This document discusses considerations for counselors working with Latino clients and their families. It covers key aspects of Latino culture like familismo (emphasis on family), gender roles like marianismo and machismo, and the importance of language and extended family. It provides guidelines for counseling Latino clients and families, such as preparing the family for sessions, developing a therapeutic alliance, incorporating the family's belief system, and addressing acculturation issues from a cultural perspective rather than pathological one. The document emphasizes understanding Latino cultural values to provide culturally-sensitive counseling.

1. Considerations for Counselors

2. Interviews
• 23 year old Latina woman—Minneapolis, MN
– Peruvian mother, American father
– Mother immigrated from Peru
– Lived in US her whole life
• 31 year old Latino man—Los Angeles, CA
– Mexican mother and father
– Immigrated to US when he was 4 years old
– Lived in LA since then

3. Family
Familismo—
“ The importance of the roles played by other family members in your
life, the feeling of community within the whole family.” (23 year old
Latina)
• Value close relationships
• Stress interdependence, cohesiveness, and cooperation
• Often includes extended family
• Collectivist worldview
• Shared sense of responsibility for children
– los compadres (godparents)
• Provide financial and emotional support to family
• Decision-making among members of family
• Counselors often diagnosed behaviors as pathological
– Enmeshed and codependent
• Counselors should examine own views of family and connectedness while
being open to positive aspects of familismo

4. Language and Family
• “There are sporadic times when my mom still asks me to
culturally translate something for her, but very few and far
between. It usually has something to do with sayings that
don’t make literal sense. I do not mind at all and find it rather
cute. When I was younger, I thought of it as a bit embarrassing
and awkward. I grew up and realized she didn’t mean
anything by asking other than wanting to know. I put myself in
her shoes and have a different viewpoint now.”
• “About half of my mother’s family speaks Spanish and maybe
even a little English. My brother and I, along with a couple of
my other cousins do not speak Spanish fluently so there is a
language barrier. This proves to be difficult especially when
only means of communication when living so far apart is the
telephone.”

5. Gender
Marianismo—
“ Marianismo is when a woman “acts as a lady should” proper and keeping
her private relationship life private. I was expected to uphold this at all
times, as I always represent not only myself but my family as well.” (23
year old Latina)
• self-sacrificing, spiritual strength, humble, virtuous, silent power of family
• “Virgin Mary”-like
Machismo—
“ A macho or over-masculine attitude upheld by Latin men, gives the men a
little more lenience for acting like “a guy.” As a female, we were to not
step on a man’s pride or emasculate them because as we were to allow
them to be masculine.” (23 year old Latina)
“We were raised to always look out for each other, yet as a man, I was
raised with the ‘do what you have to do’ mentality.” (31 year old Latino)
• men’s responsibility to provide for, protect, and defend their families
• loyalty

6. Strengths in Diversity
• worldview that emphasizes
harmony, unity, cooperation, and cyclical view of
life
• greater sense of personal identity compared to
many Anglo-Americans
• resiliency derived from religion and family
• pioneer spirit in the face of adversity and
structural barriers
• a sense of debt and responsibility to one’s
cultural heritage

7. Guidelines for Counseling
• Prepare family—explain what they should expect
from sessions
• Assume a “humble expert” approach with the
family
• Focus on developing a therapeutic alliance
• Use the family narrative to define the problem
• Check for themes of loss and grief
• Assess levels of acculturations of family members
• Pursue presenting problems and symptoms from
a functional framework rather than the
identification of diagnoses and systemic
dysfunctions

8. Guidelines Continued
• Reframe intergenerational and acculturation problems as
a “culture-conflict” problem and not as a family problem
• Incorporate the family belief system into the intervention
• Maximize the available resources in the family
• Avoid gender stereotypes
• Incorporate spirituality and folk healers when applicable
• Learn Spanish or develop working knowledge
• Develop techniques that will allow clients to express in
Spanish (if preferred) even if counselor doesn’t
understand
• Learn limitations of interpreters and translated materials
• Use standardized assessments sparingly, if at all