I employ systemic, social justice, and trauma-informed lens in my scholarship. I am from a collectivistic, hierarchical, and elder-centered culture, which I embrace but not agree to all. Moreover, I am a female Cambodian receiving a doctoral and post doctoral degrees from prestigeous universities in the United States. This intersectionality of my identities puts me at a unique position as a scholar/therapist with privileged identities including being educated, having able body, and being alive. Specifically, I am very conscious of cultural differences and always embrace differences in others; I believe in people’s right and freedom to express their identities. I value respect empowering, nurturing, learning, and growing in humans. I acknowledge and honor my own minority identities and those of others. I strive to use my privileged identities to foster strengths, growth, and resilience in others. I am from a country that experienced genocide from 1975 to1979, resulting in with a population that suffered from individual, relational, and intergenerational effects of traumatic stress. Even though I was born a decade after the genocide, my family’s traumatic experiences from the genocide have shaped my trauma-informed lens as a therapist and scholar. Thus, the intersectionality of my identities and experiences have informed my ways of doing research, service, teaching, and mentoring.
Research. With a trauma-informed lens, cultural sensitivity, and passion about trauma-affected and displaced populations, I am very interested in culturally responsive clinical interventions of different types of traumatic stress, such as individual psychological trauma, relational trauma, historical trauma, racial trauma, and intergenerational trauma among ethnically minoritized and forcibly displaced populations. My research agenda is to strive to adapt or/and develop evidence-based multilevel interventions that respond to the needs of people with minoritized identities including forcibly displaced populations. I incorporate phenomenology, ethnography, and RCT methodologies in my research because I value cultural sensitivity and responsiveness as well as the social construction, cultural identity, and meaning making processes of the populations with whom I work.
Service. Since Fall 2018, I have offered therapy and tele therapy at the Aspire clinic (McPaul Center at the University of Georgia and Project Family (a community-based agency) to students, staff, and the community in Athens, GA. I serve clients with diverse minority backgrounds (i.e., international identities, immigrants, low income, multicultural couples and families, LGBTQA+, etc.). From systemic and trauma-informed lenses, I strive to facilitate a discussion around external stressors originating in different layers of the system that are affecting their mental health and relationships. My purpose is to externalize the problems affecting the individuals and their relationships, not to pathologize the individuals, by examining the ecological system in which the individuals are living.
Teaching. I have a teaching and learning heart, and it is always my joy to share experiences and knowledge. I am aware of my power as a teacher and would rather empower my students to use their strengths and passion than force them to conform to my way of thinking and behaving. With a trauma-informed lens and cultural sensitivity, I understand the resources and support that individual students can access from their ecological systems; I do not believe that one teaching method fits all. I am willing to adapt my teaching methods to respond to the needs of each student. I focus on students’ healthy growth and development by creating a nurturing and supportive learning environment.
Mentoring. As a mentor, I am naturally collaborative rather than directive. I value the unique expertise of my students by allowing them to be heard and seen. I can be directive only when I notice that they need guidance and direction. Consistent with other areas of scholarship, I use cultural sensitivity, trauma informed, and strength-based perspective in my mentoring.