MaribelStory.docx
Five Maribel’s Story When Are You Going to Have Kids? Ethnicity is associated with nationality and country of origin. Examining ethnicity provides clues about individuals’ values, beliefs, and behaviors and often yields more information than race, particularly on intragroup differences. This is critical in working with clients of Asian or Latino descent. Generic information on racial characteristics provides a helpful starting place for clinicians, but specific information about ethnicity adds to the richness of understanding. In this chapter, Maribel, a Puerto Rican, describes growing up in a poor, Spanish-speaking household; moving around the country; and feeling like a minority everywhere she went. She talks about what she feels was her double life, her pride in her educational accomplishments, and the price she paid for her acculturation and her gender role shifts. As you read, notice how she experienced the frequent moves of her family as she was growing up and how the exposure to racism affected not only her blended identity, but also her decision to become better educated to increase her social status options. Also, notice the losses that came with her gains and how she manages her American identity blended with her identity as a Puerto Rican. Following the story, we explore the relationship between ethnicity and racism, language, social class, gender socialization patterns, and gender role shifts that occur as the identity of the individual shifts. The clinical intervention discusses some ideas for working with ethnic minority couples who are in cultural transition from hierarchical gender roles to more egalitarian modes of relating. Finally, the countertransference section includes a discussion about possible reactions clinicians may have when working with couples who exhibit power imbalances. Maribel’s Story I am a 30-year-old Latina woman. I was born in Puerto Rico and, beginning at the age of 5 years, was raised in Chicago. My parents are both Puerto Rican—born and raised in Puerto Rico. I have one brother, Osvaldo, and three sisters, Daniela, Debora, and Magdalena. Daniela and Debora are half-sisters from my father’s side. They have lived in Puerto Rico all their life, not once having visited the United States. Osvaldo and Magdalena both live in Chicago, but Osvaldo was born in Puerto Rico, and Magdalena was born in Connecticut. I was raised in a Spanish-speaking household. When I was in the first grade, I was taught English and was then placed in a bilingual class. I learned English so well, I was transferred to English-only classes and afterward was only in English-only classes. I was still able to retain my knowledge of Spanish because I spoke English only at school and Spanish only at home. To this day, I am very grateful that I was taught to appreciate the Spanish language, despite my need to learn English. I am proud to say I am very fluent in Spanish: I can read it, speak it, and write it well. Not many people who come to the United States are able to do so because they are faced with the challenge of learning English, abandon the Spanish language, and therefore forget it. My current religion is Roman Catholic. Many Latinos are Catholic. Growing up, I was faced with the dilemma of being in two religions, depending on which side of the family I was hanging out with. It was very bizarre. My mother’s side of the family was Pentecostal, and my father’s side of the family was Catholic. I was only 5 years old when I learned the hard way that when I entered my grandfather’s church, which was Pentecostal, I could not do the sign of the crucifix on my forehead. This was very confusing and painful for me to try to understand at such a young age. If I was visiting my father’s side of the family, I was Catholic, but if I was visiting my mother’s side of the family, I was Pentecostal, even if for that day only. These two religions are complete opposites of one another. As a child, I visited several churches in search of the religion that I felt comfortable with and understood. I visited Baptist, Evangelical, Pentecostal, and various Catholic churches. I even took a course in the sociology of religion at a university to further understand the different types of religions available. I must say, I thought every religion had something to offer that was of interest to me. I enjoyed reading about them and wish there was a way that I could have all of them in one, but it seems impossible. Hence, I have remained Catholic and visit church every once in a while. My family migrated to the United States when I was 5 years old. We have lived in the United States ever since. We live in Chicago, but after leaving Puerto Rico, we have also lived in several other states. At the age of 6 years, my family and I moved to Hartford, Connecticut. My father was doing auto-body work, and my mother was a housewife at the time. When I was 10 years old, my family and I moved to Winnie, Texas. A friend of my father’s lived in Texas and offered my father a job in auto-body work, so we all moved to Texas in search of a better life. I think we only lived there for about 2 years before returning to Chicago. Later, my mother decided to find employment and became a teacher’s aide for a school. She has held this job for about 14 years. It was