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- My name is Phebe Sessions.

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I'm a long term member of
the faculty at the school

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for social work and I'm very, very pleased

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to have the opportunity to introduce

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tonight's speaker, Dr. Usha Tummala-Narra.

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This lecture is taking
place during the schools

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annual conference and
I would like to welcome

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those in attendance
from our field agencies

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all over the country as
well as professionals

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here from the wider community
of the Pioneer Valley

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and of course our own
school for social work

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community of students,
faculty and committed others.

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During the winter and spring of 2016 the

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social work practice sequence was

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greeted by a wonderful surprise.

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The publication by the
American Psychological

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Association Press of Dr.
Tummala-Narra's book,

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Psychoanalytic Theory and

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Cultural Competence in Psychotherapy.

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We saw immediately a great
opportunity to advance

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and deepen the education of our students

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through the adoption of this timely book

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as a required text for our required course

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in clinical social work practice.

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The book generated a very
enthusiastic response

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from students and instructors.

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All students in the
class of 2017 have been

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educated with this book as a primary text.

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All students in the class
of 2018 are currently

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being educated through
this text, but the text

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is only the start of Dr. Tummala-Narra's

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influence on our curriculum.

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She has, in addition,
published very extensively

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on a range of topics and her writings

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have contributed to all
areas of the curriculum.

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I have sited some
publications which represent

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the diversity of her
interests though it only

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scratches the surface of
the extent of her writings.

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An examination of attitudes toward gender

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and sexual violence among Asian Indians

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in the U.S., cultural oppression and

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human trafficking,
exploring the role of racism

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and ethnic bias, the experience of ethnic

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and racial group
membership among immigrant

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origin adolescents,
psychotherapy with refugees,

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emerging paradigms,
cultural competence as a

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core emphasis of
psychoanalytic psychotherapy,

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and two of my favorites, voices of older

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Asian Indian immigrants,
mental health implications

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and revisiting community work

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from a psychodynamic perspective.

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In addition, I am eagerly looking forward

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to tapping into teaching on diversity,

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the mutual influence of
students and instructors.

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Dr. Tummala-Narra received her Doctorate

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in Clinical Psychology from
Michigan State University.

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She was subsequently an advanced fellow at

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the Center for Psychoanalytic Studies at

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Massachusetts General Hospital and a

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post doctoral fellow in the Victims

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of Violence Program of what is now

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the Cambridge Health Alliance.

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She is currently an associate professor

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in counseling, developmental and

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educational psychology at Boston College

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and an independent practice in Cambridge.

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She has served on the APA
Division 39 Board of Directors,

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the APA Presidential
Task Force on Immigration

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and the APA Task Force on Re-envisioning

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the Multicultural Guidelines
in the 21st Century.

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Her lecture tonight will
be on identity choice

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and constraint in
psychoanalytic psychotherapy.

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Please join me in welcoming
Dr. Usha Tummala-Narra.

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(audience applauding)

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- Thank you.

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Thank you so much for that
lovely introduction Phebe.

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I am so delighted to see all of you here.

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I'm really excited to be here.

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Thank you for the honor of the invitation

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to join you this evening.

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I'm really hoping that
whatever I present to you

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today will lead to discussion in ways that

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feel most important and most
relevant to you at this moment.

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So as you heard in the introduction,

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my interests are pretty varied and tonight

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I'm hoping to address an issue that is

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very close to my heart that has to do with

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identity development and so I will say

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a little bit more about
what my formal lecture

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will be but I wanted to
start today by sharing

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with you just some slides, some images of

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where we've been over the last
few months in our country.

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Let's see if I can work this.

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There we go.

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Okay so you're gonna see just some images

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of what's been happening around

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the country actually
in terms of resistance.

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So the title of my lecture today is on

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Identity Choice and Constraint in

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Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy
and so of course

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at the very core of it
lies what happens now

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and what is happening now in
our country and in the world.

