Our Culture Is Not the Problem: Why Chicana/o/x Affirmative Therapy Matters

By Dr. Manuel X. Zamarripa

What happens when the culture that helped shape who you are is treated as secondary to your psychological well-being?

For generations, Chicana/o/x and Mexican American communities have navigated a mental health system that has not always understood our histories, identities, family relationships, cultural values, or ways of making meaning of the world.

That does not mean psychotherapy has nothing to offer our communities. Quite the opposite. Therapy can be transformative. But we must also ask an important question:

What happens when the psychological theories guiding therapy were developed largely without us in mind?

This is one of the questions at the heart of Chicana/o/x Affirmative Therapy.

Beyond Cultural Competence

Over the past several decades, the mental health professions have made important strides in recognizing the need for multicultural competence, cultural humility, and culturally responsive treatment.

These developments matter. They have helped clinicians become more aware of how race, ethnicity, language, immigration, discrimination, and cultural differences influence the therapeutic relationship.

But there is another question worth considering.

What if culture is not simply something therapists need to understand or accommodate?

What if culture itself is a source of psychological knowledge?

What if our histories, cultural traditions, family stories, community relationships, and ways of understanding ourselves have something meaningful to teach the field of psychology?

This is where Chicana/o/x Affirmative Therapy begins to move beyond conventional approaches to cultural competence.

Rather than treating Chicana/o/x culture as an additional consideration in an otherwise culturally neutral therapeutic framework, CAT places our cultural experiences, identities, and knowledge at the center of the therapeutic process.

It recognizes that our communities are not simply populations to be studied, diagnosed, or treated.

We are also communities with knowledge about how human beings survive, connect, find meaning, heal, and flourish.

Understanding the Whole Person

Many Chicana/o/x and Mexican American clients enter therapy carrying experiences that cannot be fully understood through an individualistic psychological lens alone.

Consider the young adult navigating the expectations of family while trying to establish an independent identity.

Or the second-generation Mexican American who feels disconnected from their cultural roots because they were never taught Spanish.

Or the professional who has spent years learning to navigate predominantly White institutions, gradually internalizing the belief that success requires leaving parts of themselves behind.

Or the parent who wants to break unhealthy intergenerational patterns while preserving the love, sacrifice, and wisdom that also exist within their family history.

These are not simply individual psychological experiences.

They are also cultural, historical, relational, and social experiences.

Chicana/o/x Affirmative Therapy seeks to understand the person within these broader contexts.

It recognizes the psychological importance of ethnic identity development, cultural belonging, historical consciousness, family and community relationships, and the ongoing effects of oppression and marginalization.

But equally important, it recognizes the strengths, wisdom, and resources that exist within our communities.

Our Culture Is Not the Problem

One of the guiding principles of our work at the Institute of Chicana/o/x Psychology & Community Wellness is simple:

Our culture is not the problem.

This does not mean that everything occurring within our families or communities is healthy.

We know that harmful family dynamics exist. We know that rigid gender expectations, emotional suppression, unhealthy relationship patterns, and intergenerational wounds can affect well-being.

But we must be careful not to confuse behaviors shaped by historical oppression, economic hardship, discrimination, or survival with the inherent values of our culture.

For example, a parent who expresses love primarily through hard work and sacrifice may have learned that providing for the family was the most important way to demonstrate care.

That does not mean the emotional needs of their children were always met.

Both realities can exist.

Therapy can help us understand the limitations of these patterns while also recognizing the love, intention, and historical circumstances behind them.

This distinction matters.

Without cultural and historical understanding, clinicians may unintentionally pathologize family relationships, cultural values, or survival strategies without recognizing their complexity.

Chicana/o/x Affirmative Therapy invites a more complete understanding.

We can challenge unhealthy patterns without rejecting our culture.

We can break cycles while preserving wisdom.

We can heal without believing that we must become less of who we are.

Identity Is Not Peripheral to Mental Health

For many Chicana/o/x individuals, questions of identity are woven throughout the life course.

Who am I?

Where do I belong?

Am I Mexican enough? American enough?

What does it mean that I don't speak Spanish?

How do I honor my family while creating my own path?

