- Welcome everyone
to The Powers of Smith and Beyond.
My name is Isaiah Jones and I am
the president for the Council of Student of Colors.
- I'm Christopher Hamann.
I'm the outgoing vice president of student council.
(clapping)
- Okay so we wanted to put together
this event for two purposes.
The first purpose is to welcome the new dean,
Ms. Marianne Yoshioka.
(clapping)
And then we also wanted to set the tone for
what the School for Social Work is like here,
specifically with the anti-racism mission.
What we wanted to do was welcome back
some dynamic alumni
to be able to speak about their experience
within the MSW program,
how that was impacted by the anti-racism mission,
and how that also influenced their current work.
You guys are in for a great
and awesome dynamic panel,
and we just hope that you all enjoy yourselves.
(clapping)
- And we just wanted to take a minute
to announce the new council e-board
for this next term who's here
and I'll ask them to rise.
Our new vice president Arianne Napier.
Co-vice president.
(clapping)
Maya Hochberger-Vigsittaboot.
Sorry. (laughs)
(clapping)
And Charlie Shealy.
(clapping)
We're so excited for them to start the new term.
- Some of you may not know this
but today is actually the first day
of Dean Yoshioka's tenure as the
dean of the MSW program.
We wanted to just provide time for her to introduce herself
and to talk briefly so you all can get to know her.
Dean Yoshioka?
(clapping)
- And we also wanted to present with you a council t-shirt.
- Yes.
Thank you.
I will wear it proudly, thank you.
Hello everybody and I could not have had
a better first day
and that is in large part because of
meeting so many of you
and feeling the excitement about being here.
I could not be more delighted.
I know that I've heard from the buzz in the hallways
that people are wondering what is anti-racism?
What does that mean to me as the incoming dean
and what might that mean for our program,
and how might this look moving forward?
I thought I would just spend a few minutes
because I certainly don't want take
too much time away from this great panel.
Just to say a few things about it.
Certainly the anti-racism commitment at Smith
was in very large part one of the large draws for me
to come to this school.
It's significant even in across
schools of social work in this country
to have a school that has a declarative statement
and position about anti-racism
I think is really important and it's unique.
I think it was for me a very large draw.
This has been a very significant part of my life
personally and professionally
and I'm looking forward to ways to deepening it.
Some of my reflections as I prepared for my interviews
and whatnot to come to this school
was I was thinking of many ways
I've been working in my previous positions
from a point of sort of inclusion or anti-oppression.
And I've been thinking a lot about
some of those differences
and in fact those differences in many ways are small,
and not as meaningful as the most important part
which is to have these kinds of dialogs.
Regularly, often and to bring us ourselves together
to examine the ways in which
the different isms live in our life,
the way that love lives in our life.
That the ways that are intersecting
in those intersections in which we live so to function
and how we can support each other.
Both through difficult times
that unfortunately still are presented to us
but also ways that we can elevate ourselves,
and elevate each other
and hopefully our communities and society as well.
I'm deeply committed to the anti-racism
perspective of Smith
and I am only looking forward
to having those conversations with you,
and really learning other ways
that we can find more and more ways
to bring it to fruition across all parts of the school,
not just curriculum.
Curriculum is difficult
but in some ways I often say
curriculum is the easier part of it,
but really also in our process.
The way that we treat each other in the hallways,
faculty process, hiring and promotion,
admissions across the board.
Because that to me is really where that commitment lives.
Without further ado I do want to say thank you again
for a wonderful first day.
It could be not better
and thank you for the shirt.
I will wear it proudly, thanks.
(clapping)
- We like to just say welcome again Dean Yoshioka
and thank you so much.
(clapping)
- Now we'll get started with the panel.
Today we will have Kenta Asakura moderating
and I will read his bio.
Kenta Asakura is a 2004 graduate
of Smith College School for Social Work.
As an immigrant gay man of color
he brings his own lived experience
and social locations into his clinical practice,
teaching and research.
As a doctoral candidate in social work
at the University of Toronto,
Kenta has published and/or presented
on the following three substantive areas.
One, health and well-being among LGBTQ youth and adults.
Two, relevance of contemporary psychodynamic theory
and social work practice in education.
And three, advancing anti-racist
and anti-oppressive commitment in social work education.
Kenta currently holds adjunct faculty appointments
at the University of Toronto
and Smith College School for Social Work.
He also works as a faculty field adviser
and maintains part-time agency
and private practice in Toronto,
working primarily with LGBTQ clients of color.
Welcome and thank you.
(clapping)
- Thank you so much Chris for a
lovely introduction.
Is everybody able to hear me?
Okay, Okay.
Echoing quite a bit.
Okay and I would like to extend my warm welcome.
It's okay.
I like to extend my warm welcome to Dean Yoshioka,
to the faculty of social work.
This has really been my second home
really in North America
so thank you so much for joining us.
I'm Kenta Asakura and
really excited to be joining these incredible
distinguished speakers today.
Keshia Williams in the middle,
Tomas Alvarez
and Enroue Halfkenny.
Is that right? Okay got it.
All right. (laughs)
This past summer I had the privilege to be teaching
two sections of the racism in the U.S. courses
and one of the things that my co-instructor
Roy Craft and I have been really emphasizing to our students
is that it's essential for all of us to be
locating ourselves professionally and personally
within historical and structural context.
Instead of actually me reading the bios
of these three speakers,
we decided that we're actually gonna
ask each one of them to do a brief introduction,
but also be able to locate themselves
historically and structurally
in their respective anti-racism work.
We are going to start with Keshia.
- Good evening.
My name is Keshia Williams
and I identify as a Black African Woman
who was born and raised in Canada
by Caribbean and South American parents.
That is important for me in terms of locating
who I am sort of racially and ethnically
but specifically in the context of the anti-racism mission
understanding as well that the construct of race
and my racial identity and how I've been racialized changed
when I moved to the United States as an immigrant here.
I wanted to just invite in also
sort of the complexities of how the constructs
are indeed located sociohistorically, sociopolitically
and as well among our national borders.
- [Kenta] Tomas?
- Hi everyone.
My name is Tomas Alvarez III
and I was born and raised in California Bay Area.
I identify as a Chicano male
and it's important to me to also identify
as the first of my family to
pursue and receive a master's degree.
That's important to me because my parents
were the first in our family, in both of their families
to pursue, actually graduate from high school
and pursue college.
I kind of locate, I'm a resident of Oakland.
To me that's home
and it's also where I do my work
and where my organization is based.
That's important for me as well to live where I work
and to identify with that.
- Enroue.
- Hi, my name is Enroue Mark Akim Halfkenny
Onibana Shangofemi.
I'm a multiracial Black American
from the United States actually,
more specifically born and raised in Boston, Massachusetts.
My ancestry so in addition to that is
out of mostly Swedish, Irish,
African of unknown specific origin,
Micmac and Cherokee.
