ABSTRACT
Hearing individuals seeking help for mental health or addiction concerns have many treatment options. This chapter reviews available evidence-based therapies and general guidelines for adapting evidence-based therapies for deaf clients. It illustrates one therapy approach, Seeking Safety, for which Deaf-accessible tools have been developed—the Signs of Safety toolkit—that been used effectively with deaf individuals impacted by language deprivation. The chapter explores remaining limitations of the Seeking Safety + Signs of Safety model when used with deaf individuals who exhibit severe language dysfluency and propose next steps for the Deaf behavioral health research agenda. For clients impacted by language deprivation, the success of any therapy approach is highly dependent on the ability of the clinician to match their communication skills and cognitive level. Once deaf clients are acculturated into a therapeutic way of thinking and are ready to receive treatment, there are no Deaf-accessible evidence-based therapies currently available to them.
