PAPELES DEL PSICÓLOGO Vol. 43-1 Enero - Abril 2022

the therapeutic relationship. When those evoking opportunities happen and clients behave assertively, therapists offer natural reinforcement to needs communication by providing what clients need. Then, it is expected that therapists establish parallels between in-session and daily life behaviors to promote generalization to other relationships. A more complex repertoire embedded within assertion needs in victims of IPV is asking for help from others. Intertwined characteristics of Latino social factors may contribute to maintaining low rates of seeking help by IPV victims in this culture. A pervasive history of punishment when requesting support and understanding by social contexts likely shapes patterns of avoidance intimacy promoting behaviors such as asking for help (Callaghan, 2006). In addition, the cultural practice of familismo , in which what happens at home should remain inside the home, perpetuates a pact of silence among Latinas’ victims of IPV. In therapy, it is common that clients to avoid asking for help from their therapist. For this reason, noticing subtle requests of help is crucial to enhance this repertoire. Directly evoking petitions from clients and inviting them to talk about it would normalize asking for help. Thus, naturally reinforcing small steps towards disclosing personal matters outside the family would increase support-seeking from friends and community, defeating barriers associated with familismo . In FAP, natural social reinforcement is the mechanism that produces behavioral change (Callaghan & Follette, 2020; Muñoz-Martínez, 2019). Identifying the most valuable social reinforcers for clients is highly important to increase the chance of modifying interpersonal repertoires. While showing support, validation, and closeness are effective ways of reinforcing emotional communication in the majority of cases, they may be not such effective when targeting assertion of needs behaviors. For enhancing communication of needs and setting boundaries, providing or eliminating what clients state may be a more powerful reinforcer. For instance, if a client asks a therapist to be in the hearing at the court (needs assertion), the natural reinforcer would be accepting the invitation and going to court (reinforcer matches client’s request), if possible, rather than showing their deep appreciation for her request (consequence does not match client’s petition). Helping Victims to Discriminate Interpersonal Safe Environments Ongoing interactions in invalidating and abusive environments hinder individuals’ ability to discriminate safety and caring social context. Discrimination implies people’s skills to identify what particular “consequence is administered for a particular behavior when a specific stimulus is present but not when another stimulus is present” (Sarafino, 2012, p. 214). In the context of IPV, victims likely present difficulties to clearly distinguish people’s characteristics that indicate that they are safe or dangerous. Discrimination repertoires for identifying safety environments can be promoted in the context of supporting the development of interpersonal effective behaviors. For instance, when clients assert their needs or address conflicts effectively within the therapeutic relationship, the therapist can prompt clients to identify what factors from the relationship, and the therapist facilitates their engagement with effective behaviors. This would help clients to discriminate factors that favor their skillful behavior. Likewise, it is important to ask for the difference between the therapeutic environment and outside social contexts, particularly, those features that would indicate danger vs safety. BEING CONNECTED: CREATING MEANINGFUL RELATIONSHIP Strong and reliable social networks are crucial for Latinas leaving IPV relationships. Asking for help is unlikely when no social support is available. The therapeutic relationship can be a fruitful context to learn various forms of engaging in effective social support and connection (Holman et al., 2017). Connectedness as people’s sense of closeness to others by being actively involved with another person, groups, and social world is a relevant factor associated with healthy interpersonal functioning and wellbeing (Dunkel Schetter, 2017; Townsend & McWhirter, 2005). Victims of traumatic experiences are more willing to engage in interpersonal risks, such as sharing shameful and difficult experiences, when feeling socially connected within the interaction (Gabriel et al., 2017) Kanter et al. (2020) proposed a model based on FAP to promote social connection based on the development of an intimate and reciprocal therapeutic relationship. To do so with IPV clients, therapists are encouraged to initiate therapeutic interactions in which they reinforce clients’ vulnerable behaviors such as emotional expressions, self-disclosures, ask personal questions, and so forth (e.g., sharing memories of abuse). As a response to clients’ disclosure, therapists are prompted to be vulnerable and sensitive (e.g., expressing emotions evoked by clients’ narratives), reinforcing intimacy and closeness. Building up a reciprocal interchange of vulnerable experiences between therapists and clients creates a sense of connection and belongingness in the therapeutic relationship, which can aid victims to ask for help from others as the therapeutic relationship has shaped intimate behaviors and discriminate contextual features that favor such repertoires. CONCLUSION Latinas’ victims s of IPV face several barriers and consequences that hinder their ability of help-seeking. Growing within a culture in which gender roles ( machismo, marianismo ) and family duties ( familismo ) regulate what people are allowed to share with others increases the chances of being held in abusive relationships. These cultural practices plus invalidating and emotionally neglectful social contexts are a breeding ground for ineffective interpersonal behaviors in Latinas. FAP’s emphasis on building an intimate and caring therapeutic relationship aid Latinas’ victims of IPV to defeat interpersonal barriers such as concealment of shame and guilt, following gender roles promoted by Latino culture, and isolation. From this approach, social support to leave IPV relationships would be seeded in the context of an intimate therapeutic interaction. Doing so implies that therapists actively engage in an ongoing vulnerable interchange with clients, creating a sense of belonging and connection within the therapeutic relationship. As this is a theoretical article, empirical research is needed to test whether the implementation of the strategies proposed here is useful and effective in aiding Latina victims’ help-seeking and therapist support to them. While many of the FAP recommendations are focused on supporting victims to strengthen interpersonal repertoires USING FAP FOR SUPPORTING LATINAS’ VICTIMS OF IPV 78 A r t i c l e s