My reason for contact of this individual was to fulfill the assignment for PYCL 632 Social & Cultural Foundations of Counseling, and to further my understanding and aptitude for analyzing a specific case in multicultural mental health counseling.
Alejandra Lopez is a 40-year old single, divorced female from Ponce, Puerto Rico with a Bachelor’s degree in Accounting. She was raised Catholic but is now a self-described recovering Catholic with an agnostic proclivity. We met in 2002 while I was the Director of a Sylvan Learning Center in Tampa, Florida. I decided to interview Alejandra due to the fact that she is a multicultural female of Puerto Rican descent and cultural heritage who relocated from the Island of Puerto Rico to raise her children …show more content…
After further elaborating on her background and experiences in Puerto Rico, we delve into the abuse she suffered at the hands of the father of her first two children, and her anger for her own father for enabling it. I could tell she was very uncomfortable and hesitant to delve back into her past in such a way, but I think it was therapeutic for her. She had pursued treatment in the past and continues to see a therapist to keep working through these issues. Furthermore, I asked about her current relationships. She informed me that she is currently in a committed relationship with a white American man and is “happy”. It seemed that after these experiences she pursued only American men as potential mates. I got the feeling that Latino men, and more specifically Puerto Rican males, would not be a mate consideration for her going forward. I then asked her how after repeated sexual abuse, moving to the mainland U.S. alone, raising three kids more or less on her own, and fighting cancer made her who she is today? She answered “it made me very strong”. I was stunned by her strength and perseverance. I then asked her how her relationship with her father and extended family is today. She said that her relationship with her father is much better, although I could sense a continued internal struggle with this issue based on her body language and lack of direct eye contact. I asked her about her …show more content…
In my opinion however, I felt a continued lack of trust as exhibited by her body language and verbal responses. Her trust in Western therapeutic interventions I do believe is far stronger now than it was, although I continued to sense an intrapsychic barrier in her behavior. A sense that although therapy had been helpful to her in the past, that she continues to exhibit a lack of “true’ belief in the process even after all of her successes. She seemed to attribute them to her own internal strength, which tells me that she has adopted mainland Euro-America’s independence paradigm over the interdependence most often displayed in her native Puerto Rico. Her lack of trust in her father, mother and Latino men in general seems to remain yet with far less acrimony. Obviously the variance between my culture as a white Euro-American and hers as a Latina remains stark, although not nearly what it was thirteen years ago as she has assimilated to Mainland American culture. Although our cultural differences are unambiguous, we both seem to understand that life is full of challenges, and that we must learn from them in order to become our true and better selves. That our cultures, although different, share many commonalities from faith in our own ability to learn, grow and change over time. Our common understanding that there are bad people in the
Alejandra Lopez is a 40-year old single, divorced female from Ponce, Puerto Rico with a Bachelor’s degree in Accounting. She was raised Catholic but is now a self-described recovering Catholic with an agnostic proclivity. We met in 2002 while I was the Director of a Sylvan Learning Center in Tampa, Florida. I decided to interview Alejandra due to the fact that she is a multicultural female of Puerto Rican descent and cultural heritage who relocated from the Island of Puerto Rico to raise her children …show more content…
After further elaborating on her background and experiences in Puerto Rico, we delve into the abuse she suffered at the hands of the father of her first two children, and her anger for her own father for enabling it. I could tell she was very uncomfortable and hesitant to delve back into her past in such a way, but I think it was therapeutic for her. She had pursued treatment in the past and continues to see a therapist to keep working through these issues. Furthermore, I asked about her current relationships. She informed me that she is currently in a committed relationship with a white American man and is “happy”. It seemed that after these experiences she pursued only American men as potential mates. I got the feeling that Latino men, and more specifically Puerto Rican males, would not be a mate consideration for her going forward. I then asked her how after repeated sexual abuse, moving to the mainland U.S. alone, raising three kids more or less on her own, and fighting cancer made her who she is today? She answered “it made me very strong”. I was stunned by her strength and perseverance. I then asked her how her relationship with her father and extended family is today. She said that her relationship with her father is much better, although I could sense a continued internal struggle with this issue based on her body language and lack of direct eye contact. I asked her about her …show more content…
In my opinion however, I felt a continued lack of trust as exhibited by her body language and verbal responses. Her trust in Western therapeutic interventions I do believe is far stronger now than it was, although I continued to sense an intrapsychic barrier in her behavior. A sense that although therapy had been helpful to her in the past, that she continues to exhibit a lack of “true’ belief in the process even after all of her successes. She seemed to attribute them to her own internal strength, which tells me that she has adopted mainland Euro-America’s independence paradigm over the interdependence most often displayed in her native Puerto Rico. Her lack of trust in her father, mother and Latino men in general seems to remain yet with far less acrimony. Obviously the variance between my culture as a white Euro-American and hers as a Latina remains stark, although not nearly what it was thirteen years ago as she has assimilated to Mainland American culture. Although our cultural differences are unambiguous, we both seem to understand that life is full of challenges, and that we must learn from them in order to become our true and better selves. That our cultures, although different, share many commonalities from faith in our own ability to learn, grow and change over time. Our common understanding that there are bad people in the