How have discrimination, stereotypes, and historical erasure shaped the way I see myself?

These questions are not necessarily symptoms of psychological distress. They are meaningful aspects of identity development.

And they can become powerful opportunities for psychological growth.

Chicana/o/x Affirmative Therapy understands ethnic and cultural identity as potentially important resources for well-being.

Learning our history, reconnecting with cultural practices, understanding our family's experiences, and developing a more affirming sense of who we are can contribute to psychological healing.

For some clients, this might involve examining internalized negative beliefs about their culture.

For others, it may involve exploring the impact of assimilation, cultural loss, or experiences of discrimination.

And for others, it may simply involve discovering that their cultural experiences belong in the therapy room.

That they do not need to translate, minimize, or explain away who they are to receive meaningful psychological care.

Therapy Is Ours

There is another important message within Chicana/o/x Affirmative Therapy.

Therapy is ours.

Psychological healing does not belong exclusively to any one cultural tradition, institution, or profession.

Our communities have always developed ways of caring for one another, sharing wisdom, making meaning of suffering, and sustaining well-being.

These practices may be found in family storytelling, community relationships, spirituality, cultural traditions, collective responsibility, humor, celebration, and intergenerational teachings.

Not every cultural practice is psychotherapy, and not every traditional approach should be treated as a substitute for professional mental health care.

But these practices remind us that our communities possess meaningful psychological resources that deserve recognition and thoughtful integration.

CAT creates opportunities to bring these sources of knowledge into conversation with contemporary psychological science and clinical practice.

This is not about rejecting established therapeutic approaches.

It is about expanding our understanding of what culturally grounded psychological healing can look like.

What Does This Mean for Clinicians?

For therapists, counselors, psychologists, social workers, and other mental health professionals, Chicana/o/x Affirmative Therapy offers an invitation to examine the assumptions underlying our clinical work.

It asks us to consider not only whether we understand our clients' cultural backgrounds, but also whether our therapeutic approaches genuinely affirm their cultural identities and experiences.

It encourages us to recognize the psychological significance of history, ethnic identity, cultural values, community strengths, and systemic conditions.

It challenges us to distinguish between cultural practices and behaviors that may have developed in response to oppression or survival.

And it invites us to recognize that cultural identity can be more than a contextual factor.

It can be an important resource in the healing process itself.

For Chicana/o/x clinicians, this work can also be personally meaningful.

Many of us were trained in professional environments where our cultural experiences were rarely reflected in the theories we studied.

Some of us learned to separate our professional identities from our cultural identities.

We became fluent in psychological theories while remaining largely unfamiliar with the contributions of Chicana/o/x scholars, practitioners, and communities to psychological knowledge.

Chicana/o/x Affirmative Therapy offers another possibility.

We do not have to leave our culture at the door to be effective clinicians.

Our cultural knowledge, when combined with clinical training, ethical practice, and critical reflection, can deepen the work we do.

Toward a More Complete Psychology

Ultimately, Chicana/o/x Affirmative Therapy is about more than adapting psychotherapy for a particular population.

It is about contributing to a more complete understanding of human psychology.

A psychology that recognizes the relationship between identity and well-being.

A psychology that understands the importance of history, community, and belonging.

A psychology that does not automatically equate individualism with health or cultural difference with dysfunction.

A psychology that recognizes that healing involves more than reducing symptoms.

It can also involve reclaiming identity, strengthening relationships, reconnecting with cultural knowledge, and creating opportunities to flourish.

At the Institute of Chicana/o/x Psychology & Community Wellness, we believe that our culture is not an obstacle to psychological healing.

It is one of the places where healing can begin.

Our culture is not the problem.

Therapy is ours.

And culture is psychological knowledge.

Continuing the Conversation

The Institute of Chicana/o/x Psychology & Community Wellness offers professional training in Chicana/o/x Affirmative Therapy for clinicians interested in developing a deeper understanding of culturally grounded psychological practice.

Our next in-person CAT training takes place November 7–8, 2026, in Austin, Texas, offering 15 continuing education hours through a combination of in-person and asynchronous learning.

We welcome clinicians who want to expand their clinical knowledge, strengthen culturally affirming practice, and engage with an approach rooted in the experiences and psychological knowledge of Chicana/o/x communities.