difficult moving every time my father was offered a better job. We had to adjust to a new state, a new environment, new friends, the loss of family left behind, and new beginnings at another school. My father has worked in auto-body work, mechanics, and carpentry almost all of his life. My mother has been a factory worker, a waitress, and a teacher’s aide. Growing up, I found that my family and I were different from other families around us. We lived in “barrios” or ghetto neighborhoods. I grew up very poor and a minority. It seemed that, even though we lived in neighborhoods where other minorities lived, we had to go to institutions, such as school, where there weren’t too many minorities. I recall living in Texas and attending grammar school where I was the only Puerto Rican girl. People used to stare at me and say things like, “Is that the Puerto Rican girl? I have never seen one before.” I was made fun of in school, and riding the school bus to go to my trailer home was a nightmare. I was picked on because of my race, and I felt like a complete outsider—lonely, uncomfortable, and embarrassed—for being so different and not understanding what it meant. Living in Chicago was quite a different story. I grew up mostly in ghetto neighborhoods and still in the lower class. I did not feel as much as an outsider as I did in Texas because there were other Latinos around me, in my neighborhoods and in school. I was not made fun of because of my race or because I spoke Spanish. As I continued going to school, I saw that there were opportunities available for my personal growth that mostly came about through education. I participated in school events in grammar school, such as the flag squad and band, so I could belong to groups in which there were people like me—Latino and poor—and feel like I belonged. Later in high school, I felt the need to also become a part of different groups. I attended Washington High School my freshman year even though I wanted to attend Smith Tech High School. I was not allowed entrance into Smith because of my entrance exam grades. As a sophomore, I was able to transfer to Smith Tech High School after being ranked second in the entire freshman class at Washington High. At Washington, I was a member of the ROTC and was the top cadet. I was very happy because I felt that I was somehow better than what I was without this rank. All my life I had felt that I wasn’t good enough because of my race, my cultural background, my being different. Having rank in ROTC made me feel that it was okay to be different, that I could still be accepted. I also joined the marching band at Washington, where I was a flute player. When I transferred to Smith, I transferred from ROTC to gym class but remained in the marching band. At that time, the Smith Tech Marching Band was quite an important group. This made me feel so good, like I was part of something special. I was very pleased to graduate from such a prestigious high school as a music major. Graduating from Smith Tech High School made me feel that I was not only intelligent but also able to succeed, regardless of my race or cultural background. In my college years, I attended several schools, colleges, and universities. In each one of these, I found more variety of cultural groups and more people like me, Latinos, attending and making something out of their lives. I realized that there are many minorities, Latinos as well as other minorities, who have struggled throughout their lives with being different from the majority group and with what we call culture shock. We minorities spend so much time trying to acculturate that we miss our culture, and being the way our culture indicates we are when we are in that place of origin. For example, I am Puerto Rican and feel that I am Puerto Rican at all times. However, I cannot dress for work or school the way I would if I were working or going to work or school in Puerto Rico. For one, the climate is different, and, two, I would create too much attention and would hence feel again how different I am from the majority group. Many times, I miss dressing up in “my clothes” and acting the way I would if I were in Puerto Rico. In this way, I feel like I’m living a double life. When I graduated as a medical assistant from business school in 1993, I was so proud of myself. I remember so many great things about my graduation, but most of all I recall going on stage to give my valedictorian speech and having a crowd of people, whom I did not know, scream, “Yea! It’s a Puerto Rican.” I was surprised because I did not know the people in the crowd, and they did not know me, but they were proud that I was representing Puerto Ricans everywhere and that I had succeeded in having a 4.0 GPA. Perhaps, the most I was ever involved in a cultural group was when I went back to live in Connecticut. I moved to Storrs, Connecticut, and attended the University of Connecticut for a couple of years. I became a psychology major and learned about the differences in other cultural groups and about the different people who attended the university with me. I was pleased to find that there were other Latinos becoming educated and advancing their careers by obtaining their bachelor’s degree. I joined the Puerto Rican and Latina American Cultural Center (PRLACC) and became very