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Poverty and Mental Health Practice: Within and Beyond the 50‐Minute Hour
Author(s) -
Goodman Lisa A.,
Pugach Meghan,
Skolnik Avy,
Smith Laura
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
journal of clinical psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.124
H-Index - 119
eISSN - 1097-4679
pISSN - 0021-9762
DOI - 10.1002/jclp.21957
Subject(s) - mental health , poverty , psychosocial , sociocultural evolution , psychology , psychological intervention , stressor , intervention (counseling) , clinical psychology , psychiatry , sociology , economic growth , anthropology , economics
Despite the high and increasing prevalence of poverty in the United States, psychologists and allied professionals have done little to develop mental health interventions that are tailored to the specific sociocultural experiences of low‐income families. In this article, we describe the sociocultural stressors that accompany the material deprivations of poverty, and the mental health difficulties to which they often give rise. Next, we outline the psychosocial and class‐related issues surrounding low‐income adults’ access to and use of mental health services and suggest a conceptual framework to guide the modification of mental health practice to better accommodate poor peoples’ complex needs. This framework describes opportunities for practice modification at three levels of intervention, beginning at the individual level of traditional individual psychotherapy and subsequently targeting increasingly broad contextual elements of poverty.