With saying that I also want to honor
and welcome all of you,
all of your ancestors, all of your people.
For without them and without our own people here
we would not be here right now,
regardless of the complexities and
difficulties that they have faced and that we face,
at least we're here now.
And we have opportunities to be here
that our ancestors don't have anymore.
I also want to honor and welcome and pay respects to
the ancestors and the spirits of this land
that we're on today,
as well as all the lands that we travel on.
In my tradition, in the Orisha tradition that I'm a Babalaw
and I also want to pour libation
to bring them here tonight
to witness and to participate in these conversations,
in what we say and what we feel,
in our bodies, in our blood,
in our hearts, our minds and our spirits.
With that I give thanks to my people, to your people,
to your people and to all, all the people
of this place and this time.
(singing in foreign language)
Shay.
- Yeah Enroue.
Tonight we're gonna do something a little bit different
from a usual panel discussion.
We have prepared three different but related questions.
One question for each speaker.
The person that I'll pose the question to
will have about six minutes
to talk about their important work.
Six minutes.
(laughs)
To facilitate a conversation then
either or both of the other two speakers
will have an opportunity to offer
comments and questions and things like that.
That would be about a few minutes
before we move on to the next question
for the next speaker.
With Isaiah and Chris I've got...
My job here is to keep everybody on schedule.
(laughs)
You know the drill and work with me on this, okay?
(laughs)
All right.
We're gonna start with Keshia Williams.
She has become one of my favorite people
on this campus this summer really.
It's been such a pleasure getting to know you.
The question that I have for you or we have for you
is I'm curious to hear a little bit about
how you have been able to build on your experience,
personal and professional experiences
prior to coming to Smith?
And then how Smith anti-racism commitment
has really informed your professional development
as a social worker by specifically
now that you're moving on to your teaching role
as an emerging social educator.
How has Smith anti-racism commitment
has informed that work?
- Six minutes and go.
- [Kenta] Yes.
- Okay.
I think sort of to start,
just as I said in terms of how I locate myself
I think it's also important
sort of in talking about the personal
and professional experience before I landed here at Smith
that I came to Smith,
and I think not unlike many students of color
but I'll speak for my experience.
With an analysis as well as experience and language
around anti-racism and sort of racialized experiences
and constructs around systems of domination.
For me specifically my experience
working sort of before I came to Smith
and international development
in doing work in gender race violence
particularly as it relates to HIV/AID
and incidents in Latin American and the Caribbean.
My consciousness raising sort of didn't happen here.
However, the experience of coming to Smith
was one that was I chose Smith
because of the anti-racism commitment,
and because for me it was actually really important
that at the time and I'm happy to see that
there's also this continuing trend
in which at the time we had a dean
who was a woman of color,
and that meant something for me
in terms of making the decision
to land here for my master's.
In terms of how it informs my teaching practice now
I think there's two things I want to say
about my experience here
and that was one in which
I developed a curiosity, a desire to really engage
with the mission when I was here as a student.
One place where there was some friction for me
was that as a student of color oftentimes in class
and otherwise I was called upon to be a teacher.
And oftentimes called upon to be a teacher
particularly in my experience with some White students
who for them, sort of their consciousness raising
was really happening at the time on campus.
I had a lot of ambivalence about that.
I think it's at the time and now
that in order to sort of problematize that a little bit
the idea of replicating this notion in which sort of
black and brown bodies become ones that are
vehicles including sort of knowledge transfer
to be consumed by White students
was one that I really grappled with when I was here.
And so this idea of being a teacher
really was when I resisted.
How I ended up becoming a social educator now.
(laughs)
In motivational intervene
we talk about rolling with the resistance.
Well, I rolled a couple ways down the hill.
That I thought it was important
because what I was finding in my job search
after graduating from Smith
was that I long to be in organizations
that also had some kind of formalized commitment.
I thought it was important that
no matter that there were problems
and there were definitely criticism
of how we engaged at the time that I was here
in the anti-racism mission,
and what that looked like in terms of integrating it,
in terms of the content
that it was important for me
that at least there was a space to ask the question
what might race have to do with this?
That was very important to me.
It remains important to me.
I was finding that in my clinical work
I was able to engage this question relationally
with the folks that I work with.
The various communities, the various clients
and client systems
and the biggest set of resistance that I was finding
was actually with my colleagues
and some of the administrators.
I was really challenged in that
in terms of being both located in a position of power
as the clinician, right, the therapist.
But as well sort of being located as a therapist of color
and sort of being told at different times
that I was there to sort of diversify the environment.
For me sort of in engaging, continuing to engage the work
in professional development forums and doing trainings
because I also came with the history
of having done sort of diversity trainings.
Before what happened was oftentimes sort of
when we were able to get to a point of friction
but one in which there was at least
some engagement around,
there would be this discussion like,
"You know what Keshia, you know,
"we've been trained for so many years
"and we just can't kind of take in this new information."
For me the role of social worker as gatekeeper
became one that was a salient observation
in my professional experience.
My commitment then became okay,
so I can have a caseload of 30, 35 clients
and I can do the best work
and do really, really good work in the room.
And yet here are these structures that aren't shifting
and here I am being depleted,
and not having anything left
for the places that nourish me.
What is a way that I can continue on in this work
rather than having to leave the work
that will also leave a legacy
that can continue to grow, right?
That this work is not just mine to shoulder.
The way I see moving into sort of
the role of social work educator became
well, it seems to be that occupying a place of power
as an instructor will then allow me
to train the gatekeepers.
If they're getting some training
in being able to integrate these ideas,
particularly sort of one of the values I think for Smith was
in being able to have language
to be able to meet clinicians where they were at.
The story I tell sometimes is
that when I have the privilege to travel
one of my commitments is that I always at least learn
the greeting of wherever I am traveling to.
I think it's important in the way that we conceptualize
how we can actively participate in
our own humanization as well as others.
And so for me, how was I going to meet these clinicians
who are particularly resistant to some of these ideas
and particularly weighing on this idea
that they had been trained a long time ago
and that that was entrenched.
Smith I think really empowered me
with the clinical language that was paired with
sort of this perspective around anti-racism
which I also think is important around
how I use that from an intersectional approach.
Even if we're talking about disability justice,
even when we're talking about gendered perspectives
and critiquing that, that the question can still be asked,
well, what does race have to do with this?
For me bringing that into the classroom
to be able to engage pedagogically speaking
was a place that was, you know,
at least so lower stakes than an employment situation,
and a place where I felt like
if I've got 25 students in a classroom
and I'm encouraging them to play with some of these ideas
in a way that we can contain that space.
And containing it does not mean that
there's not disruption or friction, right?
But then we can do that from a place
of liberation and love
which I know Enroue's gonna talk about.
