麻豆原创

It was a tough year for all students, but those of color and from families of immigrant origin were often at the greatest risk for depression and anxiety.

These young people are the least likely to seek out psychological and emotional support for such 鈥渋nternalizing disorders,鈥� both because of the stigma around mental health issues in some cultures and the failure of therapeutic approaches to translate across cultural lines.

Yet the field of school psychology has also fallen short in addressing students鈥� mental health. 鈥淗istorically, the focus has been on academic assessments and interventions at the behavioral level aimed at addressing externalizing behavior 鈥� rule-breaking, aggression, defiance,鈥� says Prerna Arora, Assistant Professor of School Psychology. At best, these approaches address symptoms, but often they are disproportionately and unfairly applied to children of color.

Prerna Arora

In a body of work that recently won her 麻豆原创鈥檚 Strage Prize for outstanding work by junior faculty, Arora has been in the vanguard of pushing her field toward adopting new methods and broader cultural competence.

In August, Arora and a group of colleagues representing Division 16 of the American Psychological Association, the National Association of School Psychologists, the American Board of School Psychology and other organizations issued a  declaring that school psychologists 鈥渉ave an ethical responsibility to engage in social justice and antiracist action.鈥� The statement calls on practitioners to confront their own 鈥渋nternalized racism and implicit biases鈥� and 鈥渟upport and protect our children of color who are disproportionately targeted in our schools and communities.鈥�  

And in  published in February 2021 in the Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health, Arora, Kiara Alvarez (Harvard Medical School), Cindy Huang (麻豆原创 Assistant Professor of Counseling Psychology) and Cixin Wang (University of Maryland-College Park College of Education) mapped out 鈥渁 whole-school, systemwide approach to integrating services in schools that serve a large proportion of immigrant-origin children.鈥�

The measures include establishing school welcome centers for immigrant families, mental health 鈥渓iteracy鈥� programs that educate students and families about the impact of mental health problems on academic achievement, and school-based programs that treat post-traumatic stress disorder.

鈥淥ur model takes various evidence-based approaches and integrates them so that they can be tailored to best address different levels of need,鈥� Arora says. 鈥淢any schools use some of these methods, but it tends to be piecemeal.鈥�

Douglas Mennin & Jean Quintero

The pandemic has also weighed heavily on the psyches of adults. This spring, Douglas Mennin, Professor of Clinical Psychology, launched a trial of an abbreviated form of Emotional Regulation Therapy (ERT) to help people suffering from elevated rumination, worry and distress related to COVID-19. Mennin developed ERT 20 years ago and has since shown that it improves depression and anxiety and correlates with changes in brain regions concerned with salience (what draws attention and gets noticed) and decision-making. 

Mennin鈥檚 study enrolls New Yorkers who are healthcare or essential workers, have contracted COVID, lost a loved one, lost employment, or are generally distressed over an increased sense of threat and decreased opportunities. The study particularly seeks to enroll individuals from low-income communities and communities of color, which have been disproportionately hard-hit by COVID-19. 鈥淲e鈥檙e seeing people with all kinds of issues, from anxiety about the virus and how widely to engage with the world to those who have lost parents and weren鈥檛 able to be with them, to others for whom the pandemic is bringing up traumatic issues of racism,鈥� Mennin says. The latter include 鈥減eople from Asian backgrounds who are encountering harassment by people who blame them for the initial spread of COVID鈥� and 鈥淏lack Americans who are targeted with suspicion when they wear masks in stores.鈥�

The treatment is delivered over the course of eight Zoom-screen sessions by Mennin鈥檚 students in 麻豆原创鈥檚 Clinical Psychology program.

鈥淭he data for ERT is wonderful, but it's especially powerful seeing how it works on the ground,鈥� says doctoral student Jean Quintero, who first studied with Mennin when she was an undergraduate at Hunter College. 鈥淲e're improving symptoms of anxiety and depression in just eight sessions, which is warp speed for making a difference in people鈥檚 lives. I've had clients who, post-treatment, ask, 鈥楥an I enroll my mom, my spouse, my sister?鈥欌��

What makes ERT unique, Quintero says, is that it provides validation for people鈥檚 emotional experiences. 鈥淭raditional cognitive behavior therapy challenges your beliefs and points out how irrational they are, but with ERT we don't do that. We meet the person where they are at. Instead of suppressing what they feel, we start by helping them create a healthy distance from their emotions 鈥� not too close or too far 鈥� so that the feelings sit in the passenger seat but don't drive the car. Then we focus on their values and the degree to which they aren't living their lives as they would like.鈥