Body Image Through an Afro-Latinx Caribbean Lens: Race, Gender, Culture & Clinical

 Earn 1.5 CE Contact Hours

Historically, research and clinical conversations about body image have focused primarily on white women and have narrowly defined body image as weight, size, and shape. This limited frame excludes cultural, racial, and intersectional experiences that shape how many women understand their bodies.

This 90-minute workshop expands the clinical concept of body image through findings from a 2021 dissertation centered on Afro-Latinx Caribbean women. We will examine how gender, race, culture, and the intersections of all three inform body meaning, embodiment, value, and identity. Participants will gain deeper cultural context and clinical relevance that supports more inclusive, culturally attuned therapeutic conversations about bodies, shame, beauty, and relational meaning.

Learning Objectives:

By the end of this workshop, participants will be able to:

• Expand the clinical definition of body image beyond size, weight, and shape.
• Identify how body image is conceptualized among Afro-Latinx Caribbean women.
• Describe cultural, racial, gendered, and intersectional influences that shape body image experiences in Afro-Latinx Caribbean communities.

Who Should Attend:

Mental health professionals, therapists, counselors, and social workers interested in culturally responsive clinical practice and in deepening their understanding of body image through racial, cultural, and intersectional lenses, particularly those working with Afro-Latinx Caribbean women and/or diverse communities.

Meet Dr. Narolyn Méndez:

Narolyn Méndez, PhD, was born to Dominican parents and raised on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. She earned her doctorate in Counseling Psychology at Columbia University, where she completed the Bilingual Latinx Psychology concentration under the mentorship of Dr. Marie Miville and Dr. Derald Wing Sue. During her doctoral studies, she co-authored Microintervention Strategies: What You Can Do to Disarm and Dismantle Individual and Systemic Racism and Bias.

Dr. Méndez went on to complete a postdoctoral fellowship at Lenox Hill Hospital, specializing in reproductive health. She currently serves as a Maternal Mental Health Psychologist at NewYork-Presbyterian Columbia University Irving Medical Center, where she provides therapy in English and Spanish to women navigating pregnancy, postpartum challenges, and acute mental health symptoms. She is also an Instructor of Medical Psychology at Columbia University and maintains a private practice serving clients across diverse marginalized identities.