Immigration, Cultural Identity, and Mental Health Psycho-social Implications of the Reshaping of America

What will the ethnic, racial and cultural face of the United States look like in the upcoming decades, and how will the American population adapt to these changes? Immigration, Cultural Identity, and Mental Health: Psycho-social Implications of the Reshaping of America outlines the various psychosocial impacts of immigration on cultural identity and its impact on mainstream culture. Thoroughly researched, this book examines how cultural identity relates to individual mental health and should be taken into account in mental health treatment.

In a time when globalization is decreasing the importance of national boundaries and impacting cultural identity for both minority and mainstream populations, the authors explore the multiple facets of what immigration means for culture and mental health. The authors review the concept of acculturation and examine not only how the immigrant's identity transforms through this process, but also how the immigrant transforms the host culture through inter-culturation. The authors detail the risk factors and protective factors that affect the first generation and subsequent generations of immigrants in their adaptation to American society, and also seek to dispel myths and clarify statistics of criminality among immigrant populations.

Further, the book aims to elucidate the importance of ethnicity and race in the psycho-therapeutic encounter and offers treatment recommendations on how to approach and discuss issues of ethnicity and race in psychotherapy. It also presents evidence-based psychological treatment interventions for immigrants and members of minority populations and shows how psychotherapy involves the creation of new, more adaptive narratives that can provide healing, personal growth, and relevance to the immigrant experience. Throughout, the authors provide clinical case examples to illustrate the concepts presented.

Eugenio Rothe MD is Professor of Psychiatry, Founding Faculty Member of the Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine, Courtesy Professor of the Robert Stempel School of Public Health, and Adjunct Professor of the Cuban Research Institute and Latin American and Caribbean Center at Florida International University. He is a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and a Psychoanalytic Fellow of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis and Dynamic Psychiatry and he is also board certified in Forensic Psychiatry. Dr. Rothe has dedicated his career to treating the multicultural adults, children and families of South Florida and has written extensively about the mental health issues of immigrants, refugees and patients of diverse cultural backgrounds and about psychological trauma in these populations. Dr. Rothe has been selected for the Best Doctors in America list for the past six years and is a reviewer for five scientific journals. He is President of the American Association of Social Psychiatry and President of the South Florida Council of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Past Chair of the American Psychiatric Association's Committee for Mental Health in the Schools and Past-Chair of the Scientific Program Committee of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis and Dynamic Psychiatry, among others. He has been the recipient of: 1) The Edward D. Harris Medical Professionalism Award of the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society, 2) The Bruno Lima Award and 3) Nancy Roeske Award of the American Psychiatric Association, the 4) Jeanne Spurlock Award and the 5) Distinguished Member Award of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 6) The Citation for Civilian Merit from the U.S. Armed Forces, and 7) five-time recipient of Outstanding Teacher in Psychiatry awards from the University of Miami.

Andres Pumariega MD is Professor and Chief, Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry in the Department of Psychiatry at University of Florida College of Medicine and UF Health. He is a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association (APA) and the Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP), and Fellow of the American College of Psychiatrists and American Orthopsychiatric Association. He has served as Associate Editor of the American Journal of Orthopsychiatry and the Journal of Child and Family Studies, and on the Editorial Board of Community Mental Health Journal, Journal of Child and Family Studies, and is currently the Associate Editor of Adolescent Psychiatry. He co-led the drafting of the CMHS Cultural Competence Standards (1999) and the AACAP Practice Parameter for Culturally Competent Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Care (2013), the only cultural competence practice parameters in Medicine. He served as President of the American Orthopsychiatric Association (2010-2012) and President of the American Association of Social Psychiatry (2013-2015). He was the founding Chair, Work Group on Systems of Care (1994-2001), and Co-Chair, Committee on Diversity and Culture (2007-2015) in the AACAP; and Chair, Committee on Hispanic Psychiatrists (2006-2009) of the APA. He has over 220 scientific publications, published over 250 abstracts, edited three textbooks and four journal special issues. Dr. Pumariega has received numerous awards, including the APA's Simon Bolivar Award and Lecture in Hispanic Psychiatry (2004), and the AACAP's Jeanne Spurlock Award and Lecture on Diversity and Culture (2007).

Foreword
Pedro Ruiz, M.D.

1. Culture, Identity and Psychosocial Development

2. Immigration Trends in the United States

3. The Psychodynamic Aspects of Migration

4. Acculturation

5. Immigration and Race

6. Refugees and Special Populations

7. Transnational Identities, Pilgrimages, and Return Migrations

8. Criminality among Immigrants to the United States: Dispelling Myths and Clarifying Statistics

9. The Immigrant Narrative

10. Treatment Interventions for Immigrants, Refugees, and their Families