Then this is then a breeding ground I felt
that could then ripple out.
Those 25 students who now have a caseload of 35 clients
who are now 35 clients
who are going back into their communities,
and able to be people who can participate
in the co-creation of their healing
and therefore their community's healing
was my way of feeling like
this ambivalence I had about being a teacher
was one that I could engage as a form of social justice.
And so that's how I got here.
(clapping)
- Thank you so much.
Does either Tomas or Enroue have
comment to follow or question rather?
- I have a comment and a question.
First one I commend you for
having the courage to take a none, quote, unquote,
a non-traditional path for
coming to a school that is most known for
a clinical practice or application.
And I think that that's important
because there are many avenues
where we can have an impact.
I just wanted to hear more about that,
about that decision that you made
and really the rationale and where you see it leading,
and how you see it having an impact
for the field at large.
- And now with less than six minutes. (laughs)
Where do I see social work education having
an impact in a non-traditional way?
- We focus on service provision directly with clients
but you know, what about the people
who work with those clients
or the people who as you called the gatekeepers
who create policy, who, you know?
There's tremendous amounts of work to be done there
and I'd love to hear more about your vision.
- Yeah, I mean I think it's again this idea
of sort of translation, right?
That I think for me at least how I see my role
in impacting sort of the various stakeholders
in our work is the entry points, right?
Because sometimes my experience has been
the hardest thing is to get to the table, right?
That the entry point is how am I gonna get to the table
which means having to learn a lot about
what the position of the stakeholders are,
and how they understand or don't understand
a perspective that is sort of as you called it
non-traditional fitting into
with limitations to how that can be seen.
My vision is if I am sort of instructing students
who will then go out and become
the various kinds of stakeholders
and potentially even be teaching,
again, that there is a role that I play
that again does not center the instructor
or the clinicians as the person with all of the knowledge
and ability to create change.
The way I see change, the way I see healing
is a collective process.
From that entry point
even though teaching is a very specific entry point
that it allows me the vision to
understand the diversity of who's in the room as well
and they're various interests
and where they'll be going out to.
I guess I see it more as sort of planting the seeds
and that is really important to be able to
nourish that portion of it.
And I'm sort of reminded of
I have this quote in my office
and it's sort of the honorable Dalai Lama says
to sort of this group of monks
who've been working really, really hard,
meditating really hard and they talk about
there's still all these suffering in the world.
And we've been working really hard
and we're feeling this despair.
And so the Dalai Lama says to this group of monks,
"Do not despair.
"Your work will bear fruit in 700 years or so."
(laughs)
I feel encouraged by that.
(laughs)
In the boundlessness of our work and time
not having to be limited to sort of this particular moment
and this particular moment is centered around me.
I hope that that's helpful.
- Very helpful.
- Actually I'd like to make
one comment. - [Kenta] Please. Yeah.
- [Enroue] Where you reminded me of is
there's another saying where
like what's the perfect time to plant a tree?
And it's 20 or 30 years ago.
What's the next perfect time?
Right now.
That really speaks to it's always now.
It's always you, what you're doing.
So thank you.
- [Keshia] Thank you. - [Enroue] Yeah.
- [Kenta] It's a perfect segue for Tomas.
Our question for Tomas which is about your work right now.
Since you graduated,
I think that you graduated a couple years after I did.
I think during the time that you are at Smith
you started a very interesting important organization.
My question for you is
how has Smith anti-racism commitment facilitated
your development of your non-profit organization
and work with important work with youth of color?
- Feeling that pressure of the six minutes.
First I just want to say I'm happy to be here.
I really am.
Smith has provided me with a tremendous
educational opportunity, relational opportunities.
In fact, I did my thesis presentation in this exact room
on Hip Hop Therapy,
which I had the privilege to be able to pilot here
as a first year MSW student.
It was a part of my community practice project
which grew into my master's thesis,
which I graduated in '06,
has since grown into a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization
administering Hip Hop Therapy programs
throughout the Bay Area,
as well as other innovative mental health service
provision activities.
I really credit it back to my experience here.
Even prior to getting to Smith
I'm glad that you named that.
One of the concepts that was introduced to me here
is this notion of use of self
and how we use ourselves in our practice.
It really allowed me to think back to
my own experience before Smith
around community organizing,
my experience as a man of color,
my affinity for boys and young men of color.
Really thinking about how I can kind of combine
my interest and my passion.
My interest and passion for hip hop
with my interest and passion for working with adolescents
specifically boys and young men of color
around healing and development.
I think really having supportive peers,
supportive professors but more importantly the space.
There's tremendous amounts of space here
and if you're a student here
you know that it's a social work immersion program.
You're eating, sleeping, dreaming
social work theory, right?
And you're practicing on each other, right?
What you're learning on yourself and on each other.
I think that's specifically around the anti-racism mission
for me I felt incredibly proud to be at a school
that prioritized that.
And not just in form of a mission statement,
but had ongoing conversations at multiple levels
about how you operationalize a mission statement.
As somebody who has constructed a mission statement
that grew our of a single therapeutic program
that is now charged with a task of
having to operationalize that mission vision
and those values into programs and policies
and procedures and how we support and train staff,
but also how we stay true to this notion
that communities know what they need best.
There's already ways in which,
I like what you said about not centralizing ourselves
because we have the degree or the education.
I created hip hop,
I piloted a Hip Hop Therapy program
but I often say, one of the country's first in 2004,
but I always say wherever I present that
young people in communities across this country
had been using hip hop as a naturally cathartic outlet,
as a natural outlet for therapy for decades.
For over 40 years now,
hip hop is a community-defined strategy
to wellness and to well-being.
All I did was formalize it and give it a name
and so did other people around this time period.
But that doesn't make me the center of the conversation
around how do we part as providers,
as individual providers in systems of care,
how do we partner with communities
and not simply see them as consumers or clients,
right, of a service?
But how do we truly partner with them
and build upon the ways
that they've already identified
to help and heal themselves.
That's the mission of our organization,
really the vision of the organization is health equity
and how do we achieve health equity
without partnering with communities
and meaningful substantial ways?
I think that a lot of that wouldn't have...
I wouldn't have been able to do a lot
that I've been able to do over the last 10 years,
obviously without the support of our staff
which we have a lot of Smithies I'm proud to say
that work for our organization,
but also with our young people.
We've developed, we're a community-based organization
rooted in Oakland, California
that has developed a community-defined practice, right.
And what does mean?
You can only do that in partnership with community.
We have an evolution.
Our Hip Hop Therapy model has evolved over the years
to the first model was co-facilitated by a clinician, myself
in partnership with a teaching artist,
a good friend of mine.
That model has evolved to include an alumni now
of our program that functions as a peer mentor.
We're training young adults in Oakland
to be helpers, healers, change makers.
That's what I mean when I say
we've developed this community-defined practice.
It's not...