involved with university activities, which promoted the advancement of Latinos. As a group, we were very strong in our beliefs, in our desire to continue improving our lives, and in helping others realize that it is possible for us as minorities to have better lives through education and motivation. In my family, I am a great role model for those who are still going to school. My mother’s side of the family is just as different as my father’s side of the family regarding educational background—as different as they are in religious background. Almost all the members of my mother’s side of the family dropped out of high school, got married, had children, and either lived as housewives or worked in factories or performed other unskilled jobs. My father’s side of the family is filled with educated individuals who almost all have careers and have continued their education to the master’s and doctorate levels. I say that I have come to be like my father’s side of the family. Growing up was difficult for me not only in terms of my cultural background but also in terms of the problems within my household. I grew up in a family where my mother was oppressed as a woman and practically a slave to my father’s needs. My father has been an alcoholic most of his life, and this was difficult for me as well. I saw that part of my cultural background consisted of the woman of the house being a slave to her man and the man of the house being the boss. I did not agree with this and saw that it was very common to the other Latino families around me, whether they were just friends of the family or my family members. I did not understand why it had to be this way and why the women put up with all the things their men would do, such as physically and emotionally abuse them and cheat on them and then come home and expect to be treated like kings of the world. I vowed to not let this become my life, and I have kept my promise to myself to become strong and better so that I do not end up like my mother and other Latina women. I am currently divorced and have been so since January of this year. I believe that part of my divorce came about because of my cultural background and my experiences in my family as I was growing up. I do not see myself as the typical Puerto Rican woman. I am educated and intelligent, and I take advantages of opportunities to become a better person, more educated and experienced. When I was married, my husband tried to treat me the way my father treated my mother, and that was not the life I was going to live. My ex-husband was not educated in the same manner that I am. He is an intelligent young man in different fields, such as in mechanics; he was a real estate agent and is currently a mortgage loan officer at a bank. However, when we were together, my ex-husband thought that he could be my boss and that I would do as he said. He soon found out that this thinking was a mistake. Another issue that came about in my marriage was my education. I decided to continue my studies to obtain my bachelor’s degree after I got married. When I notified my husband of my decision to pursue a degree, his exact words were, “When you married me, you stopped being a student.” I was angry when he said this to me and hurt that the man I had chosen to accept as my husband was not supportive of my desire to continue my education. I saw that he was going to be an obstacle in my path. This made me want to continue my education even more, and I did just that. I registered for school and attended classes against his will, which created tension in our marriage for some time. With time, he tried to convince me that he was supportive of my education, but I saw that it was not true. He attended my graduation where I received my bachelor’s degree, and he gave me a very hard time when I wanted to stay and take pictures with my friends before leaving campus. He thought I should graduate and leave, and that was the end of that, whether I liked it or not. I was extremely hurt and felt that it had all been an act. I ended up leaving the university without seeing any of my friends or taking any pictures with them. I lost contact with many of them, and I can’t forgive him or myself for allowing him to do that to me. I recall one of his friends telling me that my ex-husband thought I was more intelligent than him, and I honestly believe that my education was a threat to him. In my marriage, I had several issues that brought conflict to the marriage, but I would say that family was one of them as well. I am very family oriented, and my ex-husband, even though he is Puerto Rican also, was not family oriented at all. He became very angry and hostile any time I wanted to spend time with my family. I found myself in the middle, as if I had to choose between my family and my husband. This was extremely stressful, and I believe unnecessary, but it was a very big part of my life. It got to the point that my family stopped visiting because my ex-husband became very hostile when they visited me. My entire life had been about family, and there was no way I was going to let a man separate me from my family. I believe that in the Latino culture men believe they are the bosses and that their women and their children are to obey them. I had conflict in my marriage because I did not let my husband