The Strong Black Woman versus Mental Health Utilization: A Qualitative Study.

Recent investigations have elucidated the influence of the strong Black woman (SBW) ideal on the mental health and treatment-seeking behaviors of Black women in the United States. However, factors related to how the SBW ideal affects Black women's positive and negative attitudes toward seeking professional psychological help have yet to be identified. The current study fills this void in the literature through a qualitative examination of how the SBW ideal affects Black women's mental health utilization. Analyses were based on 62 participants, including college students and community members, ranging in age from 18 to 72 years. The present study advances the idea that endorsement of the SBW ideal affects Black women's mental utilization. These results offer evidence and clarification of the impact of the SBW ideal on Black women's mental health and identity-specific points of intervention for mental health practitioners conducting therapeutic work with Black women. Authors provide practice recommendations for practitioners and suggestions for future research.

Self-Esteem, Problem Solving, and Family Coping Responses: Determinants and Consequences for Black Women.

Stress is a significant contributor to disease and often worsens pre-existing conditions. Little research to date has focused on stress and coping in black families, particularly black women. The present study examined how self-esteem affects family coping and problem solving among mothers and daughters (N = 119). Results indicate that black mothers had significantly higher amounts of self-esteem than did daughters, potentially signifying that many issues that reduce self-esteem have been resolved for mothers, whereas daughters might still be dealing with issues that lower their self-esteem. Black mothers scored significantly lower than their daughters on perception of ability to solve problems, suggesting that black daughters might still be facing issues that they are actively using problem-solving skills to address. A significant difference between mothers and daughters on the amount of stress they experienced further supports the intergenerational nature of stress, problem solving, and lower self-esteem in the sample of daughters. The results suggest that black women with spouses or domestic partners are better able to adapt to stress than those who are not in partnerships or married. This study provides a more in-depth understanding of intergenerational family processes related to stress and coping among black women.

No Longer Invisible: Understanding the Psychosocial Impact of Skin Color Stratification in the Lives of African American Women.

This article examines how skin color stratification, termed "colorism," affects the psychological well-being of African American women. Previous research has shown that the experience of colorism is pervasive within the black community and that black women have been culturally or personally affected by intraracial discrimination. This article describes a qualitative study that used focus groups to investigate the experiences of black women that were categorized according to their self-ascribed skin tone group. The findings indicated that women of different hues have distinctive experiences based on their skin tone, and that these experiences influence how they felt about themselves and interact with others. The article concludes with a discussion of practice, research, and policy implications.

Black women talk about workplace stress and how they cope.

Black women face the same struggles as White women; however, they have to face issues of diversity on top of inequality. The purpose of this study was to explore work-related stressors that affect the lives of Black women and how they cope with them. Using an exploratory design with grounded-theory methods, five basic themes emerged that identify when racism and sexism are experienced as stressors for African American women in the workplace. The themes are: (1) being hired or promoted in the workplace, (2) defending one's race and lack of mentorship, (3) shifting or code switching to overcome barriers to employment, (4) coping with racism and discrimination, and (5) being isolated and/or excluded. The results from this study indicate African American women use emotion- and problem-focused coping responses to manage stress (e.g., racism and sexism) in the workplace. The article concludes with a discussion of practice implications of these findings.

Integrating diversity into graduate social work education: a 30-year retrospective view by MSW-level African American social workers.

The study surveyed a national sample of 100 African American master of social work graduates to retroactively assess perceived diversity content in Human Behavior courses before and after the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) established accreditation standards on diversity. Seventy-one percent of the respondents were females, the mean age was 45.8 years, and their graduation years ranged from 1958 to 2002. Most graduated from northeastern schools (34%), followed by midwestern (28%), southeastern (22%), northwestern (11%), and southwestern (5%) schools. Investigators used the Preparation for Graduate Education Social Work Education Scale and the Human Behavior Survey Addendum (alpha = .97). There were no statistically significant differences on diversity content scores for participants enrolled before and after CSWE diversity standards were established, but graduates of historically Black colleges gave higher diversity content scores in every area. Study includes discussion and implications for Afrocentric theory and the need to prepare practitioners for future social work careers in multicultural communities.

The impact of kin and fictive kin relationships on the mental health of black adult children of alcoholics.

The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine how kin and fictive kinship relationships help to ameliorate or buffer responses to parental alcoholism and the breakdown in parenting. This qualitative study investigated coping responses developed by college students, who self-identified as adult children of alcoholics (ACOAs) who lived with an alcoholic parent or caregiver. In-depth interviews and follow-up participant checks were used. A descriptive model was developed describing conditions that affected the development of positive self-esteem, the phenomena that arose from those conditions, the context that influenced strategy development, the intervening conditions that influenced strategy development, and the consequences of those strategies. Subcategories of each component of the descriptive model are identified and illustrated by narrative data in relation to the ACOAs' psychological well-being. Implications for research, policy, and practice are discussed.

An exploratory study of differences in self-esteem, kinship social support, and coping responses among African American ACOAs and Non-ACOAs.

The author sought to identify differences in kinship social support, self-esteem, and coping responses between African American college students who identify themselves as adult children of alcoholics (ACOAs) and adult children of nonalcoholics (non-ACOAs) at 2 separate universities. The results indicate that there were no differences in levels of self-esteem, kinship social support, and coping responses among ACOAs and non-ACOAs. The author addresses implications for practice, policy, and research.