Dr. Fred Chou
Position
Dr. Fred Chou is an Assistant Professor of Counselling Psychology in the Department of Educational Psychology and Leadership Studies at the University of Victoria. Dr. Chou has been a Research Fellow of the Centre for Youth & Society since 2019 and has worked closely with Research Fellow Dr. Catherine Costigan on a number of projects. Dr. Chou co-founded the Victoria Migrant Mental Health Network (ViMMH) with Dr. Costigan and Dr. Nancy Clark. ViMMH is a network of local mental health practitioners and academics which aims to facilitate collaboration and social action to support the mental well-being of migrants.
Dr. Chou's research interests include intergenerational trauma and Chinese Canadian families, mental health promotion for the Asian diaspora in Canada, and youth mental health literacy. As a researcher, Dr. Chou specializes in qualitative research and in participatory and narrative research methodologies. His academic and clinical interests also include exploring the integration of community psychology, cultural psychology, and spirituality within counselling psychology as a discipline.
Along with colleagues Dr. Costigan, Dr. Clark, and Prof. Jin Sun Yoon, Dr. Chou's research lab produced 'Cultivating growth & solidarity,' an anti-racism zine for youth that was created at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in response to a surge in anti-Asian racism. The project's website also houses resources for Asian individuals across Canada.
Dr. Chou is currently facilitating (Re)Claim & Connect, an online counselling support group created to support Asian Canadians experiencing anti-Asian racism. He aims to refine an anti-Asian racism counselling support group following the completion of the program based on participant feedback. Presently, the research team is piloting and evaluating the support group.
Dr. Chou is also leading Stories that Shape Us, an ongoing project which explores the intergenerational resilience in Chinese Canadian families using narrative as inquiry. The research team invited adult parent-offspring dyads of Chinese heritage where the parent had experienced adversity to share how the parent adapted and coped with the hardship and its influence on their offspring. From the interviews, stories are created together in collaboration with the participants and shared within the family dyad.
A third ongoing project of Dr. Chou's, (Re)Cultivating Family Stories, explores the development of a family intervention for Asian Canadians. In the intervention, participants are asked to create a family story with another family member from a different generation. The goal of the intervention is support the well-being of Asian Canadians by strengthening intergenerational family relationships through storytelling. The program adapts a counselling intervention known as Life Review, a process of reflecting, writing, and telling your story in a structured way which can expand one’s awareness and understanding of oneself and one’s family, as well as improve psychosocial well-being and life satisfaction.
Recruitment is ongoing for all of Dr. Chou's current projects. More information about his projects, including eligibility requirements, can be found on his lab's website: https://www.growthandsolidarity.ca/research/.
Recent publications
Chou, F., & Buchanan, M. (2021). Intergenerational Trauma: A Scoping Review of Cross-Cultural Applications from 1999 to 2019. Canadian Journal of Counselling and Psychotherapy. 55. 363-395. http://dx.doi.org/10.47634/cjcp.v55i3.71456
Chou, F., & Yan, M., & Costigan, C. (2020). A primer on Chinese Canadian mental health and COVID-19 racism. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/358271822_A_primer_on_Chinese_Canadian_mental_health_and_COVID-19_racism
Yan, M., Yoon-Potkins, Q-S., Chou, F., Yoon, J-S., Costigan, C., & Clark, N. (2020). Cultivating growth and solidarity: An anti-racism zine for Asian youth (and adults too!). Retrieved from https://www.growthandsolidarity.ca/zine/