The clinicians alone couldn't have done it,
the teaching artist from the community
couldn't have done it.
Young people from the community without the support
of folks like us couldn't have done it.
We can't do it without the support that we receive
from foundations, from systems of care,
from individual donors.
Really we're looking at how do we transcend
the notion of a system of care into a community of care.
I think that here you have
a tremendous amount of community
and you have these conversations that
spill outside of the classroom.
It's that process that is so enriching
that for me really created the space to think
and re-imagine what therapy could look like,
what mental health service provision could look like.
I'm wondering how much time I have.
Three minutes, great, wow!
Let me loosen up.
(laughs)
Yes.
Again, I think it's great.
I think what Smith is continuing to do is great
because again, we can have fancy mission statements.
But how do we operationalize those mission statements?
How do we revisit and reexamine
whether or not we're reaching our goal?
If you look at that mission statement specifically,
I don't know if it's evolved since I was here
but it said a commitment to the process of becoming.
Right?
That's not saying that they've arrived, right?
We're gonna spend decades trying to arrive
and we'll probably never arrive, right?
So how do we then commit ourselves
as people who are gonna try to go out
and help communities to the process
of becoming more informed,
more effective but more sensitive,
but not perpetuate these,
these dynamics that position the provider
as the sole expert in the room.
Having the conversations around systems of oppression
and how that translates into
the mental health industry
which is inherently pathology-based.
It's inherently pathology-based
and we're learning to work inside of that system
so it's our job.
In many cases it's our job to prescribe
a pathology to an individual to prescribe treatment
and to administer that treatment,
and how does that not perpetuate
a system of a pathology of marginalization?
It's hard because in many cases our hands become tied
especially if we want to get reimbursement for that service.
Organizations, the way organizations are set up
if you're drawing reimbursement dollars
you're inherently perpetuating this marginalization
and pathology, pathology.
Pathology (laugh)
amongst our already marginalized communities.
And so, there's ways that it happens
that are subtle, that are individual
but also that are systemic
and we are a part of those systems.
I think, I encourage you if you're a student here,
have those conversations about how
you're going to use yourself
and your unique lived experience.
How do you want to practice in community?
Especially if you're gonna practicing in communities
that don't look like you, right?
And so, my time is up.
Yeah.
- Okay, thanks Tomas.
(clapping)
Does either of you have a comment or question?
- I have a question but first also
really appreciating not just the
kind of work that you're doing but really generosity
that you have for how you moved in your life
to kind of come to this place.
Actually that ties in with, you know,
here at Smith there's so much
and in kind of mental health field,
there's so much focus on you're in a room
with an individual or a couple or a family,
and there's kind of a set of what
your understanding of that outcome might be.
But with a community or what I'm actually curious about
what is your understanding of what those
outcomes might be working with the community
versus these individuals, couples and families?
- I have to look at the, let's say client.
The client is not just the young person.
I also see it as the community at large in the system
and even the word client I have a resistance to that
but really it's looking at how to have an impact
at those three levels and what needs to happen.
In terms of outcomes, the outcomes that I'm looking at,
homicide is the leading cause of death
among young people in Oakland.
When you look at the health disparities,
the social, the academic disparities faced,
it's clear who is being impacted the most.
Specifically with homicide, that's a mental health issue.
In my opinion that's a mental health issue.
There's such a high rate of trauma
and educators and even mental health providers
are ill-equipped to deal with the trauma in Oakland.
There's this saying that, you know, we had a vigil
this summer, a community vigil,
and we had this banner
and we spray painted on the banner,
it takes a community to heal a community.
In the way I see myself in that
and the way that our organization sees itself in that
which is comprised of clinicians, teaching artists
and young adults that live and come from that community,
is that we are facilitators of that
or we can be, we strive to be.
But we can only facilitate, you know?
I think that in terms of the outcome,
the vision is a community of care.
I always point to the success story of one our alumni
who's in our Beats, Rhymes and Life academy program
which is a social work pipeline program for young folks
who are alumni of our Hip Hop Therapy program.
He's become the counselor in his neighborhood.
When his friends have a problem,
he's 23 years old, they come to him.
That's without, that's not formalized.
That's without a system,
right but that's what we want
and that's what it's going to take to heal my community,
is to equip and support the community's capacity,
own capacity to help and heal themselves.
We have a role to play in that
and it's not a top down approach that's gonna do it.
Because what we know as we've taken that approach
for several decades and it's had limited results,
and those results have not been long lasting.
To me that's the outcome.
The outcome we measure success by our academy.
Are they going out and being leaders
and helpers and healers in their community?
Whether or not thy choose to become a social worker
or clinician or go to the formal education
doesn't mean that they cannot be a healer.
To me that's the outcome.
That's the way that we measure success.
- I have, is there time?
- Yeah.
(clapping)
Keshia go ahead, yeah.
- That was a really important piece to me
in terms of hearing particularly in the naming of
trauma and what community healing looks like.
I wondered if you could comment on
sort of in trauma-informed care.
The way that sort of the discourse goes right now
there's a lot of talk about self care
which of course we know is important.
What I don't hear as much talk about is community care
and what that looks like.
It sounds like what you're talking about too
is being able to provide the facilitation
for the young people to be able to provide
care for themselves and for their communities.
I'm just wondering if you could comment
as the leader of this organization
on what that looks like for your staff
to not only engage in a self care practice
or series of self care practices,
but of community care within
the practice of this organization.
- There's some few...
Thank for the question.
There's a few concrete ways it looks.
We have self care day once a month
where all of our staff including our interns,
our alumni, academy members
create self care plans for the month.
That's something that we've tried,
one way that we've tried to operationalize that
but another way is celebration.
Every season, fall and spring,
we have a community showcase
and all of our programs share out
with the music that they've been creating,
they perform the music.
That's a part of our therapeutic model
is the celebration of each other and of expression.
Because too often, the young people that we work with,
the adults only come together in their lives
when something is broken and something is wrong
and something is bad, something needs to be fixed.
But they don't come together to celebrate and honor
resilience, to honor resistance, to honor achievement
and however small that achievement and progress is.
And so celebration is an important part of
what self care to me looks like.
Also modeling for the community
what a community of care looks like, right,
beyond a single organization or a system of care.
We're not going to eradicate these health disparities
by throwing money at them.
We have to build, we have to do it
in partnership with community
and what better way to facilitate community than
through music, through food (laughs), right?
There's all these things that are already happening
and if we just pay attention
to how communities are already exercising self care
and we find ways to integrate that into our practice
then a lot becomes possible.
- Great, thank you.
(clapping)
So Enroue.
I got a chance to talk to you a little bit
before we were heading,
as we were walking towards this auditorium today
and one of the things that I was really struck by
was your commitment to sort of changing the paradigm
in this work from your calling from anti-racism
to what you call love and liberation work.
