,” Race and Society 2, no. 2 (2000): 117–131; Gwendolyn Y. Davis and Howard C. Stevenson, “Racial Socialization Experiences and Symptoms of Depression Among Black Youth,” Journal of Child and Family Studies 15, no, 3 (2006): 293–307. 12. Jiwon Choi, Arlene Miller, and JoEllen Wilbur, “Acculturation and Depressive Symptoms in Korean Immigrant Women,” Journal of Immigrant Minority Health 11 (2009): 13–19; Su Yeong Kim et  al., “Parent-Child Cultural Marginalization and Depressive Symptoms in Asian American Family Members,” Journal of Community Psychology 34, no. 2 (2006): 167–182. 13. Thomas DiBlasi, Jin Y. Shin, & Charles A. Dill, “Bullying and Discrimination Experiences among Korean-American Junior High School Students,” Romanian Journal of Applied Psychology 20, no. 2 (2018): 34. 14. Kunsook Song Bernstein et  al., “Acculturation, Discrimination and Depressive Symptoms Among Korean Immigrants in New  York City,” Community Mental Health Journal 47 (2011): 31.

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15. Angella Son, “Making a Great Man, Moses: Sustenance and Augmentation of the Self through God as Selfobject,” Pastoral Psychology 64, no. 5 (2015): 751–768. 16. He has applied his psychological theories to analyze culture and groups such as the German people and Hitler (Heinz Kohut. Self Psychology and the Humanities, ed. Charles B.  Strozier (Introduction), (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1985)). 17. Instead of delving into a more detailed discussion of the key concepts of Kohut’s self psychology, I explore mainly the notion of the selfobject in order to focus my discussion. See my article “Relationality in Kohut’s Psychology of the Self” (Son, 2006) for a more detailed discussion of key concepts in self psychology. 18. Heinz Kohut, The Restoration of the Self, (Madison, CN: International Universities Press, 1977), 177–178. 19. Ibid, 182. 20. Kohut originally included twinship transference as a sub-category of mirroring transference (1971, p. 115) and later set it forth as the third transference (Heinz Kohut, How Does Analysis Cure? ed. Arnold Goldberg (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1984), 192–207). Twinship experience is one’s sense of alikeness with others, a human like others, or belonging with others. 21. Heinz Kohut, The Restoration of the Self, 171–191. 22. Heinz Kohut, How Does Analysis Cure? 49. 23. Heinz Kohut, The Search for the Self: Selected Writings of Heinz Kohut: 1950–1978. ed. Paul H.  Ornstein. Vol. 3 (Madison, CN: International Universities Press, 1978), 236. 24. Mable Blake Cohen et al., “An Intensive Study of Twelve Cases of ManicDepressive Psychosis.” In Essential Papers on Depression, ed. James C. Coyne (New York: New York University Press, 1986), 82–139. See also my work for further discussion, Angella Son, “Pastoral Care of Korean American Women: The Degeneration of Mothering into management of an Inadequate Sense of Self,” in Women out of Order: Risking Change and Creating Care in a Multicultural World, eds. J. Stevenson-Moessner and Teresa E. Snorton (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2009), 57–77; and “Korean American Churches as Positive Selfobjects in Response to the High Risk of Depression among Korean American Youths and Young Adults Caused by the Harmful Effect of Racism,” Sacred Spaces: The e-Journal of American Association of Pastoral Counselors 3 (2011): 101–119. 25. Jinah K.  Shin, “Help-Seeking Behaviors by Korean Immigrants for Depression,” Issues in Mental Health Nursing 23 (2002): 461–476. See also Zornitsa Kalibatseva and Frederick T. L. Leong, “Depression among

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Asian Americans: Review and Recommendations,” Depression Research Treatment, Vol. 2011, 3. Doi:https://doi.org/10.1155/2011/320902 26. Hee-Sun Cheon et  al., “Mental health Disparities Impacting Christian Korean Americans: A Qualitative Examination of Pastors’ Perspectives,” Mental Health, Religion & Culture 19, no. 6 (2016): 548. 538–552.

Bibliography Akutsu, Phillip D., and Joyce P.  Chu. 2006. Clinical Problems That Initiate Professional Help-Seeking Behaviors from Asian Americans. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice 37: 407–415. Bernstein, Kunsook S., So-Youn Park, Jinah Shin, Sunhee Cho, and Yeddi Park. 2011. Acculturation, Discrimination and Depressive Symptoms Among Korean Immigrants in New York City. Community Mental Health Journal 47: 24–34. Brown, Tony N., David R.  Williams, James S.  Jackson, Harold W.  Neighbors, Myrriam Torres, Sherrill L. Sellers, and Kendrick T. Brown. 2000. ‘Being Black and Feeling Blue’: The Mental Health Consequences of Racial Discrimination. Race and Society 2 (2): 117–131. Cheon, Hee-Sun, Elizabeth Chang, Paul Youngbin Kim, and Jung Hee Hyun. 2016. Mental Health Disparities Impacting Christian Korean Americans: A Qualitative Examination of Pastors’ Perspectives. Mental Health, Religion & Culture 19 (6): 538–552. Choi, Heeseung, Linda Stafford, Janet C.  Meininger, Robert E.  Roberts, and David P. Smith. 2002. Psychometric Properties of the DSM Scale for Depression (DSD) with Korean-American Youths. Issues in Mental Health Nursing 23: 735–756. Choi, Jiwon, Arlene Miller, and JoEllen Wilbur. 2009. Acculturation and Depressive Symptoms in Korean Immigrant Women. Journal of Immigrant Minority Health 11: 13–19. Cohen, Mabel Blake, Grace Baker, Robert A. Cohen, Frieda Fromm-Reichmann, and Edith V.  Weigert. 1986. An Intensive Study of Twelve Cases of Manic-­ Depressive Psychosis. In Essential Papers on Depression, ed. James C.  Coyne, 82–139. New York: New York University Press. Davis, Gwendolyn Y., and Howard C.  Stevenson. 2006. Racial Socialization Experiences and Symptoms of Depression Among Black Youth. Journal of Child and Family Studies 15 (3): 293–307. DiBlasi, Thomas, Jin Y. Shin, and Charles A. Dill. 2018. Bullying and Discrimination Experiences Among Korean-American Junior High School Students. Romanian Journal of Applied Psychology 20 (2): 28–36. Hovey, Joseph D., Sheena E. Kim, and Laura D. Seligman. 2006. The Influences of Cultural Values, Ethnic Identity, and Language Use on the Mental Health of Korean American College Students. The Journal of Psychology 140 (5): 499–511.

