Women’s Gender Sensitivity in Latin American Cognitive Behavioral Studies: A Review of the Literature

Gender is one of the main social markers that build subjectivity and is culturally shaped by the meanings and representations associated with sexual anatomic characteristics of an individual since birth. Despite the perceived advances in women’s rights in the last few decades, sexism toward women has been conceptualized as a pervasive, chronic social stressor, outlining its association with a variety of negative physical and mental health outcomes. This review sheds light on the status of the gender-sensitive evidence in CBT available in Latin American databases. Our results from the Latin American databases context support the current critique that most CBT data produced worldwide tend to approach complex social phenomena using linear, subjective, or biological referential. Because of that, CBT has been commonly associated with a narrow, individualistic, and even stigmatizing perspective of minorities in general, and of women in particular, and failed to deliver gender-sensitive effective interventions for them.