SEOUL — Appointment day was lastly right here. The dad and mom had waited for a month to see the famend psychiatrist in South Korea about their youngster’s points. They entered the room, the physician arrived, and the door closed.
Then the teleprompters turned on, the cameras began rolling, and the producer shouted, “Action!”
So started the taping of “My Golden Kids,” one of the preferred actuality exhibits in South Korea. Reigning over the episode was Dr. Oh Eun-young, a specialist in youngster and adolescent psychiatry who has been referred to as the “god of parenting.”
Her mantra: “There is no problem child, only problems in parenting.”
In a rustic the place movie star is commonly personified by younger megastars churned out by an exacting leisure trade, Dr. Oh, 57, occupies a singular cultural place. She attracts thousands and thousands of viewers on tv and the web, meting out recommendation on parenting and marriage.
Through a portfolio of exhibits — and books, movies and lectures — she has redefined remedy for Koreans, blown up the historically personal relationship between physician and affected person and launched the nation to accessible vocabulary on psychological well being points.
“She is the mother that you wish that you would have had in your childhood,” mentioned Dr. Yesie Yoon, a Korean American psychiatrist in New York who grew up watching Dr. Oh’s exhibits. “People really put their personal feelings toward popular figures in the media. And I feel like she’s serving a kind of good mother role to a lot of Korean people.”
Her success is all of the extra notable in a rustic the place taboos about looking for psychological well being remedy have deep roots and getting remedy has historically been a furtive enterprise.
South Koreans attest to Dr. Oh’s function in destigmatizing psychiatric remedy, and the truth that some are prepared to share their struggles on her exhibits is a watershed cultural second. Practitioners in Dr. Oh’s subject say it’s turning into simpler to steer South Koreans to get remedy or take medicine.
In South Korea, about one in 4 adults has reported having a psychological dysfunction in his or her lifetime, with just one in 55 receiving remedy in 2021, in keeping with the National Mental Health Center. (One in 5 American adults obtained psychological well being remedy in 2020, in keeping with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.) South Korea has among the many world’s highest suicide charges; it was the fifth main trigger of loss of life in 2020, the federal government says. Among individuals of their 20s, it accounted for 54 p.c of deaths.
When Dr. Oh began her profession as a medical physician in 1996, many South Koreans related psychological sickness with weak point, she mentioned in an interview at a counseling heart within the rich Seoul district of Gangnam. Some even believed that individuals might turn into mentally ailing from learning psychiatry. Over the years, these attitudes have reworked.
Tips for Parents to Help Their Struggling Teens
Are you involved in your teen? If you are concerned that your teen could be experiencing melancholy or suicidal ideas, there are some things you are able to do to assist. Dr. Christine Moutier, the chief medical officer of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, suggests these steps:
“Compared to when I took my first steps as a doctor,” she mentioned, “more people have realized that talking to a psychiatrist is something helpful — not something embarrassing at all.”
Dr. Yang Soyeong, a psychiatrist practising in Seoul, agreed: “Parents can be afraid of having their mistakes pointed out by a psychiatrist. But because Dr. Oh does that so gently on television, I think that has lowered people’s apprehension for visiting the clinic.”
The United States has lengthy made stars out of one-name medical personalities like Dr. Phil and Dr. Oz, who’ve drawn criticism for his or her tactics. Dr. Oh’s movie star has additionally spilled out of the medical enviornment. In Seoul, a life-size cutout of her stands in entrance of a cell phone dealership promoting the service’s household plans. She seems in TV commercials for a medical insurance firm.
Dr. Oh, who runs one hospital and 4 counseling facilities, has been utilizing TV as a therapeutic platform since 2005, when she began her broadcast profession giving lectures about childhood developmental problems.
On “My Child Has Changed,” which aired from 2005 to 2015, every episode was devoted to a household’s issues. Dr. Oh entered their houses for counseling periods, and the takeaway from many episodes was that quite a bit of youngsters’s issues had been attributable to parental abuse, lack of understanding or negligence.
In a signature flourish of the present, Dr. Oh would dispose of each object the dad and mom used to beat their youngsters — again scratchers, umbrellas, shoehorns, damaged chair legs.
