Grounded Theory : Latino Mental Health Providers\u27 Perceptions of the Mental Health Beliefs of Latino Clients

This study explores the mental health beliefs of Latinos through the eyes of Latino Mental Health Providers. Many Latinos have a view of psychologists as a healer. This view was explored relative to that of the cognitive behavioral approach, which has a strong emphasis on its self-help approach to therapy. In addition to its self-help qualities, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is recognized for its effectiveness in the mental health treatment of diverse ethnic/cultural populations. However, the CBT philosophy may seem at times, to be contradictory to many Latinos\u27 beliefs that the therapist\u27s role is as a healer. A five item semi-structured questionnaire was developed, and was used to interview nine Latino Mental Health Providers. The questionnaire was geared toward eliciting Latino Mental Health Providers\u27 beliefs, based on their therapeutic encounters with Latino clients. The goal of the study was to report collected data pertaining to the mental health beliefs of Latinos and the ways in which clinicians can use the data to bridge the gap between the mental health beliefs of Latinos and empirically based models of therapy rooted in the cognitive behavioral tradition