American Psychologist, Vol 80(4), May-Jun 2025, 476-493; doi:10.1037/amp0001475
Pilipinx Americans (PAs) are situated at a unique intersection as descendants from colonized peoples living in the diaspora. They endure ongoing deleterious effects of colonization, including mental health (MH) disparities. Simultaneously, PAs live as settlers on Indigenous lands and need to interrogate any complicity in the ongoing colonization of First Nations from what is now called America. To examine their role in decolonial and liberatory MH practices, 12 PA social work scholars and MH practitioners conducted a culturally embedded critical collaborative autoethnography. Consensual qualitative research was used to analyze data from three focus groups. Three domains relevant to decolonial MH praxis among PAs were located. The first domain, disrupting hegemonic views of MH, captures the idea that PA MH conceptions may conflict with western MH services and systems. The second domain, resisting through cultural continuity and survivance, illuminates PAs’ ongoing legacy of enduring cultural and communal practices and resisting colonization despite attempted erasure. The third domain, transforming the MH profession through decoloniality, (re)imagines MH services for and by PAs while simultaneously reckoning with their positionality as diasporic colonial descendants and settlers. Implications and advocacy for culturally embedded practices, trainings, and policies are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)