Department of Counseling and Developmental Psychology, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA 02457, USA.
Am J Orthopsychiatry. 2010 Jan;80(1):3-11. doi: 10.1111/j.1939-0025.2010.01002.x.
Although poverty is associated with a range of mental health difficulties among women in this country, mainstream mental health interventions are not sufficient to meet the complex needs of poor women. This article argues that stress, powerlessness, and social isolation should become primary targets of our interventions, as they are key mediators of the relationship between poverty and emotional distress, particularly for women. Indeed, if ways are not found to address these conditions directly, by increasing women's control, choice, and connections, the capacity to improve the emotional well-being of impoverished women will remain limited at best. This is the first of 5 articles that comprise a special section of the American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, called "Beyond the 50-Minute Hour: Increasing Control, Choice, and Connections in the Lives of Low-Income Women." Together, these articles explore the nature and impact of a range of innovative mental health interventions that are grounded in a deep understanding of the experience of poverty. This introduction: (a) describes briefly how mainstream approaches fail to address the poverty-related mental health needs of low-income women; (b) illuminates the role of stress, powerlessness, and social isolation in women's lives; (c) highlights the ways in which the articles included in this special section address each of these by either adapting traditional mental health practices to attend to poverty's role in participants' lives or adapting community-based, social-justice-oriented interventions to attend to participants' mental health; and (d) discusses the research and evaluation implications of expanding mental health practices to meet the needs of low-income communities.
虽然贫困与这个国家女性的一系列心理健康问题有关，但主流心理健康干预措施不足以满足贫困女性的复杂需求。本文认为，压力、无力感和社会孤立应该成为我们干预的主要目标，因为它们是贫困与情绪困扰之间关系的关键中介，尤其是对女性而言。事实上，如果不以直接增加女性的控制、选择和联系的方式来解决这些问题，那么改善贫困女性情绪健康的能力充其量也将是有限的。这是美国《精神医学杂志》（American Journal of Orthopsychiatry）的一个特刊中的第 5 篇文章中的第 1 篇，该特刊名为“超越 50 分钟：增加低收入妇女的控制、选择和联系”。这些文章共同探讨了一系列创新的心理健康干预措施的性质和影响，这些措施是基于对贫困经历的深刻理解。本引言：(a)简要描述了主流方法如何未能解决低收入女性与贫困相关的心理健康需求；(b)阐明了压力、无力感和社会孤立在女性生活中的作用；(c)强调了本特刊中包含的文章如何通过将传统心理健康实践适应于参与者生活中的贫困角色，或通过适应以社区为基础、以社会公正为导向的干预措施来解决这些问题，从而应对这些问题；(d)讨论了扩大心理健康实践以满足低收入社区需求的研究和评估意义。