Learn more at www.razapsych.org.

Dr. Manuel X. Zamarripa is a Chicano psychologist and co-founder of the Institute of Chicana/o/x Psychology & Community Wellness.

#HistoryIsOurHeritage: Centering Latina/o/e History and the Psychology of Who We Are

Each year, from September 15 through October 15, the United States observes National Hispanic Heritage Month. The recognition began in 1968, when President Lyndon B. Johnson established Hispanic Heritage Week, and expanded to a month in 1988 under President Ronald Reagan.

This month should be more than an opportunity to celebrate the richness of Latinx cultures. It holds particular importance in our current climate, as rhetoric suggesting that Latinx people do not belong in this country continues to intensify. At the same time, our communities remain underrepresented in school curricula—even though Latinx people and our ancestors have lived on these lands for thousands of years and have participated in the evolving history of the United States since before its founding.

It has rarely been more important to center the long and deeply rooted history of Latinx people in this country. Heritage Month offers an opportunity to bring our contributions, struggles, resistance, and survival more fully into the public consciousness.

Consider one of the strengths of Black History Month: It explicitly centers Black history. We remember people, movements, ideas, and defining events. We learn about the horrors of slavery and segregation, but also about resistance, institution-building, political leadership, cultural innovation, and the continuing struggle for justice. Black History Month demonstrates that honoring a people requires more than celebrating cultural expression; it requires taking their historical experiences seriously.

Now consider what is most often highlighted during Hispanic or Latinx Heritage Month. Too frequently, the focus is limited to festivals featuring food, music, dance, and brightly colored clothing. These expressions are meaningful and deserve celebration. They carry memory, identity, creativity, and connection. But they cannot bear the full weight of our heritage.

When culture is presented without history, people can be reduced to entertainment. Under the guise of celebrating “heritage,” mainstream institutions sometimes turn our communities into two-dimensional caricatures brought onstage to perform, feed, or entertain others. Our food is welcomed while our families are criminalized. Our music is celebrated while our histories are excluded from classrooms. Our labor is relied upon while our belonging is questioned.

That is not full recognition. Heritage without history is another form of erasure.

Latinx history is United States history. Yet many people complete their education without learning that:

In 1914, Mexican American families prevailed in Maestas v. Shone*, one of the country’s earliest successful legal challenges to the segregation of Mexican American schoolchildren. Three decades later, Mendez v. Westminster became a landmark federal school-desegregation case and helped lay important legal groundwork for Brown v. Board of Education.

* The iconic American cowboy emerged substantially from the traditions of Mexican vaqueros, whose knowledge, language, equipment, horsemanship, and cattle-ranching practices shaped what later became known as cowboy culture.

* Mexican American students organized historic school walkouts in Los Angeles, South Texas, and other communities to challenge discriminatory treatment, unequal facilities, culturally exclusionary curricula, and limited educational opportunities.

* La Raza Unida Party built an independent Chicano political movement that won local offices, developed new community leadership, and challenged the exclusion of Mexican Americans from established political institutions.

* On August 29, 1970, approximately 20,000 to 30,000 people joined the National Chicano Moratorium in East Los Angeles to protest the Vietnam War and the disproportionate deaths of Mexican American service members. It became one of the largest Chicano demonstrations of its era and the largest antiwar action organized by a single ethnic group in the United States.

* Hispanic and Latino service members have received dozens of Medals of Honor, including for service during World War II, even as many Mexican American veterans returned home to segregation and discrimination.

* Black and Latina transgender and queer activists became leading figures in the movement that grew around the 1969 Stonewall uprising. Their stories remind us that Latinx history also includes struggles for LGBTQ+ freedom—and that Stonewall itself was a collective uprising rather than the achievement of any single individual.

* Mesoamerica and the Andean region were two of the world’s independently developing centers of early civilization. Civilizations across these regions produced sophisticated systems of agriculture, architecture, astronomy, governance, philosophy, and mathematics.

* The Maya independently developed a sophisticated concept and symbol for zero. Within Maya thought, zero could signify not simply absence, but completion, transition, origin, and possibility.

