Mental Health and the Asian Diaspora: Breaking the Silence in the Workplace

Breaking the Silence Around Mental Health

Mental health has become an increasingly important conversation in workplaces across Canada.

Yet for many Asian employees, the stigma surrounding mental health remains a powerful barrier to seeking support or accommodations.

Cultural expectations of perseverance, family honor, emotional restraint, and "saving face" can make discussions of mental health deeply sensitive — even taboo.

Layered onto this are workplace cultures that often privilege visibility, extroversion, and self-advocacy — leaving those navigating mental health challenges feeling isolated or invisible.

Addressing mental health in the workplace cannot take a one-size-fits-all approach.

Culturally competent mental health strategies are essential to truly create spaces of inclusion, trust, and belonging.

Breaking the silence means moving beyond awareness months and slogans.

It demands that organizations reimagine how they support mental wellbeing — in ways that honor the diverse cultural experiences and realities of Asian employees.

Cultural Barriers to Mental Health Support

Mental health stigma is not unique to Asian communities — but it often shows up in specific, culturally shaped ways:

🔹 Saving Face
Maintaining family or personal honor is deeply important in many Asian cultures.

Seeking help for mental health can be perceived as a source of shame or weakness, risking loss of face for the individual or their family.

🔹 Emotional Restraint
In many East Asian, South Asian, and Southeast Asian cultures, emotional self-restraint is valued over open displays of vulnerability.

Mental health challenges may be minimized, internalized, or dismissed rather than addressed openly.

🔹 Interdependence Over Individualism
Many Asian cultures emphasize family and community over individual needs.

Employees may prioritize the well-being of others over their own mental health — or feel guilty for "taking up space" by requesting accommodations.

🔹 Language and Conceptual Barriers
Mental health concepts do not always translate neatly across cultures and languages.
 

There may be limited culturally resonant language to describe depression, anxiety, trauma, or neurodivergence in ways that feel valid.

How Workplace Systems Can Create (or Break) Safety

The way organizations design their mental health supports can either dismantle stigma — or unintentionally reinforce it.

Workplaces often unintentionally send exclusionary signals when they:

• Frame mental health support solely through a Western lens, ignoring cultural nuances.

• Rely on Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) that lack culturally diverse counselors or services.

• Celebrate resilience without acknowledging that seeking support is resilience.

• Offer "mental health days" without addressing deeper systemic barriers to wellbeing (e.g., overwork, discrimination, lack of psychological safety).

True inclusion requires building mental health strategies that reflect the cultural complexity of employees' experiences.

Practical Actions for Culturally Competent Mental Health Support

✅ Offer Culturally Diverse Counseling Resources

• Partner with EAP providers who offer access to counselors from diverse backgrounds, including Asian-identifying counselors.

• Ensure mental health providers are trained in cultural competence and anti-racism.
  

✅ Destigmatize Mental Health Through Leadership Modeling

• Encourage senior leaders — especially leaders of color — to share stories of seeking support where appropriate.

• Normalize conversations about mental health across teams, not just in HR or DEI spaces.
  

✅ Create Multiple Entry Points for Support

• Offer different modes of accessing support: confidential online tools, peer support networks, written resources, not just phone calls or therapy referrals.

• Recognize that some employees may prefer indirect pathways to help first.
  

✅ Honour Different Cultural Expressions of Distress

• Recognize that distress may be expressed through physical symptoms (e.g., fatigue, headaches) rather than verbalized emotional struggles.

• Train managers to recognize non-Western presentations of stress and to offer compassionate pathways to support.
  

✅ Engage in Community Partnerships

• Collaborate with local Asian-led mental health organizations or resource groups to provide workshops, resources, or speaker sessions grounded in lived experience.
  

✅ Prioritize Psychological Safety

• Make mental health an ongoing conversation tied to workload, expectations, and inclusion — not just a "benefit" employees must seek out alone.
  
  

Conclusion: From Silence to Support

For many Asian employees, mental health is not just a personal matter — it’s a cultural one.

One shaped by family expectations, community dynamics, systemic barriers, and deeply ingrained ideas of success and resilience.

Breaking the silence requires workplaces to move beyond awareness campaigns and into true cultural competence.

It means designing systems of support that reflect — and respect — the full diversity of employee experiences.

Because when we create workplaces where every employee can seek help without fear, shame, or stigma, we don’t just strengthen individuals.

We strengthen the heart of our organizations themselves.

📩 Ready to build a workplace where mental health support is inclusive, culturally competent, and accessible to all?

At Erin Davis Co., we help organizations reimagine wellbeing strategies through an equity and inclusion lens.

Connect with us at erin@erindavisco.ca to start your journey.

References:

• Across Boundaries: An Ethnoracial Mental Health Centre, Toronto

• Canadian Mental Health Association - National l A Mental Health Charity

• BIPOC Healing and Wellness Centre