Boon-Ooi Lee

Nanyang Technological University | ntu · National Institute of Education

The global mental health movement (GMHM) seeks to close the treatment gap in low- and middle-income countries including those in Southeast Asia. However, the GMHM has been criticized for its overemphasis on a Eurocentric approach to mental health care, ignoring the diversity of knowledge and resources in local communities. Given the pluralistic hea...

Drawing on our previous ethnographic studies on dang-ki healing , a form of Chinese spirit mediumship practiced in Singapore, I aim to demonstrate that mediumistic spirit possession is more than an altered state of consciousness or cognitive dissociation. It is an intersubjective phenomenon mediated through bodily interactions between mediums and t...

The professionalism of counseling in Singapore has come a long way since the establishment of Singapore Association for Counseling in 1982 and the Register of Counselors in 2003. This development brings the necessary social legitimacy to counseling as a therapeutic method for alleviating emotional distress. However, counseling in a multicultural so...

While some early studies suggested that spirit mediums were psychiatrically ill individuals who found a culturally sanctioned role, subsequent work has found that they are generally in good physical and mental health. While the calling to be a healer often involves an initiatory illness, practitioners go on to play demanding social roles, suggestin...

The movement for global mental health (MGMH) has been initiated to improve mental health care services in countries where such services are scarce. However, one of the criticisms of the MGMH is its’ overemphasis on Western mental health approaches that may not be generalized to other cultures, particularly those in developing and non-Western countr...

Objectives While there have been studies exploring the relationships between parental representations of their child’s illness, parental emotional distress and coping, there is lack of research on parents of children with intellectual disability (ID). The present study explores relationships between parental illness representations of their child’s...

Schools devote considerable attention in identifying and implementing evidence-based prevention programmes to enhance student development and functioning. A major challenge faced is with organising the theory, research and practice of the implementation and dissemination process. This poses even greater challenges to schools because these are compl...

Students in secondary schools face increased vulnerability for developing internalizing symptoms such as feelings of anxiety, sadness, and hopelessness, as well as social withdrawal and somatic complaints. These symptoms are associated with reduced engagement in school, interpersonal problems, and possibly other serious mental health issues. To sup...

This article explores the processes of transformation of the self in dang-ki healing, a form of Chinese spirit mediumship in Singapore, drawing on more than a decade of ethnographic research. In dang-ki healing, it is believed that a deity possesses a human, who is called a dang-ki, to help clients (i.e., devotees). Through the dang-ki, clients can...

All knowledge in the discipline of psychology is culture-bound, as mind and culture are mutually constituted. Since American and European participants have formed the bulk of samples in psychological research, many findings may not be generalisable to non-Western societies. When studying any psychological phenomena, it is important to consider cult...

All knowledge in the discipline of psychology is culture-bound, as mind and culture are mutually constituted. Since American and European participants have formed the bulk of samples in psychological research, many findings may not be generalisable to non-Western societies. When studying any psychological phenomena, it is important to consider cult...

This chapter explores the contemporary movement for developing indigenous approaches to mental health and well-being in East Asia, which are an integral part of indigenous psychologies. The East Asian explanatory model of well-being perceives mind and body as mutually constituted, which are in turn parts of a larger whole consisting of physical and...

This chapter explores the contemporary movement for developing indigenous approaches to mental health and well-being in East Asia, which are an integral part of indigenous psychologies. The East Asian explanatory model of well-being perceives mind and body as mutually constituted, which are in turn parts of a larger whole consisting of physical and...

This chapter seeks to explore the contexts, challenges, and opportunities of integrating traditional healing into psychotherapy. It begins with a brief discussion on Asian healing traditions - particularly those from East Asian cultures - followed by the integration of traditional healing into Western mental health care, the challenges for such int...

Since spirit possession in mediumship and shamanism resembles psychotic symptoms, early researchers perceived spirit mediums and shamans as psychiatric patients whose psychopathology was culturally sanctioned. However, other researchers have not only challenged this assumption, but also proposed that spirit possession has transformative benefits. T...

