What I Wish Everyone Knew About Latinx Mental Health
I recently read this article on the importance of removing the stigma around mental health in the Lantinx community. It’s a really great article, so take the time to read it too. After reading the article I found myself ruminating on 3 concepts: 1) What MH stigma looks like specifically for the Latinx community, 2) How privacy and religion come into play, and 3) Bi-culturalism.
REMOVING STIGMA
As a Latinx therapist I feel like the word stigma doesn’t fully capture the nuances of the general Latinx outlook on mental health. For a long time the Latinx community was nonexistent in the conversations about mental health altogether. We didn’t have the luxury of participating in the dialogues of stigma, because our existence as a separate cultural group within mental health at large wasn’t acknowledged at the table. Within the community mental health was also not highlighted as an important part of general wellbeing. While the Latinx community itself is beginning to discuss mental health as an important concept in our culture, many barriers challenge accessibility to care. Distrust of authority figures, high cost, lack of bilingual care options, and cultural variables like extreme privacy and faith differences all get in the way of Latinx people getting therapy. While some places, like mental health nonprofits are lowering the cost of care and adding bilingual clinicians for accessibility, time restraints and inadequate transportation still pose as obstacles.
As a member of this community, I know that the openness required in therapy in order to discuss emotions and thoughts often goes against cultural norms of privacy, and thus can cause anxiety, fear, or shame. Furthermore, the idea of taking time for oneself as a Latina is often a low-priority or foreign concept. Community and caring for others are cultural norms and ways Latinas show love. So many times feelings get swept under the rug in favor of caring for a household full of people -- from immediate to extended family members.
“Latinas are expected to take care of their family instead of taking care of themselves first.”
PRIVACY & RELIGION
In Latinx culture faith, privacy, and etiquette often supersede the importance of asking for help and get in the way of people sharing struggles with others. This idea of sharing one’s issues is viewed as airing one’s dirty laundry and is socially unacceptable. Instead of seeking out social emotional support or therapy, people in the Latinx community are instead often encouraged to seek religious support like prayer or an increase in church attendance. Sometimes this can feel invalidating if an individual is seeking help through therapy and not the religion they grew up with. Some of the stigma surrounding therapy is also maintained because people fear that it will be in conflict with their religious practices or they will be shamed by religious family members. On the contrary, therapy meets you where you are and makes room for maintaining religious customs or questioning them. In my experience though, Latinx clients often bring to therapy a wealth of shame related to religious trauma and can often feel emotionally blocked or too embarrassed to disclose personal information.
“According to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, only 20 percent of Latinxs experiencing mental health issues ever speak to their doctors about their symptoms. Worse still is that only 10 percent actually seek out help from a mental health practitioner.”
BI-CULTURALISM
Bi-culturalism is the idea that a person can have two cultural identities simultaneously. With the Latinx community in America this can bring with it a lot of complicated feelings. For example, at home one could identify more with their country of origin while feeling pressured to be ‘more American’ at school. American Latinxs can find themselves stuck between feeling too American around their families and not American enough when part of the majority culture at work or school. Bi-cultural issues can often be complicated and pose additional challenges for young adults in the process of figuring out who they are. Having a bilingual and bicultural therapist can help bridge that gap to help the Latinx client address issues from both cultural identities.
“According to the American Psychological Association, only 5.5% of psychologists here in the States are able to give care in Spanish.”
If you are Latinx and are thinking about starting therapy or are looking for a bilingual therapist who understands the unique issues of biculturalism, feel free to reach out to me. Growing up in a Puerto Rican family in Texas, I understand the cultural identity journey Latinxs take.
