TPC Journal-Vol 10- Issue 3-FULL ISSUE

393 Atsuko Seto, Nancy L. A. Forth What Is Known About Bilingual Counseling? A Systematic Review of the Literature Atsuko Seto, PhD, NCC, ACS, LPC, is an associate professor at The College of New Jersey. Nancy L. A. Forth, PhD, NCC, LPC, is a professor and program coordinator at the University of Central Missouri. Correspondence may be addressed to Atsuko Seto, 2000 Pennington Road, Ewing, NJ 08628, seto@tcnj.edu. The Professional Counselor™ Volume 10, Issue 3, Pages 393–405 http://tpcjournal.nbcc.org © 2020 NBCC, Inc. and Affiliates doi:10.15241/as.10.3.393 Results from a systematic review of the empirical literature on bilingual counseling published between 2000 and 2019 are presented. The findings from 15 articles are divided into three areas: counselor perspectives, client perspectives, and training and supervision. The review revealed that the studies published within the past two decades have focused on examining counselors’ perspectives on bilingual counseling. Studies that seek to understand clients’ perspectives as well as training and supervision of bilingual counselors seemed to be scarce. Recommendations drawn from the existing literature are provided for future research, counselor preparation, and the practice of counseling with linguistically diverse clients. Keywords: bilingual counseling, counselor perspectives, client perspectives, training and supervision, linguistically diverse The bilingual population in the United States is diverse (Pérez Rojas et al., 2014). According to the American Community Survey from the U.S. Census Bureau (2015), over 350 languages, including 150 native North American languages, are spoken in the United States. This data, collected from 2009 to 2013, reflects the total U.S. population older than five years of age. In 2018, over 41 million people in the United States spoke Spanish at home, followed by approximately 3.47 million Chinese-speaking and 1.76 million Tagalog-speaking individuals (U.S. Census Bureau, 2018). Furthermore, the total number of bilingual populations in the country has nearly doubled since 1980, with one in five individuals speaking a language other than English at home (Grosjean, 2018). In considering this staggering data, counselors in both community and school settings are encouraged to increase competencies necessary for work with linguistically diverse clients. Several scholars in the mental health professions have discussed the significance of bilingualism within counseling practices, specifically with the Latinx population. First, both the English and Spanish language are essential to a Latinx person’s day-to-day living and interactions with the mainstream society and the ethnic community (Cofresi & Gorman, 2004). Second, an individual’s language proficiency is instrumental in gaining access to mental health services and is a critical component of counseling (Delgado-Romero et al., 2018). When clients have considerably limited English proficiency, they are less likely to seek counseling services that require comprehension of the language. Third, to develop appropriate treatment plans, counselors are encouraged to consider clients’ language background (Santiago-Rivera & Altarriba, 2002). Finally, because of potential language barriers and cultural mismatch, a shortage of Spanish–English-speaking mental health providers may discourage individuals of Latinx descent from seeking professional help (Delgado- Romero et al., 2018). It is also important to acknowledge the considerable diversity that exists within the Latinx population, and other terms, such as Hispanic/Latino (Santiago-Rivera & Altarriba, 2002; Smith-Adcock et al., 2006), Latino (Cofresi & Gorman, 2004), and Latino/a that (Pérez Rojas et al., 2014) appear in the existing literature on counseling with Spanish–English-speaking clients. Although these aforementioned points specifically refer to the Latinx client population, they speak to the need for increased efforts to understand counseling services for linguistically diverse clients.