Aborderlands view on Latinos, Latin Americans, and decolonization: rethinkingmental health by Pilar
Hernandez-Wolfe central thesis focuses on what the author terms
“intersectionality”. Intersectionality can be thought of as the interplay of
race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, migration, class, language, and
macroeconomic and social-ecological influences on our lives. The author, a
licensed marriage and family therapist, helps readers climb a virtual mountain
of historic underpinnings of social injustice, and arriving at the peak, we are
able to understand how this foundation of intersections form the basis of an
identity and frequently serve as the basis of individual or familial mental
health pathology.
Rather than blame the individual, the author
holds superpowers such as the United States, and colonializers, such as Spain,
as the responsible parties for much of the suffering in the Americas. Her
definition of colonialization is that colonization happens any time an outside
culture invades an existent culture, resulting in a loss of knowledge of and
appreciation for the existent culture, and giving rise to a new, third culture
that lacks understanding of the original culture and ways of being. From this
perspective, colonization is a macro-traumatic act, forcing entire societies
into submission and giving rise to a new social order where the colonized
people internalize globalization and perpetuate colonization against their own
people.
People who have internalized inequality and
unhelpful bystanders come to perpetuate inequality in their own societies, and
learn only upon immigration to the United States, that even if they are
considered “White” or of the ruling
class in their country of origin, in the U.S., Latinos are frequently
assimilated into the class that is “ruled over”.
Drawing on feminist principals of sharing of
economic and social power, the author stipulates that the pathway towards
healing lies first in developing critical conscience. Only when people begin to
understand the exterior forces that led them to points of crisis in their own
lives, can they begin to see inequities in society that harm both the
individual as well as anyone they are exercising “power over”. The author
explores “Just Therapy” and “Transformative Family Therapy” as theoretical
models for treating mental health issues in minority clients. However, I would
suggest that beyond looking only at minority clients, the treatment models
suggested could be useful for clients of all backgrounds. While White middle
class heterosexual clients might not go to marriage therapy looking for someone
to “blame” for their problems, the real answer lies in examining personal
history and the exposures (biological, social, educational) that have laid the
basis of our automatic cognitions. One of the reasons I hypothesize that
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy has been indicated for so many conditions is that
it is goal focused and practical and its techniques are replicable.
Just Therapy and Transformative Family
Therapy may be more difficult to replicate, as one of the central approaches
involves males and females breaking into gender congruent groups to discuss the
issues that brought them to therapy and develop a conscious awareness of the
societal and economic forces that prevail in their lives and may have been the
germination bed of their inter-familial issue. Numerous therapists are used and
the therapeutic practice itself meets regularly to discuss each therapists’
praxis of the racial, ethnic, gender, sexual-orientation, and class biases that
may impacts his or her own ability to deliver Just/Transformative Therapy.
This approach, with its critical analysis of
race, ethnicity, gender, sexual identity, class identity, and migration history
may not prove helpful for people from highly individualistic societies, or
those that are drawn to solution focused therapeutic approaches. However,
especially for people who come from societies with a collective orientation,
this approach may be more helpful than CBT.
One of the essential take aways from this
book is of the need for therapists to examine their own privileges. Rather than
identify “White” privilege as the culpable issue, the author takes on the
shades of beige and the ways that Latinos in the U.S. may use their “minority”
status as a way to rule over Latinos of a “lesser” class. Arguing that everyone
has some privilege, the author urges readers to think about all the different
ways that their particular race, ethnicity, gender, sexual-orientation, and
education has shaped their perception of the world and the ways that these
particular facets of identity elevate or lower how they are perceived in society,
and how that perception affects the power distance they experience between
themselves and their clients.
While the author weaves together theoretical
and treatment approaches from a variety of the social sciences, there are
portions of the book that would have benefited from the loving hand of a copy
editor and additional critical feedback from peers. If the purpose of the
chapter that contains information on Just Therapy and Transformative Family
Therapy was to provide instruction on how to implement these therapeutic
modalities, then the chapter could really benefit from addition of more
material that at minimum could provide the standard “Plan-Do-Study-Act”
approach used in dissemination sciences. It seemed to me that the foundational
planning and strategizing mental health practices would need to undertake in
order to implement this approach wasn’t sufficiently covered in a way that
would facilitate planning to undertake this type of practice transformation.
This book is informative for graduate level
students seeking to deepen their understanding of the historic issues inherent
in the mental health treatment of Latinos in the United States. The study guide
at the end provides questions for critical consideration and could serve as a
study guide for a seminar on Latino mental health. However, this book does not
offer typical prevalence or incidence information for students seeking to
understand basic information on Latino mental health in the United States.
Additional reading would be required to understand the scope and burden of specific
mental health problems of Latinos in the U.S.
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