be my boss and because of his beliefs in raising children. In my attempt to become a mother, I lost three pregnancies, either to a miscarriage or to an ectopic pregnancy. These experiences were very painful for me and for my husband at that time. Later, I found out that the only way I can achieve a full-term pregnancy is through in vitro fertilization. This was difficult news for me as a woman and also as a Latina because, to me, Latinas are viewed as fertile and ready to have many kids, but I was the contrary of this stereotype. Another thing that made it difficult was my family’s expectations that I would have children. I am the only woman in the family who doesn’t have children, and they are very persistent that I have some, even now that I am divorced. It is almost as if I am making them look bad. It sounds crazy, but every time they see me they ask me, “When are you going to have kids?” My ex-husband wanted children, but while married I found out that I did not like the way he treated his little nephews, and this created problems in our decision to go through the in vitro fertilization. My ex-husband thinks that children need to be raised with threats to prevent them from misbehaving, and I do not agree with this. I was raised without ever being spanked, and I think I turned out just fine. One thing I can say: I am glad I divorced my husband because we definitely kept growing apart, and my experiences as a child growing up in the type of family I have made me attentive to people being treated as people and not being oppressed because of their sex, race, or ethnicity. I later found out that he had a girlfriend, which is when I decided I wanted a divorce. Latin men have a bad reputation for being womanizers, and I definitely was not going to accept him after this. Again, my husband came to find out that I was not the typical Puerto Rican woman who was going to let her man oppress her while he hung out at bars with his friends and kept girlfriends on the side. After all has been said and done, I am glad I continued my education because it is just as I said before: A man will come and go, but I will have my education with me forever, and I can do a lot with that, even if I am by myself. I am now continuing my education to obtain my master’s degree. Even though I am still a minority, I see that my education has done so much for me and always will by giving me opportunities to succeed. I may still be a minority and a woman, but I am a better minority and am very proud of my culture, no longer concerned about my differences being criticized or made fun of. I now laugh because I have found happiness within myself, in my culture, in my not being one of the majority group. Growing up poor and allowing my education to give me better opportunities in employment has allowed me to become what I consider middle class. I don’t expect to ever become a member of the upper class, but if I were ever to live again in poverty, I know that I would survive just as I did when I was a child. Changing socioeconomic status has showed me that I can survive in the worst environments if I have to become part of them again. I owe my rise to the middle class to my education and the opportunities it gave me. I am thankful to my parents, mi familia, for bringing me to the United States as a child and giving me the opportunity to live a better life than they did. If I ever find the perfect man for me, one who will respect me as a woman and an individual and who is not threatened by my education and my ability to think for myself and stand up for myself, then I will take the opportunity to have children, whether it be through in vitro fertilization or adoption, so that I can teach my children that they too can become somebody in a society where we are just another minority. I will teach them to respect others’ differences and take advantage of opportunities to be as successful as those of the majority group so that they too can have a better life than the one I have. Content Themes The main themes in Maribel’s story are how she manages the blending of her Puerto Rican identity with her American identity, her increasing awareness of the gender role shifts, and her pride in her identity as a Puerto Rican woman. Ethnicity, Immigration, Social Class, and Racism Maribel’s story reflects the relationship between ethnicity, immigration, social class, and racism as she describes the struggles of her family, who came to the United States to escape poverty. Once in the United States, the family had to move frequently in pursuit of better economic opportunities. According to statistical data, Puerto Ricans are the second poorest among the Latino groups (25.6) (Macartney, Bishaw, & Fontenot, 2013). These statistics can be misleading because, although this fact may be true for residents of New York City, where so many Puerto Ricans live and where the concentration of urban poverty may be higher than in other parts of the country, data show that when Puerto Ricans move to other areas of the country, they fare better economically than other Latinos in those areas. In Texas, for example, Puerto Ricans’ rates of high school and college graduation and income are higher than that of other Latinos (Garcia-Prieto, 1996). Other cross-national immigration studies show similar results, implying