Counseling Psychology: Interventions with Lations - Research Paper Example

ulture certainly plays a pivotal role in psychopathology and the associated mental ailments like pain, anxiety, schizophrenia, substance abuse, eating disorders and mood disorders (Moodley & Palmer, 2006). There is no denying the fact that there are certain aspects of the mental disorders, which are found to be common and same across diverse cultures. Yet, culture does exercise a specific influence on every major mental disorder. Thus, culture does need to be taken into consideration in diagnostic and assessment practices and the accompanying interventions (Moodley & Palmer, 2006).

Cultural issues and aspirations need to get a priority in the delivery of mental health services. This approach also has a positive influence in the sense that recognizing the cultural factors in counseling psychology could play a major role in the accrual of scientific knowledge (Moodley & Palmer, 2006). A culture sensitive approach towards counseling psychology should be an essential aspect of the training and practice of clinical and counseling psychologists and such other professionals employed in the field of mental health.

Going by the current demographic trends, Latinos are more or less evenly scattered across the United States and definitively they do have a great impact on the ethnic makeup of the country. Latinos also constitute the fastest growing minority ethnic group in the US (Comas-Diaz, 2006). In the period 1990-2000, while the overall population of the US registered an increase of 13.2 percent, in the same time, the Latino population augmented by 57.9 percent (Comas-Diaz, 2006). This trend is expected to continue in the times to come as a major proportion of the Latino immigrants happen to be young and the Latinos do have a high birth rate (Comas-Diaz, 2006).

Contrary to what is believed, in fact, Latinos are a highly heterogeneous and differentiated ethnic group, comprising of ethnic communities like Central and South Americans, Hispanics, Latins, Latinos, Hispanos,