UNF professor’s Philippines Fulbright trip illuminates cultural differences in coping with intergenerational trauma

Dr. Tes Tuason, University of North Florida professor and program director of the Clinical Mental Health Counseling program, served as a Fulbright specialist to study culturally unique coping mechanisms of spirituality, sense of agency and emotional and social loneliness in the Philippines.

Tuason spent four months in Baguio City, Philippines teaching a course on intergenerational trauma to doctoral students, where she delved into historical, community and familial trauma. She also conducted interviews and group discussions on spiritual coping beliefs and practices, with a focus on understanding how individuals facing extreme poverty promote their own self-agency.

"Returning to the city where I was born and grew up, the Fulbright grant allowed me to re-experience home with a new set of eyes," said Tuason. "This experience of teaching, conducting research and reuniting with old classmates has been a series of memorable moments in my life."

She also presented seminars on healing family trauma, emotional regulation strategies, trauma-informed approaches to stress relief and the methodology of participatory action research to students, staff and faculty at Saint Louis University and Ateneo de Manila University. One of her seminars reached an audience of up to 500 people.

While abroad, Tuason also organized a mental health mission in Itogon, Benguet, where she taught emotional regulation interventions and somatic therapy alongside her medical and dental colleagues. She also collaborated with Filipino colleagues on a qualitative research study meant to clarify the cultural differences found in two previously conducted quantitative studies on coping with COVID in the United States and the Philippines.