By Meghan O’Brien, News Intern Nebraska Public Media
When Priscilla Gomez and her husband moved from her hometown Shafter, California, to Alliance, Nebraska, there was still a lot of familiarity.
The school’s mascot and colors were the same, and she saw the same last names she would have seen at home.
What was different, though, was the smaller population. In rural Nebraska, Gomez said mental health services are few and far between.
Gomez is a licensed mental health practitioner at Inspirit Counseling in Alliance.
“We have a lot of need here, and there’s a shortage of therapists,” Gomez said. “There is a great need for our Hispanic community. However, there’s a lot of barriers.”
The land is a huge barrier for people to access the mental health help they might need, Gomez said, but fear plays an even bigger role for some. It’s something she calls “Hispanic pride.”
“We have been trained that we either go to faith or we go to family,” Gomez said. “I think seeking counseling is like saying you don’t have faith, or you can’t deal with it on your own, you’re not strong enough, you’re weak. And so, that pride is very broken down when you have to seek external help.”
A language barrier can make accessing help even harder.
“There’s a lot of people who don’t seek services because they just assume there’s not any here in an English-speaking country, so they just make their own conclusion,” Lexington-based counselor Maria Diaz said. “Because they go to the doctor, they assume that there’s always going to be an interpreter or a translator and, of course, there’s nothing better than speaking to someone in your first language.”
Even for those who speak English, it can be difficult not to opt for a Spanish explanation of their struggles, according to Gomez. It’s difficult for therapists to get down to the heart of an issue if clients can’t explain the full breadth of their problems.
Gomez often sees that people who come to Nebraska seeking work are not particularly concerned with talking about their anxiety or trauma. She knows, too, that even if people want to seek counseling services, it may not be viable for some to take time out of their workdays to see a therapist or for therapists to hold long hours.
“They’re too busy working, and so there’s no time to deal with emotions. There’s no time to do that. And so how do you talk about it?” Gomez said. “You’re too busy and when you get home, you’re too tired and so I’m not going to talk to a stranger about my feelings. They’re not going to understand, especially someone who is not from my culture.”
The stigmas and language gaps don’t just exist in rural parts of the state. Dalia Ruvalcaba is one of many bilingual therapists in Omaha. She said even people in the most populous city don’t know exactly what therapy means.
“I think there’s still a lot of stigma around mental health and seeking help,” Ruvalcaba said. “So, I think that definitely stops some people from wanting to reach out or even acknowledging that they’re needing help. But then also, once some of them do want to reach out, they don’t know how to access therapy, or who to call, where to go, what the process looks like.”
Ruvalcaba took access to therapy into her own hands last fall, introducing the Therapists of Color Network. Ruvalcaba hopes it means more people can connect with someone who understands their language, their culture and their values.
That’s one of the reasons Diaz enjoys working in a small town like Lexington, where she said people are sometimes surprised by the fact that there’s a Spanish-speaking therapist close to home.
“A lot of people or patients that I see, they tell me that they have tried other counseling services, or they have seen other counselors in the past, and they didn’t get anywhere because of their language barrier,” she said. “It gives me so much satisfaction knowing that I can provide a service to people and they can actually open up to me and just feel safer being able to speak their own language.”
The TOC Network is especially helpful if Ruvalcaba needs to refer a client to another therapist if that client is outside of her scope of practice, she said. But she knows that other parts of the state don’t have the same amount of resources.
That’s why she’s also planning to expand her practice to Fremont, where she and another therapist will have office hours a few days out of the week. But she knows, too, that access isn’t expanding enough.
“Especially for the needs it’s still not enough, but it’s growing, and that’s what’s exciting,” Ruvalcaba said. “That person in Schuyler or Columbus, it’s going to be a quicker drive for them to go to Fremont than to Omaha.”
In more rural parts of the state Gomez and Diaz want to build advertising for their practices in Spanish, something both said would help expand their reach. But most importantly, they want people to know that therapy doesn’t have to be a bad word.
“A lot of us go through a lot of stress and difficulties in life, and we got to know that we’re not alone,” Diaz said. “Self care is very important for anyone, and asking for help and looking for a therapist, going to counseling is a very good way to take care of yourself, because even if you feel like you don’t have any issues going on, any major problems, counseling can help you in to improve any areas of your life…I think counseling can be very helpful to reach those goals and to to be able to to trust yourself and believe in yourself.”
Gomez shared a message for Spanish speakers:
“No estás loca, todo está bien. Todos necesitamos ayuda y tu salud mental es importante y vales la pena…Yo estoy aquí.”
Facebook Comments