Suicide rates for young Americans are rising. With Latino youth among the most vulnerable, some researchers are calling for a culturally informed approach in therapies.
In ethnic communities family, culture and societal expectations significantly affect identity and mental health. Dr. Yovanska Duarté-Vélez, associate professor of psychiatry and human behavior at Brown University, developed the first culturally adapted treatment for suicidal Latino and Hispanic teens.
“Part of the development of adolescents, identity is essential component in which we take into consideration different aspects of the self, like their ethnicity, their cultural values, their beliefs and how they see themselves and see their families,” Duarté-Vélez said.
Imagine an onion, said the researcher, who has written extensively about ethnically diverse teens with suicidal thoughts and ways to tailor treatments to them. In the onion, “the youth is in the center and is surrounded by the family, the context, like the environment, and then the broader cultural values and system,” Duarté-Vélez said.
Duarté-Vélez’s Socio-Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for Suicidal Behaviors (SCBT-SB) considers each layer of the onion. It builds off traditional Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), focusing not only on coping with and changing negative thoughts and attitudes but also incorporating how family communication, social interactions, trauma, activities and substance use can influence those thoughts and behaviors.
During a recent trial of a small sample of 46 Hispanic/Latino youths and at least one of their caregivers, the results revealed the therapy was more effective in reducing suicide attempts and depressive symptoms when compared to regular therapies. “There may be other clinicians that … take into consideration cultural aspects – and that’s great – but … we need to make sure that the protocol we are testing is included in a standardized way,” Duarté-Vélez said.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.