Counseling Latinos, Research Paper Example

It seems many counselors are from demographic groups quite different from their clients. As such, it helps to understand ways of successfully providing counseling services for people outside one’s own demographic. The Latin community is one minority that may be underserved due to the lack of professional expertise in providing services aimed at serving their demographic. Here, four studies are reviewed to serve as a basis for techniques geared toward serving Latinos.

Traditionally, the role of multicultural counseling has been downplayed by some clinicians and researchers (Patterson, 1996). Many believed that because the trends toward multicultural counseling were so general that all they really amounted to was just plain counseling. As some clinicians revolted against this notion of multicultural counseling as a euphemism fort general counseling procedures, more specific strategies were developed to serve the needs of particular ethnic groups – one being the Latin community (Sue, Arredondo & McDavis, 1992). What these professionals have come to understand was three-fold:

1. The provider needs to understand themselves well enough top delineate their own cultural tendencies from their counseling endeavor (Atkinson, Thompson & Grant, 1993).
2. The provider needs to understand how the client sees reality based on their own cultural biases (Atkinson, Thompson & Grant, 1993).
3. The provider needs to implement these understandings into appropriate counseling methods (Atkinson, Thompson & Grant, 1993).

This move toward culturally customized treatments was initially based on ideas about individual presuppositions, epistemological questions, and practical applications. As more innovative methods became available, clinicians realized that one of the most effective ways to help clients was from within the client’s culturally accepted health and healing practices (Constantine, Myers, Kindaichi, & Moore, 2004).

So, for the Latin community that often includes marshalling characteristics of the prevailing Hispanic culture toward a healthier individual. Some radical measures may be something like the ritual application of entheogenisis, but legal constraints would often preclude the use of such techniques. Nevertheless, implementing the Gestalt of Latin culture in the psychological healing practices often hinges upon major logical inferences of the culture itself. For example, masculinity is often characterized by the construct of Machismo. Social skills are often described as some level of bien educado, and spiritual understandings are often couched in terms of some variant of Catholicism.

References

Constantine, M.G., Myers, L.J., Kindaichi, M. & Moore, J.L III. (2004). Exploring indigenous mental health practices: The roles of healers and helpers in promoting well-being in people of color. Counseling and Values, 48: 110-125.

Atkinson, D.R., Thompson, C.E. & Grant, S.K. (1993). A Three-Dimensional Model for Counseling Racial/Ethnic Minorities. The Counseling Psychologist, 21(2): 257-277.

Patterson, C.H. (1996). Multicultural counseling: From diversity to universality. Journal of Counseling and Development, 74: 227-331.

Sue, D.W., Arredondo, P. & McDavis, R.J. (1992). Multicultural counseling competencies and standards: A Call to the Profession. Journal of Counseling & Development, 70: 477-486.