Therapy with Migrant Farmer Mexican Immigrants

Abstract

Those helping people with mental and emotional problems face a myriad of labels and interventions. In 1952, the American Psychiatric Association developed the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental and Emotional Disorders (DSM) to bring some organization into the chaos, which affected professionals, third-party payers, the client, and her or his family. Today, after several editions, we use a newer version of the DSM, which covers many more maladies and helps much better in selecting interventions and recording progress (or lack of it). There always have been problems of reliability with the DSM, at least in part because it is patterned after the physicians’ International Classification of Diseases (ICD) series of physical disorders, most of which have symptoms that can be determined through direct observation or testing. Recently, the therapeutic community has realized that cultural issues and lifestyles may affect fairly well-adjusted people in ways that confuse therapists. This article argues that many problems faced by one culture, Mexican migrants, may better be addressed with sociological theory and other means than with the DSM.