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James, Drexler. 2017. Internalized Racism and Past-Year Major Depressive Disorder Among African Americans: The Role of Ethnic Identity and Self-­ Esteem. Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities 4 (4): 659–670. Jang, Yuri, David A.  Chiriboga, and Sumie Okazaki. 2009. Attitudes Toward Mental Health Services: Age-Group Differences in Korean American Adults. Aging & Mental Health 13 (1): 127–134. Kalibatseva, Zornistsa, and Frederick T.L. Leong. 2011. Depression among Asian Americans: Review and Recommendations. Depression Research Treatment: 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1155/2011/320902. Kim, Miyoung. 1995. Cultural Influences on Depression in Among Korean Americans. Journal of Psychosocial Nursing and Mental Health Services 33 (2): 13–18. Kim, Su Yeong, Nancy A.  Gonzales, Kunise Stroh, and Jenny Jiun-Ling Wang. 2006. Parent-Child Cultural Marginalization and Depressive Symptoms in Asian American Family Members. Journal of Community Psychology 34 (2): 167–182. Koh, Eun. 2018. Prevalence and Predictors of Depression and Anxiety Among Korean Americans. Social Work in Public Health 33 (1): 55–69. Kohut, Heinz. 1971. The Analysis of the Self. Madison: International Universities Press. ———. 1977. The Restoration of the Self. Madison: International Universities Press. ———. 1978. The Search for the Self: Selected Writings of Heinz Kohut: 1950–1978, ed. Paul H. Ornstein, vol. 3. Madison: International Universities Press. ———. 1984. How Does Analysis Cure? ed. Arnold Goldberg. Chicago: University of Chicago. ———. 1985. Self Psychology and the Humanities, ed. Charles B.  Strozier (Introduction). New York: W. W. Norton. Leong, Frederick T.L., and Anna S.L. Lau. 2001. Barriers to Providing Effective Mental Health Services to Asian-Americans. Mental Health Services Research 3 (4): 201–214. Maffini, Cara S., and Y.  Joel Wong. 2014. Assessing Somatization with Asian American Clients. In Guide to Psychological Assessment with Asians, ed. Lorraine T.  Benuto, Nicholas Thaler, and Brian D.  Leany, 347–360. New  York: Springer-Verlag. National Institute of Mental Health. Major Depression. https://www.nimh.nih. gov/health/statistics/major-depression.shtml. Accessed 4 Jan 2019. Pang, Keum Young Chung. 2000. Symptom Expression and Somatization Among Elderly Korean Immigrants. Journal of Clinical Geropsychology 6 (3): 199–212. Shin, Jinah K. 2002. Help-Seeking Behaviors by Korean Immigrants for Depression. Issues in Mental Health Nursing 23: 461–476. Son, Angella. 2006. Relationality in Kohut’s Psychology of the Self. Pastoral Psychology 55 (1): 81–92.

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———. 2009. Pastoral Care of Korean American Women: The Degeneration of Mothering into Management of an Inadequate Sense of Self. In Women out of Order: Risking Change and Creating Care in a Multicultural World, ed. Jeanne Stevenson-Moessner and Teresa E. Snorton, 57–77. Minneapolis: Fortress Press. ———. 2011. Korean American Churches as Positive Selfobjects in Response to the High Risk of Depression Among Korean American Youths and Young Adults Caused by the Harmful Effect of Racism. Sacred Spaces: The e-Journal of American Association of Pastoral Counselors 3: 101–119. ———. 2015. Making a Great Man, Moses: Sustenance and Augmentation of the Self Through God as Selfobject. Pastoral Psychology 64 (5): 751–768. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. 2001. Mental Health: Culture, Race and Ethnicity. In A Supplement to Mental Health: A Report of the Surgeon General. Rockville: U.S.  Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service, Office of Surgeon General.

CHAPTER 9

Addiction, Pain, and Compassionate Care Sonia E. Waters

I am honored to be invited to share on the subject of my passion, addictions, and pastoral care. I will begin by outlining the disease model of addiction and then review studies on Asian American and Korean American drug and alcohol use.1 Throughout, I will frame the spiritual problem of addiction as one of pain, in the hopes that we can move from simply addressing the behavior (excessive use) to addressing the varied reasons behind the behavior (emotional and social coping). If addiction is a disease that arises through our efforts to cope with pain, then combating addiction requires both resiliency-building and healing approaches. This perspective also expands how we understand God as healer in these conditions of suffering.

9.1   Substance Addiction in a Nutshell Signs of addiction include withdrawal symptoms; craving or a preoccupation with using; increased time and attention spent on using; failed attempts to stop or limit use; needing to use in order to feel normal; loss of other interests; and continuing to use in spite of a wide variety of

S. E. Waters (*) Pastoral Theology, Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton, NJ, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 A. Son (ed.), Pastoral Care in a Korean American Context, Asian Christianity in the Diaspora, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-48575-7_9

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consequences to practical, relational, physical, and mental health.2 The official diagnosis breaks the condition into a mild, moderate, or severe substance use disorder, so it is a progressive problem that becomes more intractable over time. It can be difficult to gauge the severity of the condition. We often rationalize our substance use and minimize its effects due to the way addiction changes our neurobiological functioning.3 According to The American Society of Addiction Medicine, addiction is a neurobiological disease. Their definition is as follows: Addiction is a treatable, chronic medical disease involving complex interactions among brain circuits, genetics, the environment, and an individual’s life experiences. People with addiction use substances or engage in behaviors that become compulsive and often continue despite harmful consequences.4

The disease model claims that the brain begins to change as individuals use more and more substances. By changing how the brain communicates, drugs and alcohol effect changes to mood, behavior, and sensory perception. As the user continues to flood these chemical highways of the brain, neurotransmission begins to adjust to try to limit the effect of the drug. In other words, some lanes on this chemical highway get blocked, preventing the full intensity of the drug from speeding through the brain. This means that the same amount does not change our functioning the way it once did, which is called “tolerance.” This also means that we need more of the drug to get the same effect. When we stop using, we experience withdrawal—physical discomfort, anxiety, or depression—motivating more use to manage those symptoms. So we begin to use, not to feel better, but in order to feel “normal.” We begin to spend increased time and thought on the behavior, because we have a sense that using will help manage the pain of living by either sedating or stimulating emotions. As our substance use increases, we become behaviorally conditioned to use in response to a wide range of emotional states, relationships, activities, or environments. We become cued to respond to these inner and outer experiences by wanting to drink or use drugs to manage our emotions. As the behavior becomes wrapped into our lives, we feel discomfort or stress when we try to stop or when we try to resist the temptation to initiate drug-seeking. With increasing craving and withdrawal symptoms, we feel compelled to use in order to keep the brain in some kind of balance.