* The United Farm Workers grew from organizations established by Dolores Huerta, César Chávez, and many other farmworkers and organizers. Through strikes, marches, organizing, and consumer boycotts, the movement compelled powerful agricultural corporations to recognize farmworkers’ demands and helped secure landmark labor agreements.

* In 1979, the Houston Police Department assembled six Spanish-speaking officers to investigate a backlog of unsolved homicides involving Latino victims. What became known as the Chicano Squad developed into the nation’s first all-Latino police unit devoted to investigating Latino homicide cases and continued its work for more than two decades.

These are not marginal additions to someone else’s story. They are part of the history of education, labor, war, civil rights, political participation, policing, science, culture, and democracy in the United States.

Knowing this history is not only a matter of recognition. It is also a matter of psychological well-being.

A rooted sense of self matters for everyone, but it can be especially consequential for communities that have experienced historical and continuing marginalization. Dr. Martha E. Bernal, the first woman of Mexican descent to earn a doctorate in clinical psychology in the United States, helped establish the study of ethnic identity development among Mexican American children. Her work demonstrated that children’s cultural identities deserve to be understood as central aspects of psychological development—not as peripheral concerns or obstacles to overcome.

Subsequent research has linked dimensions of ethnic and racial identity with psychological adjustment, belonging, engagement, and educational outcomes, although those relationships are complex and shaped by gender, context, discrimination, and the particular aspect of identity being measured. The central point remains: Young people develop their understanding of who they are partly through the histories they are taught—and through the histories withheld from them.

History shapes identity. Identity shapes what children imagine is possible for themselves, how they interpret their experiences, and whether they understand their communities primarily through stereotypes or through a fuller inheritance of knowledge, struggle, creativity, and strength.

One of Chicana/o/x psychology’s central critiques of mainstream psychology is its insufficient attention to history. People do not enter counseling rooms—or classrooms, workplaces, families, and communities—separated from colonization, displacement, migration, segregation, racism, resistance, and cultural survival.

In his 1983 book, Psychology of the Americas: Mestizo Perspectives on Personality and Mental Health, pioneering Chicano psychologist Manuel Ramírez III argued for a psychology grounded in the historical and cultural realities of the Americas. He examined how Indigenous and European traditions, colonization, cultural conflict, and mestizaje shaped distinct ways of understanding identity, personality, relationships, and wellness. His work challenged psychology to recognize that values such as connection to family and community, cultural flexibility, justice, and respect for multiple ways of knowing can be important dimensions of healthy development.

In other words, history is not merely background information. History lives within identity. It influences how we understand ourselves, how society perceives us, what we believe we deserve, and what futures we can envision.

Let us celebrate the music, food, dance, language, and cultural traditions that bring our communities joy. But let us refuse to stop there.

Let us also center our long history of confronting oppression and resisting discrimination. Let us teach the stories of the families who fought school segregation, the young people who walked out of unequal classrooms, the farmworkers who organized against powerful industries, the veterans who served a country that did not always serve them, the communities that built independent political power, and the ancestors whose intellectual and cultural achievements helped shape this hemisphere.

Let us remember that Latinx people are not recent additions to the American story. We did not suddenly appear at the border, in demographic projections, or during a designated heritage month. We have long been workers, thinkers, artists, healers, organizers, veterans, educators, builders, and creators of this society.

The Latinx community has always made history—and we are still making it.

That is why I propose that we begin calling this observance Hispanic History Month or Latinx History Month. The word heritage invites us to celebrate what has been passed down to us. The word history asks us to understand how we came to be here, what we endured, what we created, and how we helped shape this country. We need both—but history is too consequential to remain implied.

Changing the name would not mean abandoning heritage. It would mean understanding history as an essential part of our heritage. It would move the observance beyond cultural appreciation and toward fuller recognition: from enjoying our traditions to understanding our presence, from celebrating our contributions to teaching the struggles that made those contributions possible.

History shapes identity. History strengthens belonging. History challenges erasure.

Our history is our heritage. It is time we name it.

Roadblocks to Decolonizing Clinical Practice

I am often asked “How do we decolonize the field?” Of course there are many answers but one that comes up often for me is that we need to stop the worship of individualism and we need to stop equating individualism with wellness.