The movement for global mental health (GMH) focuses on the disparities of mental health care across nations. It aims at reducing inequity by improving mental health services for people with mental disorders, particularly for those living in developing and non-Western countries where effective and evidence-based treatments are scarce. However, one o...

As with many other nations, Singapore recognizes that an education based on a traditional subject-based curriculum with a narrow focus on academic standards is no longer adequate to prepare young people for the future. A broadbased and holistic education that integrates academic, intellectual, moral, physical, social, emotional and aesthetical aspe...

Stigmatization of mental disorders has detrimental consequences for psychiatric patients. This study examined how perceived stigma and coping orientations of secrecy, withdrawal, and education were related to schizophrenic patients' self-esteem and quality of life (QOL). Coping orientations as mediators of perceived stigma on the outcome variables...

Although somatization is common across cultures, its meanings may differ as culture shapes emotional experience. Thus, instead of treating somatization as a form of psychopathology, it is more useful to conceptualize it as an idiom of distress, and how complaints of somatic symptoms are related to social relationships, patterns of emotional express...

This article presents an overview of the range of primary, secondary, and tertiary interventions based on the Singapore Education Ministry-developed whole-school framework for pupil management and support. At the preventive level, a range of school-wide programmes are implemented to provide learning, emotional, and behavioural support for students....

This study focuses on the therapeutic process and perceived helpfulness of dang-ki, a form of Chinese shamanistic healing, in Singapore. It aims to understand the healing symbols employed in dang-ki, whether or not patients find them helpful and whether their perceived helpfulness can be explained by the symbolic healing model (Dow, Am Anthropol 88...

Past research has shown that many adolescents with depression and anxiety disorders do not consult mental health professionals. This study examines how emotional distress, ambivalence over emotional expression, and causal attribution of depressive and anxious symptoms are related to adolescents’ preferred sources of help for these symptoms. 300 sec...

This study explored group and relational differences in personality, health, and coping across 189 Australian students and 243 Singaporean students. Life Orientation Test—Revised showed a one-factor structure for Australians but a two-factor structure for Singaporeans. Australians tended to be more agreeable, more conscientious, more optimistic, mo...

This study explores two issues concerning the relationships between personality, meta-mood experience, life satisfaction, and anxiety. First, it explored the incremental value of Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, and Openness to Experience in predicting the three components of meta-mood experience (that is, attention to f...

Past research has shown that Asians underutilize mental health services. One way to increase the use of such services is to understand their causal beliefs and help-seeking behaviors. The aim of this study was to examine how causal attributions of three types of psychiatric symptoms (depressive, anxious, and schizophrenic) were associated with pref...

Many studies reveal that adaptors are more ready to accept the status quo, whereas innovators are less likely to do so. This raises the question: Do adaptors and innovators subscribe to opposing values? A study is conducted with the following hypotheses. H1 predicts that adaptors are more likely to subscribe to CONSERVATION values like security, co...

This study investigated the relationship between aggression and the Big Five personality traits (Extroversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, and Openness to Experience) in Australia and Singapore. Two hundred and forty-three undergraduate respondents from Singapore and 189 undergraduate respondents from Australia participated in th...

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the relevance of folk therapies or traditional medicine to counselling in Singapore. It addresses the meanings of the indigenous psychotherapies and then the rationales for understanding them. Three popular Chinese indigenous psychotherapies have been selected for discussion in terms of their aetiology and tr...

This study explores Singaporean Chinese clients’ beliefs about psychological problems by comparing their beliefs with those of non-clients and professional counsellors. These three samples were asked to indicate the extent to which they would agree with three belief models, the Chinese indigenous model, the Western psychological model, and the othe...

Generally, premature ejaculation is caused by organic, psychological, interpersonal factors and lay beliefs. It is defined as a lack of adequate voluntary ejaculatory control with the result that a patient climaxes involuntarily. An ejaculatory control may be said to be established when the patient can tolerate high levels of excitement which chara...

As most models of psychotherapy have been developed based on Western worldviews, they may need to be adapted when applied in other cultures. One way to make psychotherapy culturally sensitive is to study the indigenous healing systems of specific cultural groups. This study focuses on dang-ki, which is a form of Chinese shamanism in Singapore. It s...