The Latino Psychiatric Patient


Book Description

This unique book helps mental health professionals acquire the knowledge, skills, and--most important--the cultural sensitivity necessary for integrating culture-specific treatments (e.g., folk-healing methods) with more traditional interventions (e.g., medication and case management) to achieve successful outcomes for Latino patients.




Mental Health


Book Description




Latino Mental Health


Book Description




The Latino Psychiatric Patient


Book Description

This unique book helps mental health professionals acquire the knowledge, skills, and--most important--the cultural sensitivity necessary for integrating culture-specific treatments (e.g., folk-healing methods) with more traditional interventions (e.g., medication and case management) to achieve successful outcomes for Latino patients.




Medicalizing Ethnicity


Book Description

In Medicalizing Ethnicity, Vilma Santiago-Irizarry shows how commendable intentions can produce unintended consequences. Santiago-Irizarry conducted ethnographic fieldwork in three bilingual, bicultural psychiatric programs for Latino patients at public mental health facilities in New York City. The introduction of "cultural sensitivity" in mental health clinics, she concludes, led doctors to construct essentialized, composite versions of Latino ethnicity in their drive to treat mental illness with sensitivity. The author demonstrates that stressing Latino differences when dealing with patients resulted not in empowerment, as intended, but in the reassertion of Anglo-American standards of behavior in the guise of psychiatric categories by which Latino culture was negatively defined. For instance, doctors routinely translated their patients' beliefs in the Latino religious traditions of espiritismo and Santería into psychiatric terms, thus treating these beliefs as pathologies.Interpreting mental health care through the framework of culture and politics has potent effects on the understanding of "normality" toward which such care aspires. At the core of Medicalizing Ethnicity is the very definition of multiculturalism used by a variety of institutional settings in an attempt to mandate equality.







Cultural Foundations and Interventions in Latino/a Mental Health


Book Description

Advancing work to effectively study, understand, and serve the fastest growing U.S. ethnic minority population, this volume explicitly emphasizes the racial and ethnic diversity within this heterogeneous cultural group. The focus is on the complex historical roots of contemporary Latino/as, their diversity in skin-color and physiognomy, racial identity, ethnic identity, gender differences, immigration patterns, and acculturation. The work highlights how the complexities inherent in the diverse Latino/a experience, as specified throughout the topics covered in this volume, become critical elements of culturally responsive and racially conscious mental health treatment approaches. By addressing the complexities, within-group differences, and racially heterogeneity characteristic of U.S. Latino/as, this volume makes a significant contribution to the literature related to mental health treatments and interventions.




Latino Mental Health


Book Description




Guide to Psychological Assessment with Hispanics


Book Description

This book focuses on diversity, culture, and ethnicity as they relate to psychological assessment of Hispanics. It is a how-to guide for clinicians, researchers, and instructors working with Hispanic clients. Each chapter contains an overview of cultural considerations needed for assessing the Hispanic client followed by a specific exploration of the assessment measures available and the research that has been conducted on these measures with Hispanic participants. An exploration of the strengths and limitations of each assessment measure is included. Considering that ethnocultural minority individuals who are of Hispanic/Latino origin make up the largest ethnocultural minority group in the United States, guidelines for working with this population are a must. Given that a large subset of this percentage is composed of immigrants many of whom do not speak English or who have learned English as a second language, special considerations for effective psychological assessment are neccessary.This book fills a gap in the scientific literature by consolidating the research on psychological assessment with Hispanic samples into one comprehensive volume and providing simple recommendations for the psychological assessment of Hispanic clients. An exploration of the general psychological assessment domains (e.g., personality, intelligence) is included with references to research on the major assessment measures used in the field. A more specific exploration of psychodiagnostic assessment measures follows, including the assessment of mood disorders, anxiety disorders, sexual dysfunction, psychosis, etc. Several chapters are dedicated to specialized assessment, including neuropsychological assessment, forensic assessment, and school-based assessment, overall creating the most comprehensive, up-to-date, research-based compendium of psychological assessment measures for use with Hispanic clients.