that a minority group’s success or lack of success in a new cultural environment is relative to its relationship with the dominant group, rather than to intrinsic characteristics of the minority group (Green, 1998). Maribel’s family moved to Texas where her father found employment as a mechanic. In times of stress, Puerto Rican families may turn to their extended families for help (Garcia-Prieto, 1996), and this is true of many other ethnic groups whose members help each other in times of crisis. Family members who are in more stable positions usually feel obligated to help, often putting allegiance to the distressed extended family members above the needs of their own nuclear families. This may baffle some people in more individualistic or competitive family structures, whose members would never think of asking relatives for help in times of distress. Maribel’s father moved to Texas because his brother had a successful business there and invited him to move. But in Texas, Maribel describes being singled out as a Puerto Rican, and she reports being made fun of in school and feeling lonely, uncomfortable, and embarrassed. This is consistent with the experiences of many Latinos in the United States. Dominant group attitudes toward Hispanics may display racist overtones, especially toward those with darker skin and less money or education. Maribel reflects that in her story. Ethnicity and Language Immigrants of various ethnic backgrounds often encourage their children to continue speaking the language of origin, in part because there is a newly recognized need to preserve the cultural heritage, particularly the heritage of oppressed minorities. Children of immigrants whose ethnic identity is plagued by issues of discrimination, stereotyping, or other forms of oppression may resist the parental insistence on preservation of cultural and language heritage. Some may, in contrast, express a strong desire to continue their ties with their ethnic identity and their language as a way to express pride, solidarity, and loyalty to the cultural background. Clearly, Maribel not only retained her Spanish language oral proficiency, but also can read and write in Spanish. The extent to which a language is preserved or lost in the second-generation ethnic minority depends on several variables. Maribel speaks with pride about the preservation of her language abilities and is proud of her written and oral proficiency in Spanish. The racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic heterogeneity of the Latino population in the United States is well documented (Falicov, 1998b; Gonzalez, 1997; Mezzich, Ruiz, & Muñoz, 1999). However, the percentage of Latinos living below or just above the poverty line is significantly higher than the percentage of Whites living below or just above the poverty line (Macartney et al., 2013). For a large percentage of Latinos in the United States, loss of cultural roots, ethnic discrimination, language barriers, and difficulties with acculturation are common occurrences (Falicov, 1998b). It is not surprising that someone like Maribel, a person exposed to discrimination and poverty while growing up, and who has strived to achieve social mobility and financial independence, shows interest in continuing her ties with her Puerto Rican cultural background through the preservation and betterment of her Spanish language literacy. The Double Life of a Hybrid Identity Even though Maribel has preserved her Spanish language, she exhibits hybridization and alternation between two cultures as she negotiates her identity as both an American and a Puerto Rican (Falicov, 1998b). Quintana and Scull (2009) argue that Latino children engage in “decentering,” the process of becoming less egocentric, as they and other minority children quickly realize that they are members of marginalized groups. Maribel says she leads a double life because she cannot dress and act in the United States as she would in Puerto Rico. To live in the United States, she feels like she has to act and dress in a certain American way, even though she feels strongly like a Puerto Rican. This can be a confusing and challenging task. As Maribel’s story illustrates, her differing identities do not need to be mutually exclusive or progress in a linear or one-dimensional way. As is true with many second-generation immigrants who attempt to reconcile their various allegiances and ethnic identities, changes in Maribel’s representation of self can vary over time, across settings, and within relationships. Because she identifies solidly with both the Puerto Rican and the American groups and settings, she appears to be able to simultaneously hold and merge the two worlds at times. At other times, she might experience a shift in identity from foreground to background (Hays, 2001), depending on the context. It would not be surprising if she were to experience herself as primarily American in her occupational or educational settings and primarily Puerto Rican in her family context. She may alternate or combine the uses of her language, for example, Spanish at home and English at work, or Spanish to count and sing and English to discuss schoolwork. She is also choosing what she judges to be the best from the Puerto Rican culture, what she wants to preserve, and choosing