Colonizing practices are those that reproduce the existing conditions of oppression by failing to challenge the hegemonic views that marginalize groups of people, perpetuate deficit-based ideologies, and continue to disenfranchise diverse clients and communities.

An often taken for granted, unchecked perspective of clinicians about clients or potential clients is that clients should behave in certain ways that demonstrate they are truly invested in therapy. This is often has an individualistic bias and a “pull yourself up by your own bootstraps” mentality. You hear this particularly with clinicians have those informal conversations with each other about the clients they are seeing. Essentially we have this notion of explicitly and implicitly defining “good” and “bad” clients.

The following roadblocks are in quotes because each of them can and often are important aspects of therapeutic healing, however, in the field they are taken-or-granted components for successful therapy with little consideration for culture or context. These are exclusively individualistic perspectives that are often imposed on our clients by well-meaning therapists. In fact, without our explicit awareness that they are specifically individualistic and capitalistic notions, we also impose these on ourselves as mental health professionals.

“Personal Responsibility”

Many times therapists use this concept with blinders that exclude context, history, and systems of inequality that can limit or impact the ease of movement toward healing for Brown and other racially marginalized populations. If we impose this concept without context it further invalidates the experiences of our people. When we bring this concept of ‘personal responsibility” out in session as “lesson” for our Brown and BIPOC clients, we are most likely imposing a White, Eurocentric, individualistic notion of “responsibility”and have stopped looking for the existing competence and autonomy that the client currently possesses.

“Not ready for change”

Typical help offering behaviors of therapists can be met with a hesitancy from Brown and BIPOC clients to address the issue directly and clients may continue to speak indirectly. When this happens, we should take note not to solely evaluate this behavior from a Western perspective and assume the client is "not ready" for change. Judging indirect communication as unhealthy and avoidant is an error often made when we only know how to look at the world from an individualistic lens. Often it is not the client who is not ready to change, but us who is not ready to change.

“Can’t change others. Let’s focus on you”

This phrase and sentiment is often used to redirect clients when they begin to discuss behaviors of others in their lives that they see as problematic for themselves. However, this perspective is also overtly individualistic and can also be patronizing for a client who is more collectivistic. Sometimes focusing on others' behaviors is just as important if you have a more relational view of the self. Additionally, others' behaviors are crucial to consider when those behaviors are racist, discriminatory, or oppressive toward Brown and BIPOC clients.

“Doing work in therapy”

This is a clearly capitalistic notion that implies we need to put more effort toward our therapy goals or we will remain stuck. This becomes problematic when counseling is only seen as successful if there is this “work”. Sometimes the process requires things to settle. We need to be still and observe. This notion only counts success if there is a product to show for it.

“My” client

This also is a capitalistic notion that connotates ownership. If we use ownership langues it reinforces a hierarchy. Although, this is way of speaking may not directly have a negative impact on clients, it is still a roadblock to decolonizing because it allows us to ride the status quo of an ownership mentally. This is particularly important when we are actively trying to decolonize. We must do all we can in subtle and not subtle ways to remind ourselves that clients do not belong to us, especially Brown and BIPOC clients.

• Dr. Manuel X. Zamarripa, Chicano Psychologist

Talking as a path toward healing is one of our many ancestral gifts.  Although the roots of what is now known as therapy was not developed with Brown people in mind, the wisdom of sharing our struggles and pains through talk has a long tradition in our ancestral past. Our indigenous ancestors would reach out to elders, to their community, their circle for healing. Chicano psychologist, Amadao Padilla, in his research talked of the tonalpouhqui, who were individuals in Mexica (Aztec) society who focused on mental health issues and healed people via lengthy conversations. 

Despite the stigma around therapy, it’s important to realize that even our current cultural characteristics lend themselves to a process of healing through talk (i.e. counseling) in various ways. Below are some common aspects of current therapy that are similar to current cultural practices in our Brown population:

1. Plática is a pathway to personal and therapeutic connection. 

• Our common cultural practice of plática brings us a sense of comfort; a sense of home. In talking with a therapist, plática is an important part of the process. Imagine the therapist is inviting you over for café and pan dulce. Although therapy is more than just this, the practice of plática is a culturally relevant way to introduce the concept of counseling. 