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This compulsive aspect of addiction is related to an ancient area of the brain, colloquially called the “reward center.” This is the part of the brain responsible for motivation, salience, and focus, pushing us to seek out survival goals such as food, safety, sex, or competition. It is also one component of behavioral conditioning. It runs on the neurotransmitter dopamine, which makes someone feel euphoric, energized, bright, and motivated to pursue a perceived reward.5 After the repeated spiking of dopamine from substance use, this area also limits dopamine, requiring a bigger spike to feel better. Normal survival goals have less salience than the big spike we get from using substances. When an individual succumbs to temptation, she experiences euphoria as she pursues use, even if the actual using is not subjectively experienced as fun or ends in negative consequences. Because of this intense tunnel-vision toward the behavior, substance addictions can have wide-ranging effects on a person’s life. The individual often continues to use drugs or alcohol even when wanting to stop and in spite of consequences to personal health, work, or relationships. Signs of withdrawal can be misinterpreted as anxiety, stress, or depression. There is often an element of secrecy or denial. People may feel guilt or shame about either the amount they are using or their actions when intoxicated. Some may feel that they do not deserve to get better, while others might take on a rebel’s attitude to avoid their guilt feelings. Christian users may feel that God cannot forgive them for their behavior. People then use more to deal with these difficult emotions, feeding into the cycle of addiction. With all of these negative consequences, it is important to understand why the use of drugs and alcohol can be initially appealing. People often begin substance use because of their perceived emotional and social benefits. Emotionally, we do not use simply to pursue a good feeling. We use to not feel whatever we are currently feeling. For instance, many young people initiate substance use in an attempt to cope with childhood abuse, chaotic home lives, or neighborhood violence. Attachment difficulties with parents—feeling anxious, distant, or insecure about one’s dependable connection to an important caregiver—may also make us vulnerable to substance use as a way to manage emotions.6 Drugs and alcohol can also relieve mental health symptoms such as depression or anxiety. Using substances thus feels like a solution, and it can be hard to break what is often called the “romance” with drugs and alcohol.

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For the social benefits, substances change how people take in information and relate to others, and so they can enhance social experiences. Drinking and drugs make us more friendly, relax our social anxiety, and help smooth over group differences. Substance use is also a behavior that can express an aspect of social identity, as they symbolize a glamorous or exciting life in American media, can represent masculine social behavior, or bond sub-groups like sororities together. Thus, we can be strongly motivated to drugs or alcohol because they help us manage negative affect, relieve social anxiety, or provide a sense of identity. Not everyone who uses becomes addicted. Genetics play some part, but also our coping abilities and social support. It is a particular combination of stressors, personality traits, relationships, and social resources that organize around the use of substances as a coping skill. Initially, substance use solves emotional and social problems. As the brain slowly changes, we feel more and more motivated to use substances, and the cycle gets tighter around us. It is important for caregivers to realize that people do not understand what is happening to their brains, and so they try to tell a story to make sense of what is happening to them. They work hard, so they deserve it. They feel rejected at school, so they deserve it. They are under so much stress, and so they use. Life is complicated but intoxication makes them feel relaxed or social. But by the time they are addicted, a combination of brain changes and behavioral conditioning has put them on an emotional rollercoaster. Addiction leads to a kind of spiritual bondage where individuals progressively use more and more to try to manage the effects of using.

9.2   A Brief Word on Behavioral Addiction While this article focuses primarily on substance abuse, I also want to encourage readers to consider pastoral care for behavioral addictions. These can include sex, pornography, internet, gambling, gaming, and food addiction. Many Christian communities would categorize these behaviors as vices. But pastoral caregivers must be able to distinguish between problematic behaviors and the chronic cycle of addiction. Both substance and behavioral addictions appear to cause a dysfunction in the “reward center” that is responsible for behavioral conditioning, motivation, and salience.7 This leads to all of the symptoms of compulsive use

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and emotional dysregulation described above. Thus, while individuals certainly engage in free-will acts of vice, for addiction we are looking for signs that the behavior has become chronic, tunnel-visioned, and self-­destructive. This is important, because healing will need to include retraining the brain: identifying new behaviors to replace the old and new coping skills to manage the emotional life. I will briefly review internet addiction, as South Korea is ahead of the United States regarding this problem. The nation as a whole is almost entirely digitalized, and Seoul has been called “the bandwidth capital of the world.”8 Internet addiction follows the usual addiction symptomology, including excessive preoccupation with the behavior, withdrawal and tolerance, unsuccessful attempt to control behavior, continued use in spite of consequences, and resistance or denial about the behavior.9 Internet activities like pornography, gaming, and social media are actually built to encourage the seek-and-reward behavior that spikes dopamine in the “reward center” of the brain. Virtual reality games and mass-player games may pose the greatest risk of addiction since it requires frequent and continuous online presence.10 While many people use the internet without addiction, we are vulnerable when we use it to cope with negative affect states. In one study, there was a significant association between internet addiction and depressive symptoms in Korean adolescents, along with high levels of depression and suicidal ideation.11 Another study of Korean students suggested that school performance and its stressors are a factor in internet addiction.12 This was especially true for boys, who have more pressure to succeed in Korean culture.13 Family stressors such as parent-child conflict, lack of close attachment, or domestic violence are also factors in the development of internet addiction.14 One study further claimed that the escapism commonly attributed to mass-player internet gaming is better called “negative escapism”—that gaming is engaged particularly as a self-regulation tool to transform or avoid negative emotions or life situations.15 Notice again that pain is part of the picture. While turning to faith in Christ is certainly crucial to healing for Christians, one also needs to face the pain, become habituated into new ways of spending time, and find new rituals to help manage stressful life events or emotions.

