Department of Family Therapy Dissertations and Applied Clinical Projects

Date of Award

2024

Document Type

Dissertation - NSU Access Only

Degree Name

Doctor of Marriage and Family Therapy (DMFT)

Advisor

Christopher Burnett

Abstract

The majority of Iranian-Americans moved to the United States after the Iranian Revolution in 1979 due to the authoritarian practices of the Iranian government, which withdrew many rights and freedom of Iranian women (Koo, 2020; Mohammadi et al., 2019). Today, the U.S. has more Iranians outside of Iran than other countries (Lai & Batalova, 2021). Previous findings have highlighted the struggles of second-generation Iranian-American female immigrants’ cultural identification, but there is insufficient research on the first-generation. In this Applied Clinical Project, I explored the experiences of first-generation Iranian women immigrants utilizing Bowen Family Systems Theory lens to understand and learn how they have redefined their identity as the Iranian families’ emotional system is mainly managed by women (Sadeghi, 2015). Bowen believes that culture is not the cause of problems, but only the vehicle through which they are expressed, in this case, the dynamics of the culture and the family (Friedman, 1991). Ethnographic research was conducted through a workshop using questions to collect information based on participants’ cultural perspectives of conflicting dual identities (Hughes, 1992). Interpretative phenomenological analysis helped me explore the women’s experiences leaving their home country and their relatedness to phenomena of finding their cultural identity as an Iranian-American using Berry’s model of acculturation (Smith et al., 2009; Berry, 1992). The goal of this study is to build a step towards open communication about first-generation immigrants’ experiences of survival so they can better identify in both their home and host cultures through their discussions.

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