When “My Golden Kids” launched in 2020, the pandemic, with its social restrictions, was forcing individuals to confront family members’ issues full on. Rather than visiting herself, Dr. Oh now sends a digicam crew into houses to file what transpires; clips are aired when households focus on points within the studio.
The issues proven have run the gamut: A 9-year-old yelling at his mom, a 5-year-old self-harming, a 12-year-old stealing from his mom, a 14-year-old having unexplained, power vomiting.
Even with a household’s consent, the in-home cameras can really feel extremely intrusive. But giving a physician the possibility to evaluate household interactions in real-life settings, not the confines of a psychiatrist’s workplace, has diagnostic benefits, specialists say.
“It’s a child psychiatrist’s dream,” mentioned Dr. Yoon, the New York psychiatrist. “In my clinic, I only address and discuss the things that they bring to me. I may ask questions to dig deeper that they may not answer, and they may not answer truthfully.”
The present illustrates how a lot work the dad and mom do in following by with the physician’s recommendation. It additionally exhibits how change can take time, and the way outdated points can resurface.
Since “My Golden Kids” started, Dr. Oh has expanded her TV empire to incorporate “Oh Eun-young’s Report: Marriage Hell,” during which she counsels {couples}; and “Dr. Oh’s Golden Clinic,” during which she advises people. She says she has a plan to deal with the nation’s low birthrate by easing individuals’s worry of having youngsters. She additionally hopes to characteristic extra Korean households who stay overseas and encounter cultural and language boundaries.
Dr. Oh was born untimely, and she or he mentioned the docs weren’t positive she would survive. Until she was about 2, she was smaller than her friends and had a “difficult temperament”: choosy with meals, typically sick and crying each night time. She attributes her consolation with herself as an grownup to her dad and mom, saying she had “received a lot of love from them and felt understood by them.”
She obtained bachelor’s and grasp’s levels from Yonsei University’s College of Medicine, and a medical diploma from Korea University’s College of Medicine. She married a physician, and their son is within the navy.
“We were all someone’s children at some point,” she mentioned. “The point isn’t to blame parents for every problem but to emphasize that they are incredibly important figures in children’s lives.”
At a latest taping of “My Golden Kids,” a panel of comedians and celebrities appeared. They and Dr. Oh greeted the dad and mom of a baby who had refused to attend college for months. Video of the household’s dwelling life was proven. The physician then shared her suggestions.
She has critics. Lee Yoon-kyoung, 51, an activist for training reform and parental rights and the mom of two excessive school-age sons, worries that Dr. Oh’s movie star would possibly lead viewers to contemplate her phrases as gospel when there could be a number of interpretations of the identical conduct.
“Of course, we acknowledge her expertise,” Ms. Lee mentioned, “but some parents get a bit uncomfortable when people deem her opinions unconditionally true, as if her words were divine.”
Some viewers have questioned the knowledge, in addition to the privateness implications, of placing yelling, hitting households on tv. On “My Golden Kids,” Dr. Oh doesn’t explicitly determine the kids, however faces should not obscured, and fogeys state their very own names and name their youngsters by identify.
Videos of episodes have been uploaded to YouTube, producing humiliating feedback concerning the households. Comments have since been turned off. But some dad and mom and psychological well being professionals, noting that the web is without end, have demanded the present blur faces.
Dr. Oh says blurring might make it more durable for individuals to empathize, inviting extra abuse. Viewers, she mentioned, ought to contemplate the issues televised as all half of the human expertise. “The main reason I do these shows is that understanding children is the starting point of understanding people,” she mentioned.
Ban Su-jin, a 42-year-old mom of three from Incheon, had privateness issues when she appeared on “My Golden Kids” in 2020 to seek the advice of a few son who feared leaving the home.
“My husband was worried that my son’s friends would make fun of him for having this problem,” she mentioned. But they agreed it was “worth risking anything.”
After the taping, she mentioned, her son’s anxiousness improved drastically. The episode drew some unfavourable messages, Ms. Ban mentioned, but in addition encouragement from mates and neighbors.
“The episode,” she mentioned, “helped them understand how much pain my son had borne.”