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9.3   Asian American and Korean American Substance Use Returning particularly to substances, Asian Americans have the lowest reported rate of drug and alcohol abuse in America, but the rates are growing among its US-born members. One study of 248 college students found that 94.5% has used alcohol at some point in their lives. Use in the last 30 days included 78.6% for alcohol, 9.5% for drugs, and 22.8% for cigarettes. Male students and working students were more likely to be current users of drugs in general, which may mean that male students from lower socioeconomic classes are at higher risk for using substances.16 But Asian American young women have the highest growing problematic drinking behavior among Asian/Pacific Islander (API) Americans, suggesting specific challenges in negotiating the intersectionality of gender norms and cultural identity for this population.17 Among immigrants, those with early age at immigration—1.5 generation—had significantly higher risk than adult immigrants, but not as high as US-born children.18 US-born adolescents had a higher rate of past-month alcohol use than their peers born overseas (8.7% vs. 4.7%) and in every drug type except prescription medication abuse.19 US-born Asian adults also had higher rates of past-month alcohol, binge alcohol, and illicit drug use than those born overseas.20 Particularly US-born men were at the greatest risk for any substance use disorder, with higher rates of alcohol and drug abuse than both immigrant men and women.21 There are two main hypotheses for this difference in Asian American substance use: acculturation to American behavior and values, or the mental health effects of experiencing acculturative stressors as a minoritized group in America. In terms of the acculturation hypothesis, foreign-born members may exhibit less substance abuse because they are connected to immigrant communities for cultural sharing and support.22 US-born individuals who are highly acculturated risk following the higher using patterns of the dominant culture.23 Another study noted that substance using peers, American peers, Greek life in colleges, and lower academic achievement are connected to greater use.24 On the other hand, acculturation stress—including racial discrimination, intergenerational conflict, and perceived lower social status—may also lead to greater mental health challenges and thus to substance use as a method of coping.25 For instance, one study of college students found that those who experienced more racial discrimination engaged in more drinking to cope over time.26 Asian

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American college students may also feel pressured to conform to the dominant American behavioral practices, which could also include adopting alcohol-related behaviors.27 Thus for young people, it is hard to know whether they are acculturated into American values or find that drinking is a way to fit-in, thus protecting against minority discrimination. Most likely, both exposures to values and the pain of discrimination play a part. But even this is too simple. For instance, one study asserted that college students who shared a sense of moderate or high parental attachment used less, regardless of acculturation levels.28 But acculturation to American behavior made a huge difference for those with low parental attachment. When parental attachment was low, the odds of alcohol use were 11 times greater in the highly acculturated group than in the least acculturated group. So acculturation was not a risk factor on its own, but only when combined with a low level of attachment to parents.29 This dynamic makes sense, since we access coping skills through our cultural resources. Those acculturated to American behavior chose alcohol as a ready source of coping with the feeling that their parents did not love or regard them. Personal and social pain combine in a complex dynamic, leading to problematic substance use. For Asian Americans seeking treatment (only 1% of all admissions), the most common drugs of abuse were alcohol, methamphetamine, and marijuana.30 Among API young people (18–25 years) who entered treatment, alcohol was the most common primary substance of abuse reported by males, and methamphetamine was the most common primary substance of abuse reported by females (37.3%).31 But all API young adults were more likely to have reported methamphetamine abuse than any other demographic.32 In terms of treatment-seeking, an estimated 529,000 API Americans needed but did not receive treatment in the past year: 94.7% did not want treatment, 1.6% felt the need and tried to get it, and 3.7% felt the need but did not follow through.33 Nearly two-thirds of young adult male admissions were referred by the criminal justice system, but females were more likely to be referred by community organizations (17.0%) or to be self or individually referred (25.7%).34 The low rate of individual treatment-­seeking suggests that API individuals may not seek treatment until more extreme consequences.35 This may be due to a variety of factors: cultural and language barriers, stigma, protecting family honor, fatalism, or lack of information regarding resources.36 Treatment-seeking may be delayed until their family’s standing in the community is damaged or

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public consequences are unavoidable (e.g., job loss or educational failure).37 For Korean Americans specifically, substance use is a growing problem. Alcohol use disorder affects 10.8% of Korean Americans, with a 24.5% prevalence among US-born and 7.3% for foreign-born individuals.38 In one literature review, Japanese, Filipino, and Korean US-born Americans had the highest levels of problem drinking among Asian Americans.39 For drug use, 5.2% of Korean adolescents used marijuana and 6.7% engaged in cigarette smoking.40 Both of these rates were greater than their Asian American counterparts. For alcohol, past-month alcohol use was reported by 51.9% of Korean American youth and binge drinking was at 25.9% among Korean Americans. These were the highest percentages in the Asian American demographic. Illicit or non-medical drug use also varied, with Korean Americans at 5.3%.41 While these numbers are currently low compared to White Americans, they suggest that a problem may be building for the next generation.

9.4   Jesus, Healer of the Sick People who are suffering from problematic substance use are both personally hurting and progressively growing sick in mind, body, and spirit. From this perspective, I want to shift our Christian focus from addiction as a sin to addiction as a form of spiritual sickness: a soul-sickness that arises from attempts to manage personal and social pain.42 We often focus on sin as the problem of addiction and imagine the solution is to repent and seek God’s forgiveness. Indeed, we all need forgiveness, but this focus does not address the neurobiological or the personal and social pain behind excessive use. When we emphasize the disease aspect of addiction and gain compassion for why people start to use drugs and alcohol, we can expand our care to emotional and physical healing. From an Incarnational perspective, we remember that Jesus walked among us as the Word made flesh, healing our diseases and curing our spiritual oppressions (Luke 6:18, Mark 6:56). This then becomes the work of the disciples—not just to preach repentance but also to heal in body, mind, and spirit (Matthew 10:1). Privileging addiction as a spiritual and neurobiological sickness does not excuse bad behavior or sinful acts, but instead highlights the true spiritual evil of a condition that grows out of our human fragility. This soul-­ sickness stems from relational wounds. We need others to gain a sense of belonging and to ground our emotional wellbeing. Substances become

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appealing when we believe that we do not have other avenues for relationship, identity, or emotional balance. The soul-sickness of substance use is that we cannot access our created relationality. The more we become wrapped into the cycle of addiction, the more we are immersed in pain. We become tunnel-visioned to solving that pain with more substances, further estranging us from connection to others and God. This sickness grows from emotional and relational wounds that require our pastoral care. Admittedly, this compassion is challenging because addicts can cause pain to their family and friends. They can appear proud, resistant, or manipulative. But we can be compassionate while still holding people accountable for their actions and setting limits on their behaviors. We can still educate about the neurobiological condition of addiction and discuss treatment options. We can help our parishioners address the cultural and relational pain that might lead to substance use as a coping mechanism. We can expand our prayers to include healing for the wounds that preceded their substance use and continue to feed their addiction. We remind people that Jesus’ love for the sick and socially outcast still surrounds each of God’s children today.

