Folk hero modeling therapy for Puerto Rican adolescents

Puerto Ricans are concentrated in the Northeastern United States in predominantly low socioeconomic status, urban Hispanic communities. Due to a constellation of stressors associated with their minority status, bilingualism and bicultural conflicts, Puerto Rican adolescents are at high risk of mental disorder. Research has shown that factors such as migration experiences, low socioeconomic status, and Hispanic values conflicting with Anglo culture (e.g., familism, spiritualistic and folk beliefs, orientation to time) are associated with higher rates of psychiatric symptomatology in the Hispanic population. Community mental health resources are under utilized, and traditional therapy modalities have had limited success in remedying the emotional and behavioural problems of Hispanics. This paper reviews several approaches to the delivery of culturally sensitive mental health services to Hispanic populations and describes the development of a new modality for Puerto Rican adolescents. The modality presents Puerto Rican folk heroes and heroines in a modelling therapy targeted towards enhancing adolescents' pride in their ethnic heritage, self-esteem, and adaptive coping with stress. The therapy was implemented on a small-group basis with 21 Puerto Rican adolescents, some of whom participated with their mothers. A clinical evaluation of the therapy was conducted by summarizing therapists' progress reports on each participant and by interviewing the participants about their impressions of the therapy experience. Progress reports and participants' self-reports indicated that the adolescents increased in self-disclosure and self-confidence; they gained pride in being Puerto Rican; they learned adaptive mechanisms for coping with stress; and they enjoyed learning about famous Puerto Ricans and their culture.