what she would like to discard. This hybridization of ethnic identity is not without its challenges (Falicov, 1998b) because, as bicultural individuals navigate life and relationships, they may be accused of being disloyal by other individuals in the same family, they may have trouble convincing others of the benefits of hybridization or biculturality, or they may be confused about the meanings of their own bicultural status. One of the challenges of alternating identities comes from the individual’s simultaneous view of himself or herself as an American and a Puerto Rican. Gender Role Shifts Another main theme that emerges in this story is the shifting of the gender roles, from traditional or polarized gender roles to more egalitarian or balanced gender role definitions (Breunlin, Schwartz, & Mac Kune-Karrer, 1997). The struggles that result from the shift in the gender roles take place often between the men and women of a family. Usually, the movement toward gender equity comes as a result of discomforts first identified by the women in the family—the wives or the daughters—which may in turn bring discomfort to the men—the fathers or husbands—who may, as a result, resort to increased control and intimidation tactics to keep the status quo. This is clear in Maribel’s case. In authoritarian and collectivistic cultures, differing standards for men and women exist, giving men the responsibility for the welfare and honor of the family, with its concomitant privilege, and assigning women spiritual superiority, self-sacrifice, and a more passive and oppressed role (Comas-Diaz, 1987; Falicov, 1998b). Marriages can be more about the preservation of the family than about the relationship among the members of the couple, and divorce is a worse outcome than staying in an unhappy relationship. In some hierarchical societies, the status of the women may change over time, as women become older mothers, grandmothers, and mothers-in-law themselves (Ingoldsby, 1995). In Maribel’s case, she does not see herself as a typical Puerto Rican woman who caters to men’s needs. She struggles with the role models of other Latina women, women she sees as slaves of the men in their lives. She promised herself that she would not be like that but instead would become independent and educated. She does not describe personal intergenerational struggles with her father, as other second-generation immigrants do, but is critical of her mother’s adherence to traditional gender roles. She did not agree with this role for women and vowed not to end up like her mother. Maribel feels that her view of her gender role and the shifts she elicited for herself precipitated her divorce. She describes a husband who became increasingly polarized as Maribel’s gender awareness became strengthened by her exposure to education and the more egalitarian American cultural milieu. These gender role shifts generally come at a considerable cost for the family. The more freedom and equality the female member of the spousal team aspires to, the more the male may cling to his old patterns and may have more difficulty giving them up, solidifying conflicts in the couple. Maribel may shift in gender role expectations in terms of wanting a more egalitarian relationship and separating herself from what she perceives to be her mother’s traditional gender roles, while at the same time expressing a wish to fulfill her own family’s gender expectations of her as a mother, as she struggles with the loss of her pregnancies and her spousal relationship. Clinical Applications This section describes assessment questions that may be relevant for clients like Maribel. The techniques and interventions focus on gender and class differences in help-seeking behavior, couple’s therapy for ethnic minority couples, the engagement of the Latino male in therapy, and ideas for avoiding clinical pitfalls. Assessment It is important to assess the identity issues of the client whose ethnicity, social class, and educational family background differ from that of the White ethnic middle-class majority culture. Is the client resorting to rejection, to acceptance, or to a blend of both cultures? It is also important to assess the relationship between ethnicity, immigration, social class, education, and racism in the client’s life and the extent of the gender shifts and the gains/losses that come with it. Ethnicity, Immigration, Social Class, and Racism Were/are there any experiences with marginalization, oppression, discrimination, or racism related to the client’s ethnicity, social class, or immigration status? Have there been drastic gender or social class shifts between the client and his or her family of origin or members of his or her extended family? Have there been shifts in educational attainments between the client and the family of origin? If there were shifts, how have they affected the client’s relationship with members of the family of origin or the extended family? Hybrid Identity Has the client accepted, rejected, or blended identities? Can the client identify what she or he has accepted, rejected, or blended? Does the client alternate behaviors in different contexts? If the client feels or acts differently in different contexts, how easy or hard is that? What is the reaction of the significant people in the client’s