ABSTRACT
In Hawaii, the challenge of providing culturally consonant herapy must be met within a historical context that entails the triumph of one culture and the collapse or disintegration of another. Such social upheavals are painful and people suffer the effects of the physical, economic, social, and psychological challenges inherent therein for many generations (Mokuau & Matsuoka, 1995). According to the United States Census of the Population (2000), 6.6 percent of the population of Hawaii identify themselves as being solely of Hawaiian descent; however, this figure rises to 23.3 percent as people identify themselves as being of Hawaiian descent in combination with one or two other peoples of Pacific Islander descent. These persons have a higher rate of suicide, depression, substance abuse, imprisonment, and death than any other ethnically identifiable portion of Hawaii's diverse population (Marsella, Mokihana, Oliveira, Plummer, &
Crabbe, 1998; McCubbin, Thompson, Thompson, Elver, & McCubbin, 1994). In other words, the loss of their lives, land, language, and traditions continue to impact on the current psychological and physical health of Native Hawaiians. Counseling that ignores these collective losses may only serve to increase rather than decrease the ability of families to cope with the present circumstances within which they conduct their lives.
