Nguyen Minh Thanh graduated with a Master's degree in Developmental andEducational Psychology in China and for nearly ten years, he has practiced and worked with families and children as a lecturer at Hoa Sen University (HCMC).
What motivated Thanh to continue to Belgium to do a PhD in Clinical Psychology at UCLouvain University? Thanh pointed out the issues that psychologists must pay attention to: “Practical experience has shown me that many family and child problems are affected by the mental health status of the parents themselves. However, prevention and intervention education programs at that time mainly focused on teaching parents the skills to understand, care for, and intervene in problems that occur with children and families. So how do parents' mental health problems such as anxiety, stress, burnout, or depression... affect the family, children, and furthermore, the effectiveness of the aforementioned prevention and intervention programs?” This question brought Thanh to the above conceptual framework of two professors Isabelle Roskam and Moira Mikolajczak. At the time Thanh applied for the doctoral program, there were only about 5 studies on this topic in Vietnam, of which more than half were conducted by Thanh, his colleagues and students.
Results from studies show that the rate of PB in the journey of raising children in our country is about 1%-2% within the research sample. At the same time, this exhaustion is positively correlated with children's behavioral problems, and negatively correlated with the academic performance of primary school children. Therefore, Nguyen Minh Thanh thinks that there should be more studies on this topic in the context of Vietnamese families to provide accurate suggestions in both theory and practice.
But how to apply Western psychological knowledge and solutions to psychological problems in other contexts like Vietnam? Thanh answers this difficult question with the phrase WEIRD, which is often used in psychology. “WEIRD refers to the research evidence, both theoretical and clinical, that is currently being conducted mainly in Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic contexts, but there is a lack of extensive research evidence in non-Western contexts. Furthermore, psychology is also facing a replicability crisis in research, which raises questions about the validity and authority of research evidence. When we apply the word “outside” to Vietnam, we need to carefully consider many factors such as listening to indigenous voices, increasing research in Vietnam, scientific communication, etc.,” Minh Thanh explains.
For PB syndrome, there are currently no RCTs intervention studies on parents in Vietnam. The doctoral thesis with the topic “Understanding family factors correlated with PB: a comparative study between the UK and Vietnam” allows Thanh to look deeper into the contribution of family system and cross-generational factors in a cross-cultural approach to find similarities and (or) differences. From there, build appropriate arguments and suggestions for PB research and practice in different contexts, especially in Vietnam.
This June, Nguyen Minh Thanh was invited to be an expert at Parenting Summit 2025 - where parents find answers to their concerns when raising their children. He will also host a workshop on positive discipline and child behavior analysis, and directly open a course on Early Childhood Psychology (for those preparing to become parents, teachers, professionals working with children, etc.).
Source: https://www.sggp.org.vn/nguoi-dong-hanh-voi-cac-bac-cha-me-trong-nuoi-day-tre-post797674.html
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