Rediscovery of the "Self: Culturally sensitive intervention for Chinese divorced women

This chapter examines the stress Chinese women experience from being divorced, and discusses the development of empowerment workshops to enable them to recover from the trauma of divorce. The married Chinese woman's sense of self derives from her roles as wife, mother and daughter-in-law. This sense of self is shattered when her role as wife is dissolved through divorce. Empowerment workshops, based on holistic health concepts borrowed from traditional Chinese medicine, promote the re-establishment of the sense of self through rediscovering and reformulating the meaning of life. Adopting an integrated body-mind-spirit approach, the workshops consisted of interventions that facilitate the participants' struggles through their many losses, to let go of anger and shame. This frees their energy and their strengths to find balance and harmony to move forward in life. These workshops were conducted in Hong Kong, Beijing, and Singapore. Pre- and post-tests indicate they were effective in reducing the participants' stress symptoms, in enhancing their positive sense of self and their perspective of the meaning of life, as well as in promoting active coping and increased energy levels.