My question for you is about how you have...
How Smith anti-racism commitment
has informed or impacted your current work
as a social work practitioner in liberation work?
As you and I are an independent practitioner, correct?
I have a very small private practice as well
and I'm personally very curious to hear about
how you have been able to hold yourself accountable
in doing this work that's so difficult?
- As everyone has done before
I also really appreciate just the opportunity
to be here today and to share this,
like to share some of who I am
and how I've come to be here
personally, professionally, emotionally, spiritually.
I was raised by two radical revolutionaries.
My mother and my father.
My father born in Boston,
involved in the Black Panther Party and the communist party.
My mother born in Jamestown, New York,
moved to Boston and became involved
in the communist party.
Labor organizers, revolutionary change,
fundamental systemic change is what I grew up with.
That was kind of my first, you know?
I was born April 2nd.
Dr. Martin Luther King was murdered two days later.
I went to my first demonstration and then.
There's always been an analysis of change
that's been really fundamental.
Fast forward to looking at graduate schools,
looking at this mission statement that Smith had
and continues to have
was vital as I'm entering into a field
to train and to even within social work
really having this bio psychosocial model
which is much more encompassing
of who we are as human beings.
Coming into this program
with the certain kind of political analysis.
Also in the mid '90s I became involved
in a spiritual tradition
coming out of the Yoruba people in Nigeria
and then becoming a priest in that tradition.
As I even applied to schools taking a risk
to say this is all of who I am.
I was a psychology major, was an undergrad,
been an artist, activist and a priest in this tradition.
I said if I'm gonna do this work,
if the work of fundamental change and liberation,
if I'm gonna have a part in that
then it's also about me being whole.
Let me take a risk to say
can I be that here as I enter into this field?
The good news is it is yes
which is part of the reason why I'm sitting here today.
On one hand this statement
and the kind of work beforehand,
a lot of it gets framed in terms of
this is the fight that we're doing.
We can't rest until the fight is over
in all kind of various songs and language.
While that is important I also found
even within these revolutionary communities
what are you building
and the importance of you what you build
and what you're growing.
I actually use an analogy with a lot of my,
the people who I work with.
You're not gonna get what you want simply by weeding,
perpetual weeding of a garden.
That's important but you need to be planting
what you want to grow.
My kind of work, this kind of liberation work
is as much about myself and my healing
and how do I put myself out there.
Not just kind of in this abstract way
but also some real concrete skills that I've learned
and had the fortune of being in certain communities
and a certain level of understanding.
But how do I really bring all that to bear
as I sit on one hand part of the work that I do
as I sit in the room with somebody
and really look at what are the obstacles
to this person living in the world
in the way that they really want to be.
Even in a way that they may not know
but what is their potential?
How do they help manifest that potential?
What I love now in what I hear here
but it's also, I mean part of that
is these are wonderful people
and I know it doesn't exist in a lot of the realm
of mental health work is healing.
What is the range and depth of really what healing is
around social justice issues, mental health issues,
emotional issues, physical issues, spiritual issues?
What are the things that are in our way
that prevent us from the being the world away
that we want to be or even can envision.
That then leads to this concept
and this notion of liberation.
For me as a male growing up in this culture
really being connected to my heart is not really,
wasn't really taught that that was really an option.
And so learning to not just be connected to that
but to also speak from that.
What's interesting one way
I was part of a leadership program and people were like,
"How do we know when you're doing that
"because I know that's a goal?"
I was like, "Well, I don't know how you'll know
"but I'll know."
And part of the reason I know is like
I can feel my heart like beating really strongly
and that has I've learned
which is what I'm feeling now.
I've learned that that gives me good information
that I'm close to something that's both vital for me
and is bigger than me.
And that I can allow what I'm saying and what I'm doing
to touch others in a way that's
as authentic as I can possibly be.
It's really whatever it is.
As a parent, as a clinician, as a healer,
in its broadest sense as a person walking down the street,
sitting in a restaurant, doing day to day things.
This other piece for an accountability
comes from that and it forms that because
I've made a decision to really be here,
be present and to be alive.
That actually say well if I'm gonna be alive
what does the mean?
What are the cost and what are the risks?
The more that I can do that,
the more that I can move from that place
with skill that I also get in other realms,
I can really bring something else,
both for myself and for whoever I'm working with
to kind of say look, there's...
We get to be here.
We really get to be here
in as full away as we can possibly imagine.
And so if I can help that process along
in whatever way then wonderful.
I mean for me, I mean that's really my life.
I mean you're all here and that's wonderful, right?
But you know, this is also my experience.
So in my experience if I can really be here,
whoa, that's phenomenal.
And then if I can meet other people here
like whoa, that's even greater
because it's not just about me.
It's all these connections, it's all of who we are
and the sum being much greater than, you know,
much greater than these parts.
That's what brings me here in this moment.
It brings me to share some of these things with you
so again, I thank you all for this wonderful opportunity.
(clapping)
(laughs)
- So something, I mean,
much of what you said resonated for me,
sort of what came up in terms of sentences.
Ubuntu, I am because we are.
I particularly was wondering if you would
talk about sort of
our work with the folks that we work with
and how that work becomes one of accountability.
Not just in terms of some of the
clear like ethical checks and balances,
but what is accountability from a liberation
and a loving place look like
particularly when there is friction?
- Good question.
I think so much of, right, that friction
or the difficulties of that friction
come in our own resistance.
The more or kind of the more healing,
our ability to be present that we have
then what appears to be friction is an opportunity.
I mean it's like oh, it's an opportunity for fire.
Well, hopefully we need that.
Even if whoever we're with in whatever situation
it's not necessary that we have to kind of
try to be in the same place as they are
or they have to be in the same place that we are
but the more that we can inhabit that space
we provide an opportunity that didn't exist before.
I remember working with, I used to work...
Well I still do some but I used to work extensively
in a community mental health clinic
with youth with problem sexual behavior
and in group intensive outpatient settings.
I used to run a lot of mindfulness groups
and I remember there was this one particular client
who was also my own individual client.
Talk about dynamics and transference
and cotransference and like he had like boop.
He knew where my button was
and he was dancing on it.
I try to be like, "Oh no, I'm not gonna fall into this."
He had so much, there was so much complex trauma
that he had experience.
I remember soon...
I mean, he was on, we would get in the group
and it was like vroom, he was like at me,
it wasn't about a group and that was really challenging.
I remember I got very sick and I had a fever
and I was really delirious in this fever.
I was at home, not in a group.
I can remember being I mean out there
and this feeling of like fire everywhere.
I realized that, that when I kind of came out of it
I realized that that feeling
was something that he experienced as a norm.
I realized that what I needed to do was to be water
and to be with him and just to be water.
I could remember after I was,
when I was sick and I came back to work,
this group is going on
and he was doing the same thing.
