*Note* This scheduling program was not designed by folks who do a lot with APA Style and unfortunately it defaults to listing authors in alphabetical order. We cannot fix this for this online schedule, but the author orders are posted in the order submitted in the printed program available via pdf here.
When providing psychological services to Latinas, clinicians must be prepared to address a broad range of identities and experiences. Latinas are not a monolithic group and mental health practitioners need to deliver interventions that are responsive to a multiplicity of factors including nationality, geographic location, social class, immigration status, level of acculturation, education, and exposure to discrimination and exploitation. It is paramount that psychologists turn their attention to intragroup differences among Latinas in order to respond effectively to the needs of the many subgroups represented in this population. In this symposium, the presenters will share their experiences and the results of their research studies on culturally responsive practice with Latinas, both in the U.S. and internationally. Throughout the program, implications for research, feminist clinical practice, training, and social justice will be explored. The first presentation will discuss how the experiences of clinicians in New Mexico and Texas may translate into promising practices in the provision of psychological services to undocumented immigrant women from Mexico across the U.S. The next presentation will highlight the role of technology in a multi-year international Participatory Action Research collaboration between U.S.-based researchers and members of Fundación Ana Margarita in Medellín, Colombia who are also survivors of commercial sexual exploitation. The final presentation will introduce a new protocol for a support group for first-year Latina undergraduates focusing on positive identity development, effective methods for handling the transition to college life, the experience of discrimination, and the development of coping strategies to address academic concerns.
As the U.S becomes a more multiculturally diverse nation, the need for increased multicultural and cross-cultural research in psychology is an ethical imperative. The utilization of indigenous healing practices in the United States have greatly increased in popularity among minority populations. However, despite their increased utilization, indigenous forms of healing are often devalued or invalidated due to their differing epistemological worldview from the Western positivist paradigm. There has been little research done into understanding the healing mechanisms of these practices and understanding how and why they are effective. While indigenous approaches in psychology continue to be somewhat invisible within the dominant professional paradigm, attention to cultural healing practices was common among such founders of psychology as C. G. Jung, at a time when many other Western traditions dismissed any perspectives that were derived outside of the Western “scientific” paradigm. Sinha (1997), among the first psychology scholars to provide a definition of indigenous psychology, suggested that such psychology(ies) share emphasis on the cultural foundations of knowledge, local practices, interpretations grounded in local frames of reference, and locally relevant results. Undoubtedly, contemporary feminist psychology, embedded within Third and Fourth Waves of feminism, emphasizes these very same values. However, training, writing, and presentations on specific ways to integrate indigenous perspectives as well as research methods, remain scarce. Therefore, this proposed Symposium would provide not only a review of contemporary perspectives on indigenous, shamanic, and folk healing perspectives outside of traditional Western psychological paradigms, but also invite participants to learn about these practices within the context of clinical work, research, and personal experiences of three women-presenters. These presentations will draw upon research on indigenous healing practices in South America as well as contemporary shamanic work in North American context. Lastly, the presenters will introduce rationale for ways that indigenous approaches can function as liberatory, feminist, and socially relevant practices both outside and inside the Western context.
