Promoting Resilience in Immigrants Understanding Latino/a Adaptation and Strengths

Abstract This chapter outlines adversities faced by immigrants as well as factors associated with their resilience. The Latino/a immigrant population is highlighted as the largest immigrant population in the United States. Factors contributing to resilience in this population, as well as programs and approaches used to foster well-being and resilience are discussed. Recommendations for factors to consider in promoting resilience in the Latino/a immigrant population are given, and future directions are highlighted and discussed

Best Practice Guidelines on Prevention Improving the Well-Being of Individuals, Families, and Communities

Abstract The health care system in the United States is shifting toward a focus on prevention. Several reasons account for this shift, including staggering health care costs and research indicating many illnesses are preventable through behavioral interventions. Hence, increasing evidence linking mental and physical health outcomes make the involvement of psychologists crucial in promoting a prevention orientation within the health care system. Counseling psychologists have been leaders in the development and ratification of a set of prevention practice guidelines for psychologists. These guidelines, entitled Prevention Science and Practice Guidelines for Psychologists, provide an aspirational model for best practice in the area of prevention. This chapter aims to further psychologists’ and other mental health care professionals’ understanding and application of the principles of the Prevention Guidelines (APA, Under Review) to their work. Specific examples of model programs in areas of psychological practice, research, training, and social advocacy illustrate each of the prevention guidelines

A History of Prevention in Counseling Psychology

Abstract This chapter’s two tables present illustrative markers of prevention events that have occurred within counseling psychology and within prevention per se. These markers are addressed selectively in the chapter’s narrative, which is organized sequentially as follows: (1) “Early Antecedents”; (2) “A Decade of Fomentation: The 1960s”; (3) “Prevention Emerges in the 1970s”; (4) “Prevention Expands: 1980s–Current,” with attention to 1980–1989, 1990–1999, 2000–2010; and (5) “Future Directions.” The thesis is that prevention in counseling psychology remains an artifact of hope. Although impressive scholarly production has occurred at an increasing pace since around 1985 and the Society of Counseling Psychology has formalized its support of prevention through its Prevention Section, “real world” demonstrations of gains—through training curricula, research, and employment—suggest that prevention remains still on the outside looking in. Yet due largely to the noticeable increase in prevention professional literature and to passage of health care reform legislation, the time for prevention in counseling psychology may finally have come—though we should be mindful that we’ve heard that refrain sung before

Critical Psychology, Prevention, and Social Justice

Abstract Critical psychology and prevention have a goal in common: the promotion of individual and community well-being. Their ways of achieving it, however, vary. In this chapter we explore similarities and differences between these two disciplines in terms of values, ontology, epistemology, and practices. Whereas prevention has assumed a value-neutral, positivist and largely individualistic approach, critical psychology has endorsed an explicitly value-laden and social action orientation. The value of social justice, very prevalent in critical psychology, assumes a marginal position in prevention. With the notable exception of George Albee and his disciples, prevention professionals have embraced the promotion of health and the reduction of personal risk factors as their main goals. Whereas critical psychologists have done a great deal to show the role of injustice in mental health and psychosocial problems, they have not done as well as preventionists in systematically implementing and evaluating psychosocial interventions. We argue for a synergy between critical psychology and prevention to promote both sustainable well-being and social justice