Really, directly attacking, all those other stuff,
not following the rules, whatever.
Something had shifted in me and I could be there
and be present with him and not get triggered
and not be reactive and he was doing his best,
and it was this.
There was nothing there.
There was nothing for him to push against.
In that moment he's. (blows)
There wasn't even (mumbles) like, "Oh yeah, I did it."
It was just like wow.
I was in a very different place.
The more that and to me that's freedom.
That was great for me
and then what I was able to create in that space
was radically different than what I could conceive of.
Yeah.
(clapping)
- We have a little bit of a time so yeah.
If you.
- Yeah.
That's such a great story.
Both of your sharing out
and your followup question just took me back to
this notion of developing a practice
and how do we develop a practice
around our own process and our own growing
and our own development,
our own ability to be a healer
in the work that we do.
I'm not saying clinician, I'm saying a healer.
How you said earlier that weeding is not enough.
You come to Smith and you become aware
of certain things and you go, "I'm a weed.
"I'm gonna pull those things out."
But then like you said you got to be planting seeds
and you also have to be watering those seeds.
You have to be developing a practice
around fostering and cultivating
that within you
that extends beyond your identity
and work as a clinician.
But that ultimately allows you
to be a more effective healer.
I just want to thank you and I just want to say that too
and ask for you to speak on
how have you developed a practice in your life?
Because you're doing this bold work.
What practice is required to do that work?
- What's interesting, this one part of me is drawn
to kind of like hit a list of things like
well I do this, practically I've done this.
I guess I'll do a little bit of that
but that's not the main piece.
I've had a meditation practice for years.
Well, the biggest thing was
having some moments in my life
where it really was about what is my life about?
How do I want to exist?
That actually was a thread long before I thought about
being a healer, being a therapist.
It was much more fundamental about functioning.
But that kind of commitment.
If I'm gonna be here, great.
So what is this really about?
And then that being a thread
in which kind of doing certain tasks or things in my life.
Having things that informed me
about what is health,
what is wholeness.
What does it mean to actually be a human being?
With that, to bring up just
the mentioning of the world love, right?
For me, both healing and liberation are not
these kind of like fuzzy new agey like
you know, rainbows and unicorns which are good.
But a real commitment to
how can I both undo the messages that I've gotten
that I'm not enough
and grow that even the mystery of what it means,
to not even relate to it in terms of what's enough or not.
But just like, whoa, what is this?
Here's something in the way.
All right, let me look at that.
What does that free up?
Now I can build and see what other options there are.
Yes, there's a weeding process
but it's like from growing stuff
now the weed is choking this other thing.
Clear this away, oh I have some space here.
Whoa, what would be great there?
That's about what my own
goals, visions, desires.
But not even just here but where also it comes from.
We all have a physical, mental,
emotional, spiritual affinities for things
also based on where we come from.
If you look at your ancestor you can see like
oh yeah, there were these people
who were interested in some weird things
and some of it might be...
You know, I used to do a lot of woodworking
so having the ability
to feel things,
my hands be physically sensitive for certain things,
certain strength in fingers.
That allows me to be connected
with certain types of work and carving and creativity.
Paying attention to those.
What am I drawn towards?
It's like plants grow towards light
so what am I naturally then being pulled towards
as a natural process and as this is what I'm trying to do.
This is what I'm trying to be connected with,
myself and other people.
How do I then also offset the kind of isolation,
isolationist notion and model of this culture?
I'm doing it on my own, I've got my practice,
I've got all the answer, I'm gonna build this thing
to like oh, I know community is important.
How do I create collectives?
That means I have to like what to compromise or not.
These people have the skill for this kind of vision, right?
But that's like a place I can stretch and grow
because I know, a, I know that I don't have all the answers
and that a lot of traditions that I found value in.
People have come before us
and have figured out a lot of things.
We get into like what is evidence-based?
Whose evidence and how long
has that actually been around is a good question.
How do I stretch to say that you know,
people working together, community
teaching leaders, healing healers, all of these things
which is also part of my kind of work practice.
How do I stretch to do that as well
even when it's uncomfortable
and well, it's really easier.
I know I'm smart enough.
I can just figure out how to do all these things.
Yeah, I can figure out all the billing.
You mean I could hire somebody to do that
and that would free me up to do this
and they could do that.
Some people say like, "Well, of course you do that."
But some of these individual model is like,
"Well no, I have to do that, too.
"Let me figure that out
"and let me like create the templates
"for all these documents and assessments,"
and blah, blah, blah that I'm doing
that are actually related to something I care about
versus just here's the checklist of things
and demographics that need to be done.
I think I connected to something you were talking about.
(laughs)
I'll stop there, thank you.
- [Kenta] Thank you.
(clapping)
Wow, we've got like what,
25 minutes for questions and answers.
That's pretty impressive.
Thank you so much for working with me on this.
(clapping)
Thank you Isaiah for keeping us on schedule.
Okay, so does anybody have questions?
Yes.
I think the microphone is gonna be.
- [Woman in black] Thank you so much.
I'm a second summer master student
and the more time I spend at Smith,
the more I've come to appreciate how
Smith actually lives the anti-racism mission
in events like tonight,
and your panel has been so rich.
A question I have for any of you
and Enroue, you touched on this in your description
of the client that was really difficult to work with.
I guess one of the things that Smith is known for
in addition to its anti-racism mission
is its commitment to a psychodynamic theoretical tradition
and I'm wondering how you've incorporated that
in your clinical or community work
in conjunction with your anti-racism work?
- I'll prefer this way.
- (mumbles)
- You got it, you got it.
(laughs)
I'll piggyback.
- Then I'll add, I'll add.
But I'll add. - [Keshia] Okay.
For me it comes back to sort of this idea of translation.
That's something that's resonant for me
in terms of linguistics and language.
For me particularly useful
in bridging and integrating some of these perspective
inclusive of psychodynamic perspective
is being able to also locate
sort of the theoretical understandings, right?
I think that's really important.
For me even in my sort of my direct practice work
as well as in my teaching practice,
using for example Kohutian self-psychology
and expanding the narrative around,
for example, the need for twinship or mirroring.
And how if we're talking about for example
something like the self object
and the need for sort of this idealizing object,
that that then can be translated into
what does it mean to be living in systems of domination
that impact our self object or self,
ideas of self and even sort of ,
you know, living in an individualistic society
that says that we have to be ourselves
versus sort of a collection of selves.
That becomes an overlay that for me is a way to again
enter into a conversation
with folks who speak that language.
To be able to embrace then the impact of not only
the experience of marginalization within
systems of domination and oppression,
but also then how one internalizes
and therefore relates to that,
and so why it's important.
For example I talked about the fact that
even though I came with a certain level
of consciousness and politicization,
that it was really important for myself object
that when I came to a school it had an anti-racism mission
and had a Black woman who was a dean.