9.5   Pastoral Response: Education and Resiliency-Building Congregational education on the pain behind addiction can help break stigma and encourage communities of compassion. Some research claims that family-focused models of prevention education fit best with collectivist values—helping parent and child learn together about substances and to strategize ways to combat peer pressure on children’s lives.43 The hope is that the family also grows closer in support and understanding regarding the issues behind the using.44 According to one review, strong parent– child relationships and parental supervision can engender the positive development of adolescent personalities, reduce adolescents’ affiliations with drug-using peers, and eventually insulate adolescents from using substances.45 In terms of pastoral counseling, addictive behaviors may put the family system into crisis, leading to roles of enabling, denying, or nagging the addicted person in an effort to make them change. Korean American family members may not believe that the family structure contributes to the problem, nor feel comfortable in sharing personal family information.46 One suggestion is to engage a “subfamily system approach” where

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the pastoral caregiver meets first with authority figures in the family, then the “problem person,” then later siblings or other family members. This allows authority figures to discuss more sensitive information away from children, and children to discuss issues that they cannot discuss directly with parents.47 Resiliency-building can also include addressing the various pain-points revealed in the literature above, such as cultural identity formation, attachment issues, school pressures, and the experience of racism. For 1.5 or second generation adolescents, resiliency-building might include programs that offer a variety of frameworks to understand cultural identity formation and also offer space for sharing the gifts and challenges of navigating identity as Korean Americans. Korean youth also need to process the experience of living in a racist society. Another study of Korean American college students claimed that, while strong ethnic pride definitely helped to mitigate the experience of low-level discrimination, as the intensity of discrimination grows it no longer buffers against mental health effects like depression, low self-worth, or isolation.48 In other words, no matter our resources, the wounds of racism need to be directly addressed for healing so that they are not internalized. Conversation on the effects of systemic racism and personal discrimination may help individuals find support and empowerment. Finally, early intervention and counsel can help people realize that they are getting sick or experiencing consequences. In a brief intervention, we (1) listen well and try to get more information on the problem before offering feedback; (2) point out, in a nonjudgmental manner, what we have observed and what worries us about their substance use; (3) explain that addiction is progressive and educate on its symptoms; and (4) ask what the individual thinks about their use, what they gain from it, and if the problems are worth its benefits. We can refer to recovery or mental health programs, and we can also help notice issues that get in the way of treatment, like socioeconomic issues or language barriers. But sometimes, all that compassionate caregivers can do is to carry the cross with our parishioners until they come to desire healing, knowing that the progress out of addiction can be as painful as the progress in.

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Notes 1. It is difficult to focus solely on Korean Americans because so few studies disaggregate the demographic “Asian American” into individual countries of heritage. 2. American Psychiatric Association, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)-5, (Washington, D.C.: American Psychiatric Association, 2013), 481–590. 3. I use the term “substance” to include both drug and alcohol use, including misusing prescription drug medications. 4. American Society of Addiction Medicine, “Definition of Addiction.” https://www.asam.org/resources/definition-of-addiction (accessed November 17, 2019). 5. Markus Heilig, The Thirteenth Step: Addiction in the Age of Brain Science (New York: Columbia University Press, 2015). 6. Sonia Waters, Addictions and Pastoral Care (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing, 2019), 33–38. 7. Kenneth Rosenberg, Patrick Carnes, and Suzanne O’Connor., “Evaluation and Treatment of Sex Addiction,” Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy 40, no. 2:77–91. 8. J.  C. Herz, “The Bandwidth Capital of the World,” Wired Magazine, 2002. https://www.wired.com/2002/08/korea/ 9. Ran Tao, et  al., “Proposed Diagnostic Criteria for Internet Addiction,” Addiction 105, no. 3: 556–564. 10. Dimitri A.  Christakis, “Internet Addiction: A 21st Century Epidemic?” BMC Medicine 8, no. 1: 8–61. 11. Aviv Weinstein and Michel Lejoyeux, “Internet Addiction or Excessive Internet Use,” The American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse 36, no. 5: 277–283. 12. Jongho Heo et al., “Addictive Internet Use among Korean Adolescents: A National Survey,” Plos One 9, no.2: 1–8. 13. This was only one of many associations in the study, including school grade, parental education, alcohol use, tobacco use, and substance use. Female students in girls’ schools were more likely to use Internet addictively than those in coeducational schools. 14. Soo Kyung Park, Jae Yop Kim, and Choom Bum Cho, “Prevalence of Internet Addiction and Correlations with Family Factors,” Adolescence: Roslyn Heights 43, no. 172(2008): 895–909. 15. David Hagström and Viktor Kaldo, “Escapism Among Players of MMORPGs: Conceptual Clarification, Its Relation to Mental health Factors, and Development of a New Measure,” Cyber Psychology, Behavior, and Social Networking 17, no. 1: 19–25.

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16. Dominicus W.  So and Frank Y.  Wong, “Alcohol, Drugs, and Substance Use among Asian-American College Students,” Journal of Psychoactive Drugs 38, No. 1 (2006): 35–42. 17. Derek K. Iwamoto et al., “Asian American Women and Alcohol-Related Problems: The Role of Multidimensional Feminine Norms,” Journal of Immigrant Minority Health 18, no. 2 (2016): 360–368. 18. Joshua Breslau and Doris F. Chang, “Psychiatric Disorders among ForeignBorn and US-Born Asian-Americans in a US National Survey,” Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology 41, no. 12 (2006): 943–950. 19. SAMHSA, “Substance Use Among Asian Adolescents,” The NSDUH Report (Rockville, MD: SAMHSA, 2010). 20. SAMHSA, “Substance Use Among Asian Adults,” The NSDUH Report, (Rockville, MD: SAMHSA, 2010). 21. Seunghye Hong et al., “Lifetime Prevalence of Mental Disorders Among Asian Americans: Nativity, Gender, and Sociodemographic Correlates,” Asian American Journal of Psychology 5, no. 4 (2014): 353–364. 22. Kevin L. Nadal et al., “Racial Microaggressions and Asian Americans: An Exploratory Study on Within-Group Differences and Mental Health,” Asian American Journal of Psychology 6, no. 2 (2015): 136–44. 23. One difficulty with the acculturation hypothesis is that it is hard to measure the complex ways people construct cultural identity. If studies determine it by English proficiency or amount of time spent in America, then it does no justice to the subtlety of acculturation or even to the ability to shift between identities or gain values from a hybrid sense of identity. 24. Nghi D. Thai, Christian M. Connell, and Jacob Kraemer Tebes, “Substance Use Among Asian American Adolescents: Influence of Race, Ethnicity, and Acculturation in the Context of Key Risk and Protective Factors,” Asian American Journal of Psychology 1, no. 4 (2010): 261–74. 25. P. Priscilla Lui and Byron L. Zamboanga, “Acculturation and Alcohol Use Among Asian Americans: A Meta-Analytic Review,” Psychology of Addictive Behaviors 32, no. 2 (2018): 173–186. 26. Thomas P. Le and Derek K. Iwamoto, “A Longitudinal Investigation of Racial Discrimination, Drinking to Cope, and Alcohol-Related Problems Among Underage Asian American College Students,” Psychology of Addictive Behaviors 33, no. 6 (2019): 520–528. 27. Lui and Zamboanga, “Acculturation and Alcohol Use Among Asian Americans,” 173–186. 28. This was examined in the Add Health by asking adolescents to agree or disagree on a five-point scale with the following statements: (a) “Most of the time, my mother is warm and loving toward me”; (b) “I am satisfied with the way my mother and I communicate with each other”; (c) “How close do you feel to your mother?”; (d) “How close do you feel to your

