How K-Dramas Can Transform Your Life

Discover the power of how K-Dramas can improve your wellbeing and provide a sense of belonging

Love K-Dramas and want more permission to binge watch them? In How K-Dramas Can Transform Your Life: Powerful Lessons on Belongingness, Healing, and Mental Health, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist Jeanie Y. Chang explores what K-Dramas can teach us about our own well-being and how we can use the lessons they teach us to live better and more meaningful lives. She also touches upon the powerful interrelationship between K-dramas, mental health, and belongingness. Topics covered include:

• Using K-Dramas as a roadmap to life, showing you how to navigate speed bumps, roadblocks, twists, turns, and dead ends
• Building cross-cultural relationships that you otherwise may not have without being a K-Drama fan
• Processing grief from the loss of a loved one to a loss of anything—a job, your physical safety, a relationship, or something else
• Harnessing the idea of Jeong, which is innate in Korean society and refers to the emotional sentiment of affinity, affection, kinship, and connection which is the thread throughout Jeanie's community
• Working the author’s trademarked mental health framework, Cultural Confidence®, to build up your mental health, identity, mindfulness, and resilience

For K-Drama fans and enthusiasts and anyone curious about the influence of pop culture, How K-Dramas Can Transform Your Life is an entertaining and educational must-read on how this enormously popular global phenomenon can help us become the best versions of ourselves.

Foreword ix

Introduction xi

Part I The Powerful Intersectionality of K-Dramas and Mental Health 1

Chapter 1 The Global Appeal of K-Dramas 3

Chapter 2 K-Dramas Are for Self-Care 15

Chapter 3 K-Dramas and Processing Grief 35

Chapter 4 K-Dramas and Korean Han 47

Chapter 5 K-Dramas and Healing Our Traumas 57

Chapter 6 K-Dramas and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder 71

Chapter 7 K-Dramas and Suicide Awareness 81

Chapter 8 K-Dramas and Coping with Depression 91

Chapter 9 K-Dramas and Managing Anxiety 105

Part II The Powerful Intersectionality of K-Dramas and Identity 117

Chapter 10 K-Dramas and Life Stages 119

Chapter 11 K-Dramas and Cultural Identity 133

Chapter 12 K-Dramas and Neurodiversity 151

Part III The Powerful Intersectionality of K-Dramas and Resilience 159

Chapter 13 K-Dramas and the Workplace 161

Chapter 14 K-Dramas = Belongingness + Jeong 169

Resource List 181

References 183

Acknowledgments 187

About the Author 189

Index 191

JEANIE Y. CHANG is a global mental health speaker and executive coach. As a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and Certified Clinical Trauma Professional, she's presented her trademarked framework Cultural Confidence in corporations, non-profits, and universities around the world. Jeanie's influence as Noona's Noonchi is the inspiration behind this book. Today, Noona's Noonchi Inc, is a global wellness, tourism, and media company.

Love K-Dramas—and want more permission to binge watch them? In How K-Dramas Can Transform Your Life: Powerful Lessons on Belongingness, Healing, and Mental Health, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist Jeanie Y. Chang explores what K-Dramas have to teach us about our own well-being and how we can use the lessons they teach us to live better and more meaningful lives.

Chang’s own love of K-Dramas and using them with great success to improve her mental health and relate to her cultural identity led her to integrate K-Dramas into her professional practice. Seeing the enormously positive effect they also had on her clients, How K-Dramas Can Transform Your Life was born.

Topics covered in this book include:

• Using K-Dramas as a roadmap to life, showing you how to navigate speed bumps, roadblocks, twists, turns, and dead ends
• Building cross-racial and cross-cultural relationships that you otherwise may not have without being a K-Drama fan
• Processing grief from the loss of a loved one to a loss of anything—a job, your physical safety, a relationship, or something else
• Harnessing the idea of Jeong, which is innate in Korean society and refers to the emotional sentiment of affinity, affection, kinship, and connection which is the thread throughout Jeanie’s community
• Working the author’s trademarked mental health framework, Cultural Confidence^®, to build up your mental health, identity, mindfulness, and resilience

For K-Drama fans and enthusiasts and anyone curious about the influence of pop culture, How K-Dramas Can Transform Your Life is an entertaining and highly educational presentation from a mental health professional on how this enormously popular global phenomenon can help us become the best versions of ourselves.

PRAISE FOR HOW K-DRAMAS CAN TRANSFORM YOUR LIFE

“Jeanie Chang has proven herself the expert on K-Dramas in the mental health space. Whether you are newly curious or an ardent fan, How K-Dramas Can Transform Your Life is an unforgettable read. I highly recommend this book!”
—MARIE MYUNG-OK LEE, author of The Evening Hero and faculty at Columbia University’s Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race

“Jeanie Chang’s wonderful book brings encyclopedic knowledge of the genre and her professional background in mental health to a perfect understanding of why we love the genre so much.”
—SEBASTIAN ROCHÉ, Actor, 1923

“Compelling. Through the lens of K-Dramas, Chang unveils powerful strategies to foster a sense of belonging to oneself and the wider world.”
—JI-YEON O. JO, Director, Carolina Asia Center at UNC Chapel Hill, Associate Professor, Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies

“Written for everyone from the skeptical K-Drama bystander or casual viewer to the dedicated all-the-episodes-please binge watcher, Jeanie’s unique K-Drama framing brings new, refreshing, and joyful perspectives to the fore while providing accessible insight into specific mental health challenges.”
—NAOMI TACUYAN UNDERWOOD, Executive Director, Asian American Journalists Associations

“How K-Dramas Can Transform Your Life is the book I’ve been waiting for! A powerful celebration of the global impact of K-Dramas on mental health, cultural identity, and the Asian diaspora. In this undeniable golden age of Korean culture, this is the right book for the right time and a must-read for any K-fan out there!”
—ALICIA HANNAH-KIM, Actress

“If you’ve ever watched a Korean drama and felt immediately validated by a particular scene or conversation, pick up this book!”
—JANE PARK, Digital Content Creator and Korean American mother @Janeparkang