Culturally Adapted Psychotherapies: Beneficial, Trivial, or Harmful?
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.37226/rcp.v9i1.8825Keywords:
ethnicity, psychotherapy, decolonization, cultural adaptationsAbstract
The field of psychotherapy research has demonstrated, with abundant data, that psychotherapies are effective in bringing relief to persons that have psychiatric symptoms and disorders. The effects of those interventions are not trivial, with notable and beneficial changes in thoughts, emotions, behaviors, and neural circuits. Nevertheless, most of those studies have been conducted in countries in the Global North, meaning North America and Europe. Some authors have suggested that the benefits of psychotherapy interventions have not been evaluated in ethnic minorities nor in persons living in the Global South. The present article explores if it is reasonable to transport those psychotherapies, without any adaptations, to persons living in other cultures and with different ethnic backgrounds. Next, the idea that psychotherapies must be adapted to fit different cultural contexts is explored. Finally, some authors, mostly identified with the decolonizing of psychology, has proposed that psychotherapies, having been created in Europe, are part of the colonizing of psychology, and so have a potential to oppress and being harmful to those seeking help. Finally, it is proposed that the debate of the cultural fit of psychotherapies needs more data, especially in Puerto Rico, to assess the merits of such adaptations.
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