Model Minority and Its Discontents: Understanding the Asian American Experience
**PACIFIC TIME**: November 1, 2025, 2:00 - 5:00 PM
All times listed are in Pacific Time (PT) unless otherwise noted.
PLEASE MAKE NOTE OF THIS IMPORTANT INFORMATION:
- This program is being presented in person AND on Zoom
- Pre-registration is required. You will receive confirmation and details by email.
- 2.75 CE/CME credits are offered for this program.
- Signature is required for CE/CME Credit.
- Contact Byrd at byrdb@n-c-p.org if you have questions.
- Registration closes at 4:30 PM PT the day before an event. Unfortunately, late registrations can not be accommodated.
NCP Presents:
Model Minority and Its Discontents: Understanding the Asian American Experience
This presentation offers a psychoanalytic exploration of the Asian American experience. Asian Americans comprise 7% of the total US population; yet, they remain largely invisible and unknown to Americans and American psychoanalysis, except for being perceived as a Model Minority. The Model Minority myth leads to the illusion that Asian Americans are successfully folded into the American national fabric.
We will examine how this illusion of inclusion obscures the othering of Asian Americans and explore the psychological effects of dissociating from experiences of othering.
We will discuss the trauma origins of the Model Minority position, from anti-Asian racism, past and present (i.e., the incarceration of 120,000 Japanese American individuals during WWII), to the unresolved historical and cultural traumas (i.e., genocides, wars, poverty, authoritarian governments) carried by immigrants from Asia and intergenerationally transmitted to their Asian American children. Some immigrants unconsciously attempt to resolve their historic traumas carried from Asia by a manic pursuit of the American Dream.
The presentation concludes with a discussion of the legacy of cultural dissociation among the psychoanalytic founders on contemporary racial minority patients, including Asian Americans.
Learning Objectives:
As a result of attending this session, participants should be able to:
- Describe how the illusion of inclusion, through the promise of the American Dream and Model Minority Contract, has obscured the othering of Asian Americans.
- List two examples of anti-Asian racism in American society (either past or present)
- Apply at least one psychoanalytic concept (i.e., Fairbairn, Brandchaft, Ferenczi) to explain how anti-Asian racism in American society may have contributed to the Model Minority adaptation.
- Describe the phenomenon of intergenerationally transmitted traumas that Asian immigrants bring from their country of origin to subsequent generations.
- Describe your understanding of the reasons for the invisibility of Asian Americans in American society.
- Describe how the legacy of cultural dissociation among psychoanalytic founders has impacted contemporary racial minority patients.
References:
Stephens, M. (2024). Undoing the Dissociation of the Unthought Subject, Psychoanalytic Dialogues, 34-4, 461-471.
Tummula-Narra (2023). Awakening to Racial Trauma Faced by Asian Americans, Psychoanalytic Dialogues, 33-1, 77-86.
Yi, K. (2023). Asian American Experience, Model Minority & the Illusion of Inclusion. Psychoanalytic Dialogues. 45-59.
Yi, K. (2014). Psychoanalysis’s dissociation meets ethnic minorities: Reply to Leary. Psychoanalytic Dialogues. 52-55.
PRESENTERS:
Kris Yi, PhD, PsyD is a psychoanalyst and a clinical psychologist in Pasadena, California, with over thirty years of clinical, teaching, and supervisory experience. She is a faculty member and training/supervising analyst at the Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis and the Newport Psychoanalytic Institute. Her scholarship focuses on the intersections of psychoanalysis, race, and culture, with particular attention to Asian American subjectivity and racial trauma. Dr. Yi is a frequently invited speaker at national conferences and a committed advocate for culturally responsive psychoanalysis. She serves as an Associate Editor of The Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association (JAPA). Under her initiative, JAPA is publishing a special issue on Asian American experiences, due out in December of 2025. As a Korean American who immigrated to America in her teens, she is pleased to be part of an emerging discourse in Asian American experiences within American psychoanalysis.
Discussant:
Tina Nguyen, MD is currently an Advanced Clinical Associate at the New Center for Psychoanalysis. Graduating from Temple University at the early age of 18, she continued at Temple University School of Medicine to obtain her medical degree. Dr. Nguyen completed residency in General Psychiatry at Mount Sinai Beth Israel in New York City, where she was actively involved in research, receiving state-wide recognition for her work as a resident. She then completed her Child & Adolescent Psychiatry fellowship at SUNY Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn, NY, and had the honor of serving as a chief resident. Dr. Nguyen has had faculty appointments at 2 academic institutions, including Mount Sinai Beth Israel and USC Keck School of Medicine.
COORDINATED BY: Ethan Grumbach, PhD, FIPA, Daniel Kaushansky, PsyD, Erin Mullin, PhD, and Brian Stachowiak, MA, LMFT
FEES:
NCP Members registration $48 | General registration $60 | Students $30
RECORDING:
This program will not be recorded.
CE/CME Credits:
"How do I get my CE/CME Credit?"
- Pre-Register below
- If you are registering for the first time you will receive a welcome email. You must follow the directions in this email to complete your registration in order to access your certificates.
- "Sign" in and "sign" out during the event (by typing your full name into the chat). This is how we record your attendance at the event.
- Wait 5-10 business days.
- Download your Certificate on the NCP website.
CONTINUING EDUCATION CREDIT
PHYSICIANS: This activity has been planned and implemented in accordance with the accreditation requirements and policies of the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) through the joint providership of American Psychoanalytic Association and the New Center for Psychoanalysis. The American Psychoanalytic Association is accredited by the ACCME to provide continuing medical education for physicians.
The American Psychoanalytic Association designates this live activity for a maximum of 2.75 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)™. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.
The APsA CE Committee has reviewed the materials for accredited continuing education and has determined that this activity is not related to the product line of ineligible companies and therefore, the activity meets the exception outlined in Standard 3: ACCME's identification, mitigation and disclosure of relevant financial relationship. This activity does not have any known commercial support.
PSYCHOLOGISTS: The New Center for Psychoanalysis is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. The New Center for Psychoanalysis maintains responsibility for this program and its content. Psychologists must report CE credits directly to MCEP using this document to verify attendance. Please note that a psychologist must attend the CE program in its entirety in order to receive credit.
SOCIAL WORKERS, MARRIAGE and FAMILY THERAPISTS (LCSW, LMFT, ASW, IMF, LEP, LPCC, PCCI): The New Center for Psychoanalysis offers continuing education via the organizations listed above whose requirements meet the course content requirements set by the California Board of Behavioral Sciences (see 16 CCR section 1887.4.0 for General CE Course Content Requirements). Acceptance of the CE credits for this activity is at the discretion of the licensing board.