Is Therapy a Betrayal? Rethinking Loyalty in South Asian Families

Many individuals of the South Asian background struggle with that first email to try to access therapy. Loyalty to one’s family is prized in South Asian families. This can lead many individuals in the South Asian communities to struggle alone in pain without making an attempt to reach out for help. In other cases the person may reach out, but to a friend or a family member - someone close by.

Reaching out to a therapist poses a dilemma to South Asians. Reach out and get support, but reach out and also maybe

betray the family. That is a scary thought to most South Asians.

What is emphasized is loyalty to the family.

It is time this fear is tackled, so why not do it in a blog?

What if I argue that one is not harming the family when going through therapy. What if I present the idea that healing oneself is giving a gift to one’s family members. The gift?

A healed self.

And what a gift that is. A healed self - can also impact the rest of the family system.

Yet you may argue that is still not enough to convince you.

Let’s play with dialectics a bit shall we?

Dialectical behavioural therapy is based on the idea that there can be a kernel of truth to two opposing truths.

Therefore, can love for your family coexist with attending therapy for healing? Absolutely.

The problem is we often think in black and white, believing in absolute truths when it comes to opposites. Dialectical behavioural therapy pushes us to think in terms of and both, and not but or. When we say but, or we are asking to choose a side. We need to understand that two things can be true at once.

You can value and love your family deeply

You can also reach to someone outside the family to get help to heal

This is not to say there won’t be some discomfort when trying to reach out to a counsellor, or when sitting in the office of a counsellor wondering what words to say. The discomfort will be there. The echo of the messages received in communities for decades to not go outside of the family to discuss family matters will still play in the background.

The idea is to sit with the discomfort, evaluate it, identify the level of threat, and try to see opposing truths in every situation.