life to the shifts? Gender Roles Shifts Were there any shifts in gender roles? How and by whom were the shifts initiated? What effect did the shift/lack of shift have on the individual/family? How were the conflicts around gender shifts handled by the client’s parents and spouse? What were the gains/losses associated with the gender role shifts? Techniques and Interventions When traditional gender roles begin to shift, as in the case of Maribel with her former husband, conflicts in the couple may increase (Breunlin et al., 1997). With ethnic minority couples, it is not unusual for women to be the ones requesting therapeutic help. Because a Latina woman may see herself in the role of having to be the one to hold the family together, she may think of herself as a failure if she is not successful (Falicov, 1998b). Her willingness to seek therapeutic help may be in sync with her cultural prescriptions. Female cultural prescriptions and therapy share similar characteristics because talking to a stranger about matters of intimate concern is considered to be the cornerstone of therapy. But it can also be seen as a typical female characteristic (McCarthy & Holliday, 2004). Some men, particularly traditional men in patriarchal or hierarchical family structures, might consider talking to a stranger about intimate family matters as signs of weakness, vulnerability, potential incompetence, and lack of control (McCarthy & Holliday, 2004). It is not unusual for men to come to one therapy session and drop out or refuse to accompany the woman to therapy if the therapist reacts negatively to dropping out by mistakenly accusing him, overtly or covertly, of being resistant to change. There are gender-related issues in help-seeking behavior, particularly with respect to individuals who are embedded in traditional, patriarchal, or hierarchical family structures, and applying traditionally female expectations of therapeutic behavior to men may not be conducive to successful therapeutic outcomes. Many men view therapy as something to be avoided rather than a supportive process (McCarthy & Holliday, 2004) when they are faced with a therapist who makes them feel more embarrassed and less competent than they felt before therapy started. It may be more effective to change the way therapy is offered than to criticize men for not wanting to use it as a means of getting help with their couple problems. This is not a question of matching client–therapist dyads by gender; there are risks involved either way. Both men and women therapists can be guilty of the same therapeutic mistakes. It may help to point out men’s strengths rather than deficits and to use a collaborative stance in which men are viewed as having important opinions about the issues facing the couple. The previous comments are not intended to negate or minimize in any way the power imbalances that often exist in couples’ relationships or the important role that power imbalances play in those relationships. The ideas that women in traditional marriages need to be empowered (Vazquez-Nuttall, Romero-Garcia, & De Leon, 1987), or that men’s position in society has given them privileges not afforded to women (Comas-Diaz, 1987), or that it is important to understand the implications of a patriarchal culture for the mental health of both women and men (Walters, Carter, Papp, & Silverstein, 1988) are not new. But to be able to have a therapeutic conversation about the effect of the distribution of power in a relationship, there needs to be a strong therapeutic alliance first. Often, couples in traditional marriages do not arrive at that point therapeutically and drop out of therapy early because the therapists may be overtly or covertly critical of the men in therapy or may understand the couple as not moving quickly enough in the direction of more equality and, therefore, may pressure their clients to move faster than they may be prepared to move at that time. Prolonged and regular therapy may not be the staple of couples therapy with couples of ethnic and social class backgrounds other than White middle class (Falicov, 1998b). Couples may seek help as a result of a crisis, and therapists may have a small window of opportunity to prove to both members of the couple that therapy can be helpful for their problem of differing degrees of acculturation. If the couple becomes a customer (De Shazer, 1988) of therapy, it may be possible to move to other issues pertaining to the power imbalances and lack of equality in the relationship. Some couples may never reach the point of working toward gender equality. Therapists can expect ethnic minority couples to come intermittently, perhaps at the time of a crisis, rather than continuously. If the couple views the therapist as helpful for the problems they face as a family, they may be more inclined to return for more sessions when another crisis arises. The effectiveness of the therapeutic encounter is much more related to the strength of the alliance, which includes the match between client and therapist goals, than to the length of the treatment. Couples can make a lot of progress in one or two sessions (Falicov, 1998b), if they are seen by a therapist who does not judge them for not returning for more and whom the couple sees as helpful in solving their problems. There