ABSTRACT
Counsellors undoubtedly will be called on to provide professional intervention for Hispanic Americans, the nation's fastest growing cultural group. Hispanic Americans will challenge counsellors and psychotherapists, regardless of gender and cultural background, to understand Hispanic heritages, allegiances to the Spanish language, and cultural customs and practices. Also, Hispanic Americans experience problems on a daily basis that potentially can result in the need for professional counselling. Problems such as lack of English-language skills, low educational attainment, unemployment, poverty, discrimination, and acculturative stress can exact serious tolls on Hispanic Americans. This chapter focuses on Hispanic Americans in the four lifespan stages and presents a portrait of Hispanic Americans and the lives they live. Hispanics constitute members of a single cultural group with a fairly common history and the sharing of language, values, and customs; in other ways, they are a significantly heterogeneous population that should be conceptualized as an aggregate of distinct subcultures.
