DIAGNÓSTICO OBTENIDO SOBRE COMPORTAMIENTO DEL PROCESO

Constantine and Sue (2006) outlined a framework for enhancing wellness with minority clients that incorporated cultural assumptions about how wellness and optimal functioning should be defined and prioritized. Including cultural assumptions about wellness challenges counselors to honor the significance of cultural meanings assigned to client experiences (Utsey & Constantine, 2008). The framework suggests

conceptualization of wellness through the values of the African American culture (family, collectivism, racial and ethnic pride, religion and spirituality, mind/body/spirit and

community) and the impact of discrimination on the development of strengths that are unique to the lived experiences within the African American culture. The following excerpts provide evidence of each of the cultural values identified by Constantine and Sue (2006) in participants’ experiences with wellness. These excerpts add evidence of the embeddedness of cultural values in participant experiences.

Racial and Ethnic Pride. Ethnic identity development has been linked to well- being amongst African Americans. Hughes, Kiecolt, Keith and Demo (2015) found that African Americans hold favorable racial identities:

Kim: Yeah, I would say that and just like pride of being a Black woman. I think there is a beauty in it that often gets overshadowed by what White supremacy teaches us about race and blackness, anti-blackness. And so, being able to have the power to rename and correct what that experience really looks like, in a lot of ways brings a lot of pride to me. (12/16/2018 )

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Collectivism. Reed and Neville (2014) found that African American women evaluate the significance of their experiences through relationships which may be more critical to emotional well-being and overall satisfaction than adherence to religious practices. Social support and connectedness are often exercised as buffers in the relationship between stress and depression and researchers have found that increased positive social support leads to a decrease in mental health symptoms with social support acting as a buffer against stress (Marshall-Fabien & Miller, 2016):

Golden Butterfly: I think it [strength] came from Black women working alongside in the cotton fields with Black men. I feel like our ... I mean, well, first, when we were brought here, we weren't even seen as fully human. We were seen as property, and the three-fifths in the Constitution, and so even after Civil Rights Act and Jim Crow supposedly ended, even to this day, black people, especially black women, are fighting to be seen as full human beings, to have the full spectrum of humanity, to be weak, to be vulnerable, to cry. We're constantly painted as the stereotype of being the angry black woman, the independent black woman. There's been such an assault on our people as a whole, the war on drugs and then Jim Crow with Dr. Michelle Alexander, just part of it. (12//5/2018)

Religion and Spirituality. African American women make up the most religious and spiritual group in the United States according to the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, which determined that an overwhelming majority of the population (84%) report religion being very important, with nearly 60% attending worship services each week (Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, 2009).The positive association of religiosity with life satisfaction and the negative association of religiosity with mental health

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impairment and distress suggests its value and offers empirical support for the integration of religious or spiritual values into cultural definitions of wellness (Reed & Neville, 2014):

Carmen: I still worry about things and it's a little because I can't control

everything and I don't know how things are going to work out, but I have been trying to more consciously pray more, and turn things really over, and even though I still kind of worry about things and question things, whenever I feel the anxiety or the angst or anything it's not just a constant bogging down of my mind trying to, in that moment, figure out how I'm going to fix it, how I'm going to get this done. So, I'm trying to now more so tie mentally how I feel with being more structured and grounded in Christ.

(12/5/2018)

Mind/Body/Spirit. The strong connection of spirituality to African American culture is further evidenced in the beliefs around connection of mind/body to a higher spiritual being. L. Myers (1993), in her theory of Optimal Psychology, illustrated wellness as a holistic component of physical health and connection to a higher being. From this perspective one cannot achieve optimal wellness in one area of existence without mindful attention to others:

Golden Butterfly: Now that I know that it's devalued and exploited, no more. So, I'm focusing a lot more on my health and well-being. I drink more water,

moisturize. I give myself facials and go to the spa. Work out more. Pray more, meditate more, focusing on my breathing. (12/5/2018)

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Family/ Community. Family relationships are central components of social support for African Americans who adhere to a more expanded definition of family that includes friends, neighbors, blood and marriage or function (Hill, 1998). These

characteristics also lend to family systems that value interdependence or collectivism (Karenga, 2007; McLoyd et al., 2000), which theoretically protect family members and reduce stress:

Bertha: We're good. We have a great partnership because there's trust there. And he realizes that what I need to be strong when I need to carry the family I can, and he appreciates because when he left graduate school he didn't find a job right away. We have not missed any mortgage payments. We have not missed any car payments. We have not missed any ballet tuition. He likes having a partner that he can depend on. And he knows that if he has to step back or there's some issues, I am there for him. I know that if I need to step back and I have some issues he's there for me and so I think I'm getting to a place where I'm transitioning from trying to be a strong Black woman to creating a strong Black family. Like we can be a unit together as opposed to me leading everything. (12/7/2018)

April: I've actually had my own poor interactions with the police department where we live, and so it's one of those things where, I get their function or supposed function in society, but I also want him to be aware of what's going on and what that means. Because I feel like Tamir Rice and his situation bothered me so deeply, bothered me so deeply, and one of the things in terms of, granted, you should never look at the comments online. I know that's a rule to live by, you should never look at the comments. The one thing that bothered me so much about

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his death is that a lot of White people online would say "Well, he looks so much older, he looks so much older." I think that Black children, specifically males, are always made to seem older, scarier, more criminal, more prone to violence. There's always this skipping of their childhood. It's always this kind of they go straight into adulthood. (12/13/2019)

SR 2: Are descriptions of stress experienced by the Strong Black Woman similar to