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father?”; (e) “How much do you think your mother cares about you?”; (f) “How much do you think your father cares about you?”; (g) “How satisfied are you with your relationship with your mother?”; (h) “How satisfied are you with your relationship with your father?”; and (i) “How much do you feel that your parents care about you?” 29. Hyeouk C. Hahm, Mauree Lahiff, and Neil B. Gutermnan, “Acculturation and Parental Attachment in Asian–American Adolescents’ Alcohol Use,” Journal of Adolescent Helath 33, no.2 (2003): 119–129. 30. SAMHSA, Treatment Episode Data Set (TEDS), The TEDS Report, 2011. https://www.samhsa.gov/data/sites/default/files/TEDS2011N_Web/ TEDS2011NChp3.htm#Race (accessed November 17, 2019). 31. SAMHSA, “Gender Differences Among Asian and Pacific Islander Treatment Admissions Aged 18–25,” The Teds Report (Rockville, MD: SAMHSA, 2010). 32. Ibid. 33. SAMHSA, “Need for and Receipt of Substance Abuse Treatment among Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders,” The NSDUH Report (Rockville, MD: SAMHSA, 2013). 34. SAMHSA, “Gender Differences among Asian and Pacific Islander Treatment Admissions Aged 18–25.” 35. Timothy W. Fong and John Tsuang, “Asian-Americans,Aaddictions, and Barriers to Treatment,” Psychiatry 4, no.11 (2015): 51–59. 36. LT Wu and D. G. Blazer, “Substance Use Disorders and Co-Morbidities among Asian Americans and Native Hawaiians/Pacific Islanders,” Psychological Medicine 45, no. 3 (2015): 481–494. 37. Yunkyong L.  Garrison et  al., “Asian American and Pacific Islander Substance Use Treatment Completion,” Psychological Services 16, no. 4 (2019): 636–646. 38. Breslau and Chang, “Psychiatric disorders among foreign-born and US-born Asian-Americans in a US national survey,” 943–950. 39. Derek K. Iwamoto, Stephanie Takamatsu, and Jeanett Castellanos, “Binge Drinking and Alcohol-Related Problems Among U.S.-Born Asian Americans,” Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology 18, no. 3 (2012): 219–227. Another study contends that socializing with alcohol is a Korean cultural norm, especially for men, challenging the idea that only US-born generations engage in heavy drinking. See So-Youn Park et al., “Characteristics of Chinese and Korean Americans in Outpatient Treatment for Alcohol Use Disorders: Examining Heterogeneity Among Asian American Subgroups,” Journal of Ethnicity in Substance Abuse 9, no. 2, 128–142. 40. SAMHSA, “Substance Use among Asian Adolescents.” 41. Ibid.

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42. Waters, Addiction and Pastoral Care, 13. 43. Karol L. Kumpfer et al., “Cultural Sensitivity and Adaptation in Family-­ Based Prevention Interventions,” Prevention Science 3, no. 3 (2002): 241–246. 44. Ibid. 45. Lin Fang and Steven P. Schinke, “Two-Year Outcomes of a Randomized, Family-Based Substance Use Prevention Trial for Asian American Adolescent Girls,” Psychology of Addictive Behaviors 27, no. 3 (2013): 789. 46. Sung Ja Song, “Using Solution-Focused Therapy with Korean Families,” in Counseling Asian Families from a Systems Perspective, ed. Kit S.  Ng (Alexandria, VA: American Counceling Association, 1999), 132. 47. Ibid, 133. 48. Richard M. Lee, “Resilience Against Discrimination: Ethnic Identity and Other-Group Orientation as Protective Factors for Korean Americans,” Journal of Counseling Psychology 52, no. 1 (2005): 36–44.

Bibliography American Psychiatric Association. 2013. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders: DSM-5. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association. American Society of Addiction Medicine. Definition of Addiction. https://www. asam.org/resources/definition-of-addiction. Accessed 17 Nov 2019. Breslau, Joshua, and Doris F. Chang. 2006. Psychiatric Disorders Among Foreign-­ Born and US-Born Asian-Americans in a US National Survey. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology 41 (12): 943–950. Christakis, Dimitri A. 2010. Internet Addiction: A 21st Century Epidemic? BMC Medicine 8 (1): 8–61. Fang, Lin, and Steven P. Schinke. 2013. Two-Year Outcomes of a Randomized, Family-Based Substance Use Prevention Trial for Asian American Adolescent Girls. Psychology of Addictive Behaviors 27 (3): 788–798. Fong, Timothy W., and John Tsuang. 2007. Asian-Americans, Addictions, and Barriers to Treatment. Psychiatry 4 (11): 51–59. Garrison, Yunkyong L., Ethan Sahker Chi, Chi W. Yeung, Soeun Park, and Stephan Arndt. 2019. Asian American and Pacific Islander Wubstance Use Treatment Completion. Psychological Services 16 (4): 636–646. Hagström, David, and Viktor Kaldo. 2014. Escapism Among Players of MMORPGs: Conceptual Clarification, Its Relation to Mental Health Factors, and Development of a New Measure. CyberPsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking 17 (1): 19–25. Hahm, Hyeouk C., Mauree Lahiff, and Neil B. Guterman. 2003. Acculturation and Parental Attachment in Asian–American Adolescents’ Alcohol Use. Journal of Adolescent Health 33 (2): 119–129.

