http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5825-0833
The main theme of this book is that there is a desperate need to understand the mental trauma inflicted on indigenous people (in particular) by colonialism, coloniality and decolonization. In particular, Pilar Hernández-Wolfe stresses that these forms of power deeply influence indigenous people’s experiences of post-traumatic stress. This seems an excellent way to frame both the social creation and social construction of post-traumatic stress experienced by indigenous people, as well as useful lens to understand their identity, resilience and human rights. Most of A Borderlands View on Latino, Latin Americans, and Decolonization focuses on Latinos and Latin Americans, particularly the Abya Yala, but stories from New Zealand Maoris and other cultures are also included.
Hernández-Wolfe is a family therapist who was born and raised in the Andes but has also lived in the United States, where she is active in the Maryland Association for Counseling and Development. She identifies as someone on the borderlands of ‘bilingulality, binationality, and interculturality’ (36). This borderlands personal experience (and the borderlands approach of Gloria Anzaldua) underpins her work. She also draws on transnational feminism, liberation theology and the work of Paulo Friere, standpoint theory and decolonization theory, and (very) occasionally mentions subaltern theory as well. (Inconsistencies and conflicts between these approaches are not explored.)
The book emphasizes the political factors that influence emotional distress – post-traumatic stress in particular. It stresses that civil wars, dictatorships, genocide and extreme poverty are not incidental to the mental health of people in Latin American countries, they are central to the wounds created by historical and ongoing trauma. It is therefore unethical to label people as ‘disordered’ when their ‘symptoms’ reflect experiences such as political repression, genocide or torture (61). The emotional stress and trauma created by colonialism, racism and ethnoviolence should not be interpreted as individual pathologies – Hernández-Wolfe stresses that they are created socially and demand collective responses. However somewhat oddly, she moves away from the social and relies on neurobiological explanations for the role of cortisol in intergenerational risk of trauma (76).
In redressing the trauma and mental health problems experienced by Latinos, Hernández-Wolfe points to the need for therapists to engage with communities harmed by colonialism, and not just individual clients. To heal from the wounds of colonialism, it is necessary to work with individuals, families and communities in a way that promotes self-determination, cultural autonomy and democracy. This emphasis on the social context of behaviour means that therapists cannot simply gather people on the basis of ‘diagnostic category or presenting problem’ (87).
A community-inclusive approach towards family therapy is necessary in order to decentre Eurocentric assumptions about family therapy being focused solely on individuals and to destabilize the assumed power of therapists. She comments that ‘… healing is unlikely to come through submission to the expertise of Eurocentric practitioners, for that is the problem masquerading as the solution. Rather, healing will develop through resistance to colonialism’ (xiii).
Hernández-Wolfe promotes two approaches to family therapy in particular: Just Therapy and Transformative Family Therapy. Just Therapy developed in Aotearoa New Zealand and is based on concepts of fairness, equity and accountability (84). It involves incorporating ‘gender, cultural, social and economic contexts’. Therapists emphasize ‘themes of liberation and self-determination’ and avoid blaming individuals. The book gives examples of Just Therapy being used with Maori people and Pacific Islanders in order to situate problems such as childhood and spousal abuse within broader social structures.
The other form of therapy Hernández-Wolfe promotes is Transformative Family Therapy, which was originally called the ‘Cultural Context Model’. It requires teams of therapists (two or more) who are committed to personal, familial and community change, and who are ‘developing critical consciousness’ as they learn from each other, clients and communities (90). These therapists work alongside ‘cultural consultants’ who are community members trained in therapy. Hernández-Wolfe tells a story where Transformative Therapy was used with an unfaithful Panamanian husband and his wife. He gaslighted her as she voiced suspicions of his infidelity. For weeks, they attended separate therapeutic groups which were divided into ‘gendered circles’ and also met in mixed circles. The unfaithful spouse admitted his infidelity to the men in his group. Then, in a move that Hernández-Wolfe apparently endorses, he talked to other men ‘and once he, the therapists and the other men felt he was ready, he invited his wife and child to the circle to share’ (103). I personally felt very uneasy about this. It seems patriarchal for a group of men to make decisions on when it is appropriate to let a woman know about her unfaithful husband. To me, it also seems problematic for a therapist who is working with a family in such situations to collude with this process of keeping vital (and potentially sexually dangerous) information secret. I do not endorse any process that involves dishonesty towards a spouse who had not only been deceived but also gaslighted.
It is also unclear how these two approaches would conflict with other therapeutic interventions – it feels like this topic is insufficiently addressed. However, in one sentence Hernández-Wolfe states that ‘… neither approach is against pharmacotherapy and targeting problematic issues as an outcome of therapy’ (86).
The subtitle of the book – Rethinking Mental Health – seems somewhat inaccurate. When I saw that it involved ‘rethinking mental health’ I wondered whether it would offer a non-Eurocentric approach to health for people who (in the West) might be labelled as having schizophrenia, depression, bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, and so forth. I hoped for an intersectional analysis of such experiences in a non-western context, framed within a wider perspective of ‘mental health’ rather than ‘mental illness’. This book did not provide that. In fact, I think the subtitle should have been ‘Rethinking Post Traumatic Stress’.
The book is written for therapists, so personal stories are obviously expected. But the stories are told by Hernández-Wolfe herself. Despite her emphasis on therapists working in partnership with people, it seems she as a therapist has retained the power to write these vignettes. They are not authored by the individuals themselves.
For readers of this journal, I am also sad to report that the book’s promise of intersectionality did not include disability. Occasionally, when providing lists of intersectional concerns, Hernández-Wolfe will include ‘ability’ (but never ‘disability’). Even if she believed that western notions of disability ought not be applied to the experience of post-traumatic stress in the Global South, that was worth mentioning. Unfortunately, there is only one paragraph in the book specifically discussing disability – on page 108. There she discusses the connections between humans and animals and mentions ‘animal therapies’ for disabled children. Hence, on the only occasion where Hernández-Wolfe mentions disability, she fails to frame it in the broader context of power, social exclusion and disablism altogether. How to rethink mental health for disabled people, or even how to rethink mental health in the context of disability, is not on her radar.
Department of Sociology and Anthropology, The University of Toledo, Toledo, OH, USA
[email protected]
© 2017 Mark Sherry
https://doi.org/10.1080/09687599.2017.1362183