Psychotherapy Volume 28/Fall 1991/Number 3 COUNSELING THE HISPANIC BILINGUAL FAMILY: CHALLENGES TO THE THERAPEUTIC PROCESS DANIEL T. SCIARRA AND JOSEPH G. PONTEROTTO Fordham University at Lincoln Center As the Hispanic population in the United States grows at a faster rate than other groups, the need for increased numbers of Spanish-speaking, bilingual therapists becomes quite evident. When members of a single family represent varying acculturation levels and preferred language modes, the bilingual therapist is faced with additional challenges in the therapeutic process. This article addresses the role of acculturation in bilingual family therapy; it discusses the varieties of bilingualism extant among Hispanics; and, through the use of a case illustration, highlights how language usage and language-switching can serve as both barrier and benefit to the therapeutic process. Hispanic Americans represent the fastest growing racial/ethnic minority group in the United States. In the national census of 1980, the annual growth rate for Hispanics was reported at 6.1%; whereas the comparable growth rate for whites and blacks were 0.06% and 1.8%, respectively (Malgady, Rogler & Constantino, 1987). Looking at the ten- year period 1980 to 1990, the white population grew by 7.7%, the black population by 15.8%, while Hispanics increased numerically by 34.5% (Ponterotto & Casas, 1991). Hispanics are a rel- atively young ethnic cohort, with an average age Correspondence regarding this article should be addressed to Joseph G. Ponterotto, Division of Psychological and Ed- ucational Services, Fordham University, Lincoln Center, New York, NY 10023. of 22 years. The mean age for the white and black populations are 31 years and 25 years, respectively (Ponterotto, Lewis & Bullington, 1990). Hispanics are also a very heterogeneous group, who represent numerous nations of origin and various races. One common thread transcending many of the Hispanic peoples, however, is lan- guage—the Spanish language. Currently, the United States is the fifth largest Spanish-speaking country in the world. As immigration from South and Central Amer- ican nations continues at a rapid pace, it is expected that the realities of bilingualism in the United States will become increasingly salient. Most community mental health services are already in dire need of Spanish-speaking clinicians. During the 1990s and beyond, the mental health profession will be increasingly called upon to provide ef- fective, culturally relevant, bilingual services (see Ponterotto & Casas, 1991). The focus of this article is on the process of bilingual counseling and therapy with Hispanic families. Bilingual family therapy is a complicated process, for often the Hispanic family is represented by members varying in acculturation (Ponterotto, 1987) and language-skill levels. For example, the senior author of this article has worked with nu- merous families where the parents who are more proficient in Spanish prefer to speak in Spanish, and the children who are more acculturated and more proficient in English prefer to speak in En- glish. In such cases, the therapist can find herself or himself devoting extensive time to simply translating between parents and children. This article concentrates on understanding the process of bilingualism and explicating some of the challenges faced by bilingual family therapists. The first section of this article is a brief exposition of the acculturation process, a construct necessary in understanding the role of language and bilin- gualism in the therapy process. The second section explains aspects unique to the bilingual client as 473 This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.