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Heilig, Markus. 2015. The Thirteenth Step: Addiction in the Age of Brain Science. New York: Columbia University Press. Heo, Jongho, Juhwan Oh, S.V.  Subramanian, Yoon Kim, and Ichiro Kawachi. 2014. Addictive Internet Use Among Korean Adolescents: A National Survey. Plos One 9 (2): 1–8. Herz, J.C. 2002. The Bandwidth Capital of the World. Wired Magazine. https:// www.wired.com/2002/08/korea/ Hong, Seunghye, Emi Tamaki, Emily Walton, and Janice A. Sabin. 2014. Lifetime Prevalence of Mental Disorders Among Asian Americans: Nativity, Gender, and Sociodemographic Correlates. Asian American Journal of Psychology 5 (4): 353–364. Iwamoto, Derek K., Stephanie Takamatsu, and Jeanette Castellanos. 2012. Binge Drinking and Alcohol-Related Problems Among U.S.-Born Asian Americans. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology 18 (3): 219–227. Iwamoto, Derek K., Margaux Grivel, Alice Cheng, Lauren Clinton, and Aylin Kaya. 2016. Asian American Women and Alcohol-Related Problems: The Role of Multidimensional Feminine Norms. Journal of Immigrant Minority Health 18 (2): 360–368. Kumpfer, Karol L., Rose Alvarado, Paula Smith, and Nikki Bellamy. 2002. Cultural Sensitivity and Adaptation in Family-Based Prevention Interventions. Prevention Science 3 (3): 241–246. Le, Thomas P., and Derek K.  Iwamoto. 2019. A Longitudinal Investigation of Racial Discrimination, Drinking to Cope, and Alcohol-Related Problems Among Underage Asian American College Students. Psychology of Addictive Behaviors 33 (6): 520–528. Lee, Richard M. 2005. Resilience Against Discrimination: Ethnic Identity and Other-Group Orientation as Protective Factors for Korean Americans. Journal of Counseling Psychology 52 (1): 36–34. Lui, P. Priscilla, and Byron L. Zamboanga. 2018. Acculturation and Alcohol Use Among Asian Americans: A Meta-Analytic Review. Psychology of Addictive Behaviors 32 (2): 173–186. Nadal, Kevin L., Yinglee Wong, Julie Sriken, Katie Griffin, and Whitney Fujii-Doe. 2015. Racial Microaggressions and Asian Americans: An Exploratory Study on Within-Group Differences and Mental Health. Asian American Journal of Psychology 6 (2): 136–144. Park, Soo Kyung, Jae Yop Kim, and Choom Bum Cho. 2008. Prevalence of Internet Addiction and Correlations with Family Factors. Adolescence: Roslyn Heights 43 (172): 895–909. Park, So-Youn, Tazuko Shibusawa, Sung Min Yoon, and Haein Son. 2010. Characteristics of Chinese and Korean Americans in Outpatient Treatment for Alcohol Use Disorders: Examining Heterogeneity Among Asian American Subgroups. Journal of Ethnicity in Substance Abuse 9 (2): 128–142.

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Rosenberg, Kenneth Paul, Patrick Carnes, and Suzanne O’Connor. 2014. Evaluation and Treatment of Sex Addiction. Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy 40 (2): 77–91. So, Dominicus W., and Frank Y. Wong. 2006. Alcohol, Drugs, and Substance Use Among Asian-American College Students. Journal of Psychoactive Drugs 38 (1): 35–42. Song, Sung Ja. 1999. Using Solution-Focused Therapy with Korean Families. In Counseling Asian Families from a Systems Perspective, ed. Kit S. Ng. Alexandria: American Counseling Association. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). 2010a. Substance Use Among Asian Adults. The NSDUH Report. Rockville: Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Office of Applied Studies. ———. 2010b. Gender Differences Among Asian and Pacific Islander Treatment Admissions Aged 18–25. The TEDS Report. Rockville: Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services. Administration, Office of Applied Studies. ———. 2011a. Substance Use Among Asian Adolescents. The NSDUH Report. Rockville: Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services. Administration, Office of Applied Studies, October 4. ———. 2011b. Treatment Episode Data Set (TEDS). The TEDS Report. https:// w w w. s a m h s a . g o v / d a t a / s i t e s / d e f a u l t / f i l e s / T E D S 2 0 1 1 N _ We b / TEDS2011NChp3.htm#Race. Accessed 17 Nov 2019. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Center for Behavioral Health Statistics and Quality. 2013. Need for and Receipt of Substance Abuse Treatment Among Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. The NSDUH Report. Rockville, May 14. Tao, Ran, Xiuqin Huang, Jinan Wang, Huimin Zhang, Ying Zhang, and Mengchen Li. 2010. Proposed Diagnostic Criteria for Internet Addiction. Addiction 105 (3): 556–564. Thai, Nghi D., Christian M. Connell, and Jacob Kraemer Tebes. 2010. Substance Use Among Asian American Adolescents: Influence of Race, Ethnicity, and Acculturation in the Context of Key Risk and Protective Factors. Asian American Journal of Psychology 1 (4): 261–274. Waters, Sonia. 2019. Addiction and Pastoral Care. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing. Weinstein, Aviv, and Michel Lejoyeux. 2010. Internet Addiction or Excessive Internet Use. The American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse 36 (5): 277–283. Wu, L.T., and D.G. Blazer. 2015. Substance Use Disorders and Co-Morbidities Among Asian Americans and Native Hawaiians/Pacific Islanders. Psychological Medicine 45 (3): 481–494.

Index1

NUMBERS, AND SYMBOLS 1.5 generation, 8, 81, 82, 87, 88, 92–94, 95n1, 95n2, 140 A Accountability, 47 Accountability modality, 7, 8 Accountability model, 47 Acculturated, 140 Acculturation, 9, 67, 68, 73, 95n2, 104, 140, 141, 146n23 Addiction, 2, 3, 9, 85, 135–139, 142–144 Affect theory, 7, 48 Ageism, 8, 63–74, 74n6 Ambivalence, 7, 14–16, 18–23 Anthropology of time, 106 Attachment, 9, 137, 139, 141, 144 Autobiography, 69, 70 Autobiography group, 70–74 Automatic ageism, 67

B Bednarowski, Mary F., 14, 21, 22 Behavioral addiction, 138–139 Behavior modification model, 45 Brown, Jac, 8, 47, 51 Butler, Judith, 123 Butler, Robert N., 65–68, 72, 74, 74n6 C Chan, Wing-tsit, 3, 4 Chastity, 9, 100, 102, 104, 110 Chung Yong, 2–6 The church as a “remembering community,” 38 The church as a “resisting community,” 39 The church as a “transforming community,” 39 Common stories, 8, 83, 91–94 Communal and transformative, 37–39

 Note: Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes.

