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Latino Mental Health Services Continued...

Results reveal a dramatic increase in mental disorders the longer Mexican Americans live in California. That is, for nearly all of the major mental disorders assessed, there was a positive association between acculturation and risk for lifetime prevalence of diagnosable mental disorders (e.g., any affective, anxiety, or substance use disorder). For example, nearly 50% of U.S. born Mexican Americans met criteria for a diagnosable mental disorder, compared to 32.3% among long-term immigrants, and just 18.4% among short-term immigrants. These findings lead to the conclusion that acculturation has deleterious effects on Mexicans who migrate to the U.S.

Culturally competent mental health services are needed to address the declining mental health of Latinos in the U.S. Because Latinos underutilize mental health service while overutilizing health and religious services for emotional and interpersonal problems, outreach to where Latinos live, work, and seek help is essential. Hospitals, churches, and natural support systems within the Latino community are logical places in which to make Latinos aware of needed mental health services. Services need to be easy to access (both physically and financially) and must be culturally and socially acceptable.

For example, the central role of the family in most Latino lives makes family therapy a viable way of addressing a variety of problems, especially conflicts between couples or between parents and children. Short-term, problem-focused therapies also represent practical ways of responding to the pressing, low-income circumstances of many Latino clients, as well as to their expectations of an active, educating, and prescriptive therapist. Given the Western European and mainstream American values embedded in most forms of contemporary psychotherapy, intervention approaches often need to be modified to fit the Latino experience. At the same time, it is necessary to work outside Latino culture by teaching clients new cultural skills that help them to function more fully in their essentially bicultural reality.

Excerpted from Kurt C. Organista, Peter G. Manoleas, and Rafael Herrera (2001), "Culturally Competent Mental Health Services for Latinos: An Examination of Three Practice Settings," in Shardlow, S. & Doel, M. (eds.), Learning to Practice Social Work: International Approaches, Jessica Kingsley Publishers.