George F. Whitworth Honors Program

The Cultural Impacts on Western and Native Hawaiian Relationships in a Clinician-Client Therapy Setting

Megan Hirasaki

BIO: I was born and raised in Waipahu, Hawai’i and started at Whitworth in Fall 2022. Throughout my time at Whitworth, I served as an overnight host, campus tour guide, Resident Assistant in the Village (2023-2024) and Baldwin-Jenkins (2025-2026), and a Student Success Coach. As a resident assistant in the Village, I earned the Program of Excellence Award in 2024 for integrating my residents’ passions into my events and having over 200% attendance at my most successful events.

MAJOR: Psychology

Minor: Communication & Culture

Through the psychology department, I received two awards, which include the Psychology Department Achievement Award in 2023 and the Psychology Department Writing Award in 2025. For the 30th Annual Undergraduate Research Conference, I presented a senior thesis with my colleagues, Maria Bentz and Lauren Tinz, that discussed cultural differences in grief and a proposed study to gather research. I became a member of Psi Chi, the International Psychology Honors Society, in October 2025. I also served on a hiring committee as a student representative to hire a new faculty for the psychology department.
 
In addition, I was blessed with multiple opportunities to travel and study abroad during my time at Whitworth. I studied in five different countries: Aotearoa New Zealand, Japan, Italy, Austria, and Germany. During my semester abroad in Aotearoa New Zealand, I learned about psychology from a Māori perspective and some of the ways Western psychology has harmed the Māori community. Equipped with multicultural knowledge around various issues in psychology, I am now motivated to be inclusive of other cultures when I become a future mental health clinician. After graduation, I am taking some time to gain more experience working in multicultural organizations or with diverse age groups in Tacoma before I apply to graduate school. I hope to help bridge gaps between access to mental health services for all people.
 

Project Overview: When I learned about bicultural perspectives in psychology at Massey University, I was asked to write a critical reflection about connecting the Māori concepts in psychology to my future career. As I researched previous studies and articles about Native Hawaiians for my critical reflection, I noticed that Native Hawaiian mental health research is limited, and some topics of current research include depression, health disparities, COVID, and the impacts cost of living; consequently, Native Hawaiians are often the most misrepresented in healthcare. According to McCubbin and Marsella (2009), Native Hawaiians have not only been excluded from health research but also have not been adequately supported financially when projects emphasize Native Hawaiians. Because of these systemic barriers behind research, Native Hawaiians deserve more attention in psychological research and need specific strategies on how to include their worldviews into the therapy room.

 

This information has helped form the following research questions: In what ways does culture impact mental health diagnoses and treatment? How can psychology be more inclusive to serve diverse groups of people in therapy?

The hypotheses for the research are (1) Western psychological treatment strategies, specifically leaves on a stream, will not be as effective compared to the experiential therapy treatments for the Native Hawaiian client, (2) experiential therapy from a Native Hawaiian perspective will benefit the Western client, and (3) a neutral stance will be found among culturally congruent interventions for the Western clinician and client, along with the Native Hawaiian clinician and the Native Hawaiian client.

 
My study was released in April 2026, and I plan to analyze the data of the findings in depth in May 2026. I hope to bring this knowledge with me into future graduate studies to remind me of the importance in acknowledging culture in therapy.