Breaking language barriers: Dr. Jorge Lopez addresses mental health stigma in Idaho's Spanish-speaki
MERIDIAN, Idaho (CBS2 News) — More than half of Hispanic young adults ages 18 to 25 with serious mental illness may not receive treatment, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI). Dr. Jorge Lopez, NAMI board member, licensed counselor, and assistant professor at Palo Alto University, believes one of the biggest contributors to the stigma surrounding mental health in the Spanish-speaking community is language.
"It's easy for people to talk about counseling and mental health in English, but some of those words don't necessarily translate to Spanish," said Dr. Lopez.
Dr. Lopez cited the example of the commonly used phrase, "mental illness."
"When you translate 'illness' to Spanish, it's 'enfermedad,' and that means a sickness," said Dr. Lopez. "That means that you're sick of something, so nobody wants to approach something and think, oh, if I have depression, then I'm sick, there's something wrong with me, I'm broken."
He says a way to alleviate this issue is by speaking with the Hispanic community to assure them they're not broken or sick if they're struggling with a mental illness. Another barrier though, is accessing care in your native tongue.
"I would be surprised if there were maybe 20 Spanish-speaking counselors in the state of Idaho," said Dr. Lopez. "That would be a lot in my opinion because I don't think there's many of us out there."
Dr. Lopez says there is a lack of access and awareness to mental health problems and solutions in the Spanish-speaking community.
"I've tried to look for resources for the community members here and there's not that many out there," said Dr. Lopez.
That being said, Dr. Lopez mentioned that NAMI Idaho is creating services for Spanish-speaking families around the state to help with this problem. Although there is no easy solution, he says that letting people express themselves in their own language can make a huge difference.
"Even for those only English-speaking counselors, there's a lot of research that shows that if you allow your client that speaks a different language to feel the emotion and talk about it in their own language, even if you don't truly fully understand it, that's still therapeutic healing and growth in that process," said Dr. Lopez.
Another point Dr. Lopez discussed was the importance of not assuming you know what a community needs.
"I think having just a bunch of those kind of awareness conversations you know, entering those spaces, where the community already exists and not going in there to try to say hey, here's the solutions to all your problems, but instead how can we create collaboration and community with you to know what your issues are?"
ncG1vNJzZmihlJa1sLrEsKpnm5%2BifKexwK2sq52jZLWmuMuoZKKckZ28cK7RnpikoZ6ceq2tzaCsmp%2BVYq%2BivtGinKurXZm%2FbrbOq56eZZykvabGjJqbnaqVqMCmv4ymnKeskaF6qbHApauhZaOptqi5wGagp2WZma6pu9JmqqmZnp7AqXnSqZyao5mjtG6vzqakrqaZqcY%3D