are several interventions clinicians may implement in the beginning stages of the therapeutic process that have been successful with couples of varying ethnic and social class backgrounds. Invite Husband to Therapy Therapists can phone the husband and invite him to come for a session or two, appealing to his sense of duty and dedication to the family. Alternatively, therapists can appeal to a husband’s “expert” knowledge about the nature and motivation of his wife’s problems with him and the need to get his advice on how to best understand his wife. This is not a trick intervention; it genuinely implies that the husband may know about the problem at least as much as the wife does and may have an idea of how to solve it. See Members of the Couple Individually Therapists can offer to see each member of the couple individually and talk to each separately about how to understand the other member. In hierarchical societies, where direct communication among the members of the couple may be less common or not encouraged (Falicov, 1998a), talking indirectly through the therapist may offer the best option in the beginning. Also, couples seen together may be embarrassed or act as if they need to save face in front of the therapist or each other. Individual members of the couple may be more amenable to individual sessions than to couples sessions. As with family therapy, couples therapy is not about how many people are in the room. Clinicians can provide couples therapy even if only one member attends the session (Weiner-Davis, 1993). Hypothesize Something Different When clients present their stories and their dilemmas, therapists may have certain ideas in their minds about the meaning of those stories. Those meanings generate a hypothesis, which in turn generates the questions that follow the hypothesis (Tomm, 1989). The questions that therapists ask are more related to their own hypothesis-making process than to the presenting problems of the client. Therapists can force themselves to imagine a different or contrasting hypothesis, rather than the one they hold in the early stages of the therapeutic relationship, thus generating varied questions. Countertransference Reactions to Power Imbalances When faced with a perceived imbalance of power in a couple, therapists may feel pressured to make the relationship more balanced and less unequal. This can include wishing that women were less submissive, more direct, and more assertive or wishing that men exerted less control. A man may contend that his wife is no longer acting in the way that she used to act in terms of her submissiveness and give examples of his wife’s unwillingness to comply with socially prescribed expectations for her gender. The therapist’s understanding of this complaint, his or her clinical effectiveness with this issue, and the couple’s decision to stay or drop out of therapy depend largely on how the therapist views this problem. A number of possible views come to mind. First, the therapist may view the problem as one of differing cultural and gender transitions and shifts. In this case, the therapist might question the husband about when he first became aware that his wife was changing and what needs he has that are not being met because of the wife’s change. Second, the therapist may react with curiosity and as a result try to find out how the husband is affected by the wife’s change and what changes he foresees himself making in the future as a result of his wife’s change. Third, the therapist who views the husband’s complaint as an expression of his need for control and continued oppression of the wife may ask a question that implies a criticism of the male client’s position with respect to his wife. Fourth, a clinician may be interested in how the wife puts up with such a difficult husband and ask a question that implies a criticism of her. Because questions imply presuppositions and are prescriptive (Tomm, 1988), what the clinician is curious about and ends up asking, based on the countertransference reactions, has profound effects on the outcome of the counseling process. A therapist may encounter a couple whose problem is presented in the way that Maribel described the difficulties with her former husband: that he did not support her educational goals and felt threatened by them and that he tried to sever her ties with her family. By using the interventions outlined previously, therapists can avoid the countertransference trap of supporting the wife against the husband, of blaming the couple’s problems on the machista attitudes of the husband, and of prematurely expecting the wife to increase her assertiveness and reclaim her equal rights in the decision-making process. Because the clinician’s countertransference reactions drive the questions asked or not asked, this may precipitate separation or divorce, put women at risk of increased violence, and require women to make drastic changes prematurely without the adequate social support needed to implement them (Falicov, 1998b). The issue is not whether clinicians’ are right or wrong about what they think clients ought to do or not do but, rather, whether their therapeutic conversations facilitate or block future changes (Breunlin et al., 1997). Toolbox Activity—Maribel
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