1

© The Author(s) 2020 A. Son (ed.), Pastoral Care in a Korean American Context, Asian Christianity in the Diaspora, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-48575-7

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152 

INDEX

Communal and transformative model, 7, 29 Compassionate care, 144 Confucian, 3–5, 7, 8, 13–15, 17, 18, 20–23, 30, 34, 40, 69, 86, 100 Confucian feminism, 14, 21, 22 Confucianism, 2, 13–18, 20, 22, 23, 102, 103 Congregations, 35 Containing the shame experience, 51, 54 Counseling Women: A Narrative, Pastoral Approach, 34 Covenant, 37, 106–111 Creative ambivalence, 21, 22 Cultivated ambivalence, 22 D Decline narrative, 69 Depression, 8, 9, 21, 23, 54, 69, 83, 85, 88, 89, 91, 117–128, 136, 137, 139, 144 Discrimination, 8, 14, 17, 18, 30, 64, 65, 67–69, 73, 89, 90, 93, 120, 121, 140, 141, 144 Doctrine of the Mean, 3, 5 Domestic violence, 7, 29, 31, 34, 35, 41n5, 45–47, 51, 52, 55–57, 139 Dualism, 2, 126 E Engaging the perpetrator, 51, 52 F Feminism, 13–15, 18–20, 22, 23 Feminist, 14, 15, 18, 20–23, 37, 39 First-order desire, 15, 16, 18–20 Frankfurt, Harry G., 14–16, 18–20

G Gangnam Style, 99 Good Shepherd, 109 Gunnarsson, Logi, 21 H Healing, 9, 28, 38, 82, 94, 108–110, 127, 135, 139, 142–144 Hermeneutics of “suffering,” 36 Hermeneutics of “vulnerability,” 36 Homosexuality, 103 I Idealizing, 122, 123, 127 Identifying and acknowledging feelings, 51–53 Identifying and acknowledging shame, 51, 53–54 Identity, 8, 23, 68, 69, 71, 73, 81, 87, 88, 92, 93, 102, 105, 106, 109, 110, 124, 138, 140, 143, 144, 146n23 Identity formation, 89 Imago Dei, 7, 29, 34–40 In-between, 8, 81–87, 91–94, 95n1, 95n2 In-between-ness, 92 In-both, 82, 91, 92, 94 Individualization, 6, 32–35 Intergenerational autobiography, 69 Intergenerational autobiography group, 71–73 Internalization of ageism, 67 Internet addiction, 139 Intimate partner violence, 7, 8, 27, 39, 45, 47, 50, 51, 58 Intimate violence, 7, 27–40, 41n5

 INDEX 

J John 15:13, 107 Justice, 2, 4, 31, 58, 91, 107, 109, 126, 146n23 K Kierkegaard, Søren, 64 Kohut, Heinz, 8, 9, 47, 121, 122 L Liminal, 8, 82, 92, 94 Liminality, 91, 94 Liminal space, 91–93 M Marginal, 8, 82, 92, 94 Marginal space, 91 Mental health, 2, 9, 14, 28, 47, 118, 119, 125–128, 136, 137, 140, 144 Mirroring, 122, 123, 127 Model minority, 88, 90, 124 Model of friendship, 108 Moralization, 6, 32–35 N Narrative of progress, 69 Narratives, 7, 8, 39, 52, 73, 88, 92–94, 120 Narrative Therapy, 92 National Violence Against Women Survey, 31 Non-spiritual, 2 Normativity of excess/extreme, 4 P Paralyzed ambivalence, 19–22 Phan, Peter, 106 The Power and Vulnerability of Love, 36

153

R Racial/ethnic, 89 Racism, 6, 8, 9, 65–68, 73, 88, 119–128, 144 Radical ambivalence, 21, 22 Re-author, 92 Re-authoring, 8, 93, 94 Residual ambivalence, 19–21 Resiliency-building, 9, 135, 143–144 S Sacrifice, 28, 34, 109 Saving face, 31 Schechter, Susan, 45–46 Second-order desire, 15, 16, 18–20 Second-order volition, 15, 19–21 Self-denial, 33, 34 Self-esteem, 8, 30, 67–69, 81, 87, 89 Self-identity, 7, 8, 67, 81, 82, 84, 87, 89, 92 Self-loss, 9, 121–124 Selfobject-augmentation, 9, 121, 122 Self-preservation, 9, 121–123 Self psychology, 8, 47, 52, 121 Self-sacrifice, 9, 14, 33 Sexism, 65 Sexual ethics, 9, 102–110 Sexual intercourse, 103, 104, 108, 109 Sexuality, 9, 100, 101, 103–110 Shame, 7–9, 28, 31, 38, 45, 47–49, 51–55, 88, 100–102, 125, 137 Shame-prone, 47, 51, 55 Shame-proneness, 48 Somatize, 118, 119, 128 Spiritual, 2, 8, 9, 22, 33, 37, 40, 65, 67, 69–71, 74, 126, 127, 135, 138, 142 Spiritual autobiography groups, 69–71, 74 Spiritual development, 7, 64 Spirituality, 2, 6, 126 Spiritualization, 6, 32–35

154 

INDEX

Spiritual narratives, 70, 94 St. Augustine, 100 Stories of continuity, 71 Story companions, 8, 94 Structuralizing feelings, 51, 54–55 Subfamily system approach, 143 Substance use, 136–138, 140–144

V Violence, 29 Violence against, 27, 39, 57 Virginity, 101–103 Virginity pledges, 104 Vulnerability, 7, 29, 36, 37, 39, 40, 110 Vulnerable, 33, 38, 40, 110, 111

T Tangney, J. P., 48 Technical virginity, 101, 104, 110 Theology of aging, 64, 65 Theology of cross-bearing, 34–36, 39 Treatment, 45–48, 51–55, 141, 143, 144 Treatment approach, 8, 47 Treatment modality, 51 Treatment model, 45, 46 Treatment-seeking, 141 Tu, Wei-Ming, 4 Twinship, 122, 123, 127

W Western liberal feminism, 7, 13–15, 22, 23 Western liberal feminist, 13, 14 Whiteness, 88 Wisdom for common life, 3, 6 Withdrawal, 135–137, 139

U US-born, 9, 140, 142

Z Zhongyong, 2, 4

Y Young adults, 3, 9, 63, 72, 73, 100–102, 104, 110, 127, 141 Youth, 8, 9, 69, 81–83, 86–89, 91–94, 118, 119, 126, 127, 142, 144