Professor Emeritus Returns from 3rd Fulbright Trip to Improve Mental Health Services in Southeast Asia

ALBANY, N.Y. (July 30, 2024) — Bruce Svare, professor emeritus of psychology and neuroscience at UAlbany, recently completed a five-month stay in Southeast Asia where he was working to improve the field of psychology and mental health services as part of his third visit to the region funded by a Fulbright Scholar Award.

Svare visited Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, which have some of the lowest levels of mental health services in the world and are attempting to improve infrastructure and professionalized training to better meet the mental health needs of citizens. 

While there, he worked with academics from leading universities, medical schools and health science centers on initiatives to improve the discipline of psychology, with a goal of providing more and better graduate training in fields such as clinical psychology, counseling, social work, and marital and family therapy.

It was Svare’s third trip to the region on a Fulbright Scholar Award, given through the organization’s Association for Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) research program. Prior awards in 2006 and 2014 took him to Thailand, Vietnam, the Philippines and other parts of the region on similar missions.  

“The founding constitution of the World Health Organization states that physical and mental healthcare are a basic human right. It also states that physical care and mental health care are equally important,” Svare said. “This needs to become a reality for all ASEAN citizens in order to improve the quality of their living. In spite of the significant challenges that prevent this, my objective is to continue to assist ASEAN countries to accomplish this important goal.”  

On his most recent trip, Svare gave over 30 lectures and workshops to administrators, faculty, students and community mental health professionals on the challenges and roadblocks ASEAN countries face in improving mental healthcare, potential reforms, and the consequences of failing to improve professionalized psychological services. He also lectured on the latest research around the treatment and diagnosis of depression, the growing field of cognitive neuroscience, and how to improve faculty teaching and scholarly research and writing.  

At the end of his stay, Svare met with staff at the U.S. Mission to ASEAN and U.S. Ambassador Yohannes Abraham to discuss his findings and future initiatives.

As a consequence of his Fulbright work, Svare was asked to assist a steering committee at Fulbright University Vietnam as it creates a U.S.-style graduate program in psychology focused on behavioral neuroscience, counseling and clinical psychology. This will provide critically needed professionalized training for mental healthcare workers in Vietnam and across the region, he said.