  2. We have the cultural practice of Personalismo. 

• Personalismo is about individualizing each interaction you have with others. Its purpose is to know, more personally, the person in front of you. We see this practiced often in our communities. In the same way, therapy is always customized with each different, unique person who comes into the room. The therapist’s job to learn about your specific story about your life that you are bringing to the process. 

  3. Our cultural styles of interaction values a treatment that emphasizes affect rather than cognition (Roll, Millen, & Martinez, 1980). 

• In their discussion of the 7 Latina/o/x psychological strengths, Raza psychologists Hector Adames and Nayeli Chavez-Dueñas found that we have a strong ability and desire to share strong emotions with each other (i.e. collective emotional expression). Likewise, a main aspect of current counseling is to “connect with our emotions.” Speaking from the heart (affect) is a significant way in which we communicate with each other. This is important for therapists to know so that they can find a way to translate that emotional expression/connection that happens in our daily life into the “emotional talk” that they are trying to facilitate in the room. 

  4. Interconnectedness is a central belief in Chicanx/Latinx healing (Cosmas-Diaz, 2006).

• We know that collectivism, interdependence, and familismo are threads that run through Brown culture in many aspects of our lives. This sense of community and peoplehood is often seen at the (extended) family level. This value can also be seen in counseling as therapists have increasingly realized that we can’t always “do it all ourselves” as many self-care gurus will say. Thus, therapists should be able to realize and recognize this cultural value that we also carry with us when we are in the healing process of counseling. 

For these reasons, I say  “therapy is ours.”.. In other words, although going to a therapist may still feel very foreign, many of the concepts that exist in therapy are not foreign to our community. In fact, our ancestors have practiced “healing through talk” for centuries. So, yes, therapy is ours; and not just for Raza, but for other communities of color who have strong collectivistic values. It is another healing way that we can reclaim and reconnect to. 

Of course it is up to the therapist to respectfully incorporate these practices and connect them to treatment, however, it is also important for our community to know that our culture already has practices that the mental health field proclaims are so important for successful therapy. 

• Dr. Manuel X. Zamarripa, Chicano Psychologist

5 Barriers to Therapy for Raza

The mental health field is not responsive to the centrality of connectedness in our culture.

1. The field continues to teach, train and operate from a predominantly individualistic, Western perspective. The mainstream approaches and theories are founded on an individualistic sense of “the self.” Chicana/o/x and Latina/o/x populations are generally more collectivistic, valuing interdependence or pro-dependence.

1. The mental health field is not responsive to the historical and contemporary marginalization of Raza

1. The mental health field struggles to make the process of therapy less foreign and less inaccessible. It is not responsive to the fact that Raza have a long history of not feeling welcome by the profession (as well as a long history of marginalization from U.S. society’s major institutions such as health care and mental health care). 

2. The mental health field is not responsive to Raza who do not speak (or feel comfortable) speaking English. 

1. The field is not responsive to the language needs and preferences of many Raza clients. The amount of bilingual therapists is not proportional to the amount of bilingual Raza. In a nationwide APA survey, only 5.5 percent of psychologists, who may be Hispanic or another race or ethnicity, said they can provide services in Spanish.

3. The mental health field is not responsive to the lack of Raza representation.

1. Representation matters and the field is not doing enough to recruit and retain Brown students toward a path in mental health.This includes recruiting and retaining Brown faculty and instructors in the field. Only 6.9% of all therapists are Raza.

4. The mental health field is not responsive to existing cultural preferences and practices that complements contemporary therapy.

1. In a field that often champions “strength-based approaches”, they have not sufficiently utilized the strengths in Brown communities that can bridge the gaps in utilizing mental health services. Although there is real stigma associated with mental health treatment in our community, there are also many aspects of our culture that are very much in line with the process of therapy. We tend to prefer a focus on affect rather than cognition in our interactions. We value connecting with others (personalismo) and the notion of platica is firmly rooted in our ways of relating to each other. The field has not incorporated and responsively adjusted its approaches to actively include these aspects in mainstream therapy.