And that that mirroring object
and that experience of twinship allowed me to imagine
something that wasn't within my direct understanding
of the ways in which the constructs I was living in
were dictating who I should be.
For me, understanding that particular frame
and again, you know, talk to me later
and I've got lots of criticisms as well
and not just me about it.
But that there are conceptual ways in which
I think as we talk about communities
and even this comment that Enroue made
about sort of this idea of whose evidence,
that these ideas have been planted before.
Then the ideas don't have to take the same,
the friction gets taken out of it for me around it
and necessitating being one in
which I'm wedded to psychodynamic perspectives.
But if that's gonna be the helpful framework
for me to be able to have a liberatory conversation
then I feel it is important that I be able
to be versed in that language,
to be able to have fluent conversation.
If that's what's gonna be useful,
like for some of the folks that I work with,
that's not a particularly useful way
of understanding their experience
and for some folks it is.
I want to make sure that I have the breadth of tools
such that if that is a useful way
for somebody to get to an understanding
about who they are in the world
and who they want to be and why
there may be dissonance around that,
then you know, I feel it incumbent upon to be able to
have some way of understanding that.
- I mean I'd like to echo the sentiment around
just appreciating the, you know, what learning,
kind of the psychodynamic orientation has helped
and the role that its played in understanding
processes that I've witnessed in individuals,
and be surfaced in the community
and reenacted over and over again in the community.
And just being able to look at it,
go below the surface in having
theories and frameworks
to guide the processing of that.
But I will say I chose to come to Smith
because I had a mentor in my life that was a Smith alum.
To me, go back to that twinship,
he's an African American male social worker.
He actually came back to get his PhD here at Smith
and I saw him as Yoda
and I wanted to be like Yoda.
Not because he had magical powers
but he had this ability.
He had access to frameworks and concepts
that allowed him to look deeply
inside of the young people that he was working with,
and be able to make sense of that.
I also want to say that my experience at Smith,
it's not the end all, be all.
That we still have, there's a lot of learning
and my first master's was here at Smith.
I would say my second came from the young people
in starting the CBO.
What I've learned from my community
and from young people in my community
and how I've leveraged my learning here to enhance
the learning out in the community.
I think that it's a great starting point.
It gives you a great foundation
and it continues to inform my practice,
but there are other things that continue
to inform my practice as well.
- I'll now chime in.
Actually in the beginning I had some
kind of resistance about this.
Some of it is that my...
When I think about kind of my framework
it's not now in a particularly psychodynamic
theory-oriented framework.
Though after hearing, really hearing my colleagues,
understanding that it has been a very useful tool to me
which is actually why I came here.
I was initiated and started seeing people,
kind of spiritual work in the Orisha tradition.
Both people in that tradition and outside of it
and one of the reasons I wanted to come here
was so that I can really work with people
in a much broader realm
and broader range of issues,
than solely specifically in people within this,
this or other African-based or indigenous-based traditions.
Currently so an example is I have a client now.
Some complex trauma,
some early abuse that she's experienced,
a lot of anxiety and we started sessions
kind of more traditionally in the room.
She's in front of me looking at,
also being really trauma informed
which I actually got mostly out of my,
both my first year as placement,
and then where I ended up working,
a community-based health center in New Haven.
She was also involved in native ceremonies
and specifically like Santo Daime
or traditional sacred medicines from South America,
Ayahuasca being among one of them.
And was telling me about some ceremonies
that she had participated in.
In of them she was talking about
very strong experiences she had
when these Orisha songs were being sung.
The Orisha, the name of the divinities
from the Yoruba tradition.
She didn't know or had forgotten
that I was a priest in that tradition
and so when she brought that up I then said,
"Oh well, you know, if you're interested
"I can talk to you more about these things."
Fast forward to now,
I think only been seeing her for about four months.
We now have our sessions which are now twice a week
because of a crisis that she's in,
she's also pregnant.
We now conduct our sessions by this very special river
at the foot of this mountain that we go to.
The work and the healing that I do with her
is both very informed about
where things are coming from
and how they're manifesting now for her
very much based on psychodynamic theory
and being trauma informed.
As well as connecting with the spiritual traditions
and praying with her,
and helping her to pray and to voice what she wants
or what challenges are.
As well as sometimes we kind of take a break
and really there's a lot of psycho education
that's being done,
just so she has a better understanding of
the range of what's happening to her and why.
How things are embodied,
how having a child is triggering
kind of pre-verbal memories of abuse that have come up
and notions of motherhood and nurturing.
And then also combining that with
divinities connected with mothering and nurturing
and water and nurturing her own sense of what that is
and creating sacred space for all of that to be there.
There's a ton out there for your own growth
as a healer, as a clinician, as a human being
and this is a really wonderful foundation
to begin that process with.
- Thank you.
Does anybody have any other questions?
Rachel.
- [Voiceover] This has been, hello, absolutely mesmerizing
watching the three of you
and the work that you do is really inspiring.
So thank you so much,
it's been an incredible panel.
Something that I have a very clinical question
and it's something that I find
being raised in our classes frequently,
I'm a second year and this is the question.
And I find that you know,
each person has a different perspective
but I think personally as a person of color,
when you've got systems playing out
and history coming up when you are sitting
in a room with a client, use of self
and (mumbles) when are you directive?
When do you address the issue of race?
Do you bring it into the room?
Is it an automatic?
When do you address your multiple selves?
Is it in relation to the clients?
Is it an automatic decisions that you make
with everyone that's consistent in uniform?
And so I wanted to know how you
sort of work through that
and also if it's shifted through your progression
as a clinician, as a healer?
- [Voiceover] Can you repeat the question, sir?
- Yeah, did everybody hear the question?
The question is about the speaker's
approach to addressing race and racism
in clinical space,
and how do they use the self in that room.
- I remember when I graduated,
I'm sorry I was jumping in because I just had this thought.
I remember when I graduated here
I knew what I wanted to do
was work with boys and young men of color.
People discouraged me from using that term
and saying that this is a therapeutic model
designed in partnership with boys and men of color,
and for boys and men of color.
Me as a man of color and what that means
and how I use my own lived experience
and struggles as a young man of color.
And so for me now it's funny to me
that we have My Brother's Keeper and a national initiative
coming out from President Obama
naming the fact that we have this health disparities
that are super concentrated amongst boys and men of color.
And in California we have Sons and Brothers Initiative
which is a state-wide initiative.
It's funny to me how things trend, right?
And what's appropriate was appropriate 10 years ago.
Now things shift all the time with respect to that
and so I think that where I've arrived to now
is I lean towards the authenticity
because I work with young people that can spot a rat.
That can spot somebody being disgenuine
and so I'm gonna keep it real.
I'm gonna keep it real about why I love this work
and why I do this work,
and who I intend to help.
It's not just boys and men of color.
