Beatrice Ng-Kessler
Counselling and psychotherapy, Language and communication, Race, ethnicity and culture
Full Article: Connecting worlds and finding common ground
Chinese clinical psychologist Beatrice Ng-Kessler on the importance of cultural differences in schema therapy.
10 July 2025 Lead-in: Beatrice Ng-Kessler shares clinical reflections on how cultural meaning shapes what clients feel, say, and keep “unsaid” during Schema Therapy. In this BPS article, she describes her work with clients from Hong Kong and the UK, showing how Western schema formulations (e.g., emotional inhibition, enmeshment, self-sacrifice, or “resistance”) can be misunderstood when cultural norms of loyalty, hierarchy, face, and emotional regulation are not considered.
Through real case examples, Beatrice outlines practical implications for therapists—how to create relational safety beyond words, pace emotional exploration sensitively, and adapt experiential and reparenting work with cultural grace—so that treatment supports genuine emotional access rather than premature closure or shame.