Contemporary Mental Health Issues Among African Americans

Harley, D. A., & Dillard, J. M. (Eds.) Alexandria, VA: American Counseling Association 2005, pp. 336, $54.95

As can be noted by the title of this book, its aim is exactly that: to provide the reader with current mental health issues affecting and related to African Americans. Harley and Milton have edited this text, which sheds new light on contemporary issues pertinent to the promotion of positive mental health of African Americans in a variety of contexts with pragmatic applications for counselors and other mental health professionals.

This text is arranged into four sections: Current Issues, Special Issues, Community, and Application. The Current issues section begins with a chapter by Dillard that sets the aim and theme of the text. Dillard (2005) states “our aim in this book is to promote positive mental health among African Americans” (p. 13), which, after review, has been clearly and thoroughly achieved. This section goes on to include topic areas of family, men, women, and marital status of African Americans. The Special Issues section includes focused discussions on HIV/AIDS; substance abuse; bi/multiracial identity; lesbian, gay, and bisexuals clients; and mental health issues pertinent to elderly populations. Topics covered under the area of Community include important considerations of African Americans communities: public and mental health, violence, gangs and crime, the Black church, cultural considerations (e.g., characteristics of African American populations relevant to service providers and factors related to counseling this population), and views of mental health counseling by members of the African American community. Section IV, Application, discusses how to apply the aforementioned concepts into practice through the topic areas of community mental health services, interventions for counseling African Americans with disabilities, children and adolescents, ethics, and spirituality/religion in the counseling process. Dillard concludes the text with summary statements and suggestions for future research.