My organization's mission has evolved
to say that we serve boys and men of color
to marginalized youth because we recognize
that it's not just boys and men of color
that are being marginalized.
And so we want to expand
upon that mission and that work.
I'm just riffing.
I just want to say that things change, things shift.
What's acceptable and appropriate,
widely accepted and appropriate.
Also I think I err in the side of being authentic
but in a way that serves a purpose.
I know that it's case by case.
I'd like to pass it to you guys
and hear your thoughts on it.
- Okay.
Authenticity.
I probably use more self now
than I did initially.
it's always in kind of service of the other person,
people in the room or in the space.
It's not like, "Hey, that reminds me of this,
"like funny thing, that blah, blah."
That's really important
and I find that the more kind of internal work I'm doing,
the more I can really be present and not reactive
to either get pulled into something
that I think is happening
which might just be my assumption.
To not get pulled into a
projection that they might have
because yes, I'm a man of color.
They can't sometimes quite figure out
where I might be from or not.
Or they might be identified white
and have some really racist things
that they're doing or saying.
The more I can really again meet them where they are,
check myself the better.
Just the better in general.
Also in general not just in terms of race
but also when appropriate.
Mostly when I get a sense,
when I can see someone really feeling
isolated in their experience,
that sometimes is a way that I say
this is awesome in my experience.
They have an understanding of like,
oh, yes, there's a human being out there.
It has this and they look normal, right,
or whatever that is.
Or wow, this person who's kind of helping me
and I can actually share something that
I feel like no one else gets
and they get it a little bit.
Doesn't always require some disclosure.
And again, that comes kind of over time
just because I feel like oh, they're feeling alone,
doesn't mean like, "Oh, let me.
"I don't want you to feel alone."
It is case by case
and I don't find myself kind of making
blanket decisions beforehand,
but I will also name things
that they may not be bringing up.
I was talking to someone earlier about this
where I had those instance where this
young black teenager male I was working with,
a lot of depression.
He was kind of signed in high school,
started to go to like job interviews.
His mom who was Black was like,
"I want you to look this way."
And he's like, "I want to look that way
"and this is fine, this is good enough."
"No, you need to have like a suit."
And he's like, "No, no."
Because I could name both
generationally what was happening
but also the pressures of how Black people get seen
or taken seriously or not seriously
that's outside of their particular dynamic,
was really important for them also to hear.
So that they heard that the issues were not just
because my mom feels this way and I'm feeling this way
but you're getting all of these messages everywhere
about how to be seen, what's okay, what's not
and what decisions are gonna get made.
And how concrete those can be
and how life, not in this situation,
but how kind of life or death things can also be.
Sometimes it's just like oh and you know,
this is outside.
Your depression is not just some internal mechanism.
It's yeah, you're getting hit with racism,
the sexism and oppression in addition to that.
So that's been a helpful thing for me
and hopefully for the people I work with.
- We'll take one more question.
- Can I answer?
- Yeah, oh sorry.
- Maybe I want to come at this
from another perspective.
I think that hopefully will be helpful.
One is even sort of the discourse
around what disclosure is
I think is an interesting one to consider.
For me particularly as I've located myself
as a Black woman particularly
from a Canadian Caribbean African context that,
you know, sort of at least some of the ways
that I was trained around disclosures is
this is something that I tell people,
that I, you know, of my own volition.
And yet, I've been a dark-skinned Black woman my whole life
and this is a disclosure.
I think that that's an important piece
and particularly I think it's important then
since there was a question about sort of psychodynamic
and this is not limited to psychodynamic theories,
but the way in which we also then harness
this idea around therapeutic neutrality.
For me there are some checks and balances
that happen around that in terms of
being able to make space that it can be talked about
and that you know, I don't generally ask folks
to sort of disclose if you're gonna use it
if I'm not prepared to also be met with some curiosity.
And also to do that in an ethical way
that again is always in service
of the work we're doing, not just some free styling, right?
But I think it's also important
to think about it sort of systematically and structurally.
I think for me I'll give you sort of an example from
my clinical work, I was working in an outpatient,
a community-based outpatient clinic.
I'll give you sort of two examples
and one was that I'd been working with
a young White woman from the middle class background
in New York where I live and I work.
Sort of six weeks into treatment
she dropped out of treatment
and there was this whole protocol around no shows.
What was discovered by me after
some other unfortunate events
was that she had been transferred.
What was discovered sort of in this conversation
about sort of how this transfer happened
particularly because there wasn't
any kind of continuity plan.
I felt strongly about some of the ethics about how it was
but understanding sort of where I was located
with respect to the power.
I asked about it.
The director sort of said,
"She wasn't comfortable with you because you were Black."
What struck with me was I was Black
for the whole six weeks that we worked together.
This wasn't something that was new.
(coughs) Excuse me.
But really I was.
(laughs)
That that was even a discussion...
It was not a discussion with me as the clinician
and then that that was sort of
a seemingly appropriate response from the director
was one in which like I became clear
about certain dynamics that weren't operating.
The discussion sort of was directed
by my director at that time to this loss
and therefore it's sort of an issue around billing
and level of volume and productivity.
She just said, "Well, you know Keshia,
"why don't you try asking your clients
"in your first intake session (clears throat)
"if it's okay that you're Black."
(laughs)
Right.
And so there's many ways.
Again, this comes back to the friction, right?
Let me say that I was water in that moment to the fire.
(laughs)
(clapping)
I said to her respectfully, right?
Because I also know that in my locations
this was a very specific power relationship
and that I was not necessary...
That there was a chance that I was not gonna be afforded
kind of the same kind of things.
What I said was, "Well, that's one possibility
"but I just want to be clear,
"do you ask all of your clinicians in this clinic
"to ask if it's okay with whoever they're working with
"to be however the identify racially?"
And she couldn't answer that
because the answer was obviously no.
And so I said so I want to invite the possibility
of what the implications are gonna be
for me having to ask that.
And if then there are going to be provisions
in place for my level of volume and productivity.
And so in grounding it in that, right?
But I also want to be clear about this last point
because then I was able to have my enraged experience
with a trusted accountability partner
who could hold that space.
Because I also think it's really important
to be clear about the terrains in which we move in, right?
And that it isn't all unicorns and rainbows and meadows
although I love meadows and unicorns and rainbows.
It was an issue where I could take care of myself
and directly speak to the structures
that were in place, right?
The institutionalized racism that was also then playing out.
I think that that's an important question
even around this disclosure piece
is again to what end for what purpose
and how can we then be cared for.
However that's sort of defined
within our professional structure.
(clapping)
- We would like to thank all the presenters here today
and thank you so much for coming.
I apologize that there is no more time for questions
but thanks so much for coming.
(clapping)
(laughs)
(clapping)
- [Kenta] That was wonderful.
- Thank you.
(clapping)