Edil Torres Rivera

Invited Commentary: Fostering Resilience Among Native American Youth Through Therapeutic Intervention

This article offers a comprehensive overview and understanding of the needs of Native American Youth for researchers, educators, and practitioners based on current research and practice. Strengths and protective factors are discussed in terms of Native strengths in context, the strengths and resilience of Native ways, Indigenous ways of knowing, the relationship between cultural identity and the tribal nation, the importance of family, the roles of the wisdom keepers, spiritual ways, and communication styles. Contextual influences are explored in terms of the relationship between history and healing from intergenerational grief and trauma, the influence of acculturation, as well as current social, economic, and political issues that affect Native youth. Implications for research and therapeutic intervention are explored in terms of healing from historical trauma and oppression. The authors offer an overview of common presenting issues and recommendations, practical tribally-specific interventions, and reflections on what it means to work from a social justice and client/community advocacy perspective with a focus on providing effective therapeutic, culturally-based interventions with Native children and adolescents that promote resilience and foster positive development with this population.

Justice Making in Groups for Homeless Adults: The Emancipatory Communitarian Way

The need for group counseling services for homeless adults is increasing with recent economic and natural disasters, representing crises that exacerbate the ongoing financial and social marginalization of this population. To address their needs, Emancipatory Communitarianism (EC; Prilleltensky, 1997) is suggested for group counselors working to promote critical consciousness, a strengths orientation, self-determination, communal responsibility, and advocacy for the homeless who experience oppression through various forms of social injustices. This article will outline the underlying principles of this approach and provide key strategies for implementing EC in a group counseling setting with homeless adults.

Colonialism and Multicultural Counseling Competence Research: A Liberatory Analysis

The effort to advance the multicultural counseling movement has been hard-fought over the past few decades. In recent years, important work has been done to further advance the multicultural counseling movement through the paradigm of social justice. The social justice paradigm calls into question the colonial structure in which notions of counseling competence in general, and multicultural counseling competence in particular, have been defined and investigated. In this chapter, we attempt to shine a critical light on these colonial foundations as they pertain to researching the multicultural counseling competencies.

Native American Adult Lifespan Perspectives: Where Power Moves

The purpose of this chapter is to present information summarizing research findings on strengths and challenges to mental health in Native adult populations. This will be accomplished by offering a comprehensive overview and understanding of this population through discussion of (a) basic demographic information, (b) strengths that contribute to the resilience of Native adults, (c) significant challenges Native adults face in maintaining mental health, and finally (d) a discussion linking strengths and challenges at the level of research and/or policy in order to better understand how the strengths and resilience of Native adults can be used for the betterment of this population.