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So here, I'm gonna just
flip through these images.

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Black lives matter,
Dakota Pipeline, right,

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the protest Defense the Sacred,

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Water is Life, you all know this.

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(audience laughing)

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Women's march, right?

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Not yours to grab.

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More photos from the women's march.

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The airport protests.

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Refugees welcome.

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I love my muslim neighbors.

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Right, more similar signs.

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No human is illegal,

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and I love this one.

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These are two fathers with their children

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on their shoulders and one
is Jewish, one is Muslim,

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the children and the little boy has a sign

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that says hate has no home here.

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Right and the little girl,
you can't see her sign

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but it says love is love.

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Here we have a protest
outside of a conversion center

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in Arizona and here you have a sign,

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you can't fix me, I'm not
broken and then this mother

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in the background, my
daughter is not broken.

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Here you have an activist
from Russia originally.

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Ask me why in Russia they want to kill me.

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This is a gay activist.

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You've seen this I'm sure.

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We the people are greater
than the fear, than fear,

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and this is the final
one I'll show you today.

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If he builds a wall, I'll
grow up and tear it down.

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All right so I'll just
leave it on this slide.

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He gives me a lot of hope.

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Okay so most of us, if
not all of us, experience

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both choice and constraint
in the development

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of cultural identity and
this process is fluid

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and dynamic throughout our lives.

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While identity is complex and layered,

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I will focus this
evening on the complexity

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of cultural identity formation within

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the confines of social
oppression and trauma

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and within the open spaces of exploration

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both within and outside of
the therapeutic relationship.

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So I'm not gonna, of
course, attempt to address

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every aspect of identity
or cultural identity

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but I'm going to just
try to focus on the issue

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of choice and constraint
particularly around

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the issue of race and
immigration in the U.S.

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from a psychoanalytic multicultural and

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feminist perspective, so I think

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from a more integrative perspective.

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So with that I'll begin.

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In the United States race
takes a particular form.

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I'm not black or white
or indigenous to the U.S.

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So from this frame of reference I'm

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perceived to know little about race.

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When you are not categorized
along these lines

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you are seen as on the outside, yet I know

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that I'm not on the outside
of American race politics.

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Indians in the U.S., and
more broadly South Asians,

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have like every other cultural group

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that is raced upon migration develops

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a framework for understanding race and

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more often than not these frameworks

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are less visible and more likely to be

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dismissed by notions
of immigrants as people

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who choose to come to the U.S. and

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indeed immigration entails a choice.

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However, immigration is certainly not

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a choice for most children and becoming

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racialized is also not a choice.

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Many adults who immigrate to the U.S. are

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unaware of the deep
entrenchment of racial politics

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and racism in the U.S. and it's

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impact in the future generation.

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In the case of South Asians,
which is my ancestry,

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due to history of European
colonization in South Asia,

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race and racism are not new experiences

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post migration, however, they do take a

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unique form in the United States.

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So I'll share with you
some personal information

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that informs how I think
clinically and theoretically.

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I was born in Hyderabad
India which is a large

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multicultural city with a long history

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of tensions between Hindus and Muslims

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and among people of
divergent Hindu castes.

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I immigrated to the U.S., to the Bronx

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in New York City
specifically, with my parents

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and my older brother when
I was seven years old.

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An age when I could
remember vividly the anxiety

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and the sadness of separating
from extended family members.

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As a Hindu in India I had belonged to a

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majority religious group,
although I belonged

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to a minority Hindu caste and this caste

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was frequently victimized
by verbal harassment

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and physical violence and this became

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an impetus for migration for my family.

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So the experience of being an insider and

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an outsider were familiar
to me even before

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migrating to the U.S., however I had not

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identified as an Indian person or as

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a person of color until I came to the U.S.

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In India I was a Hindu
of a particular caste

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and in the U.S. I adopted new labels,

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Asian American, South
Asian, Indian American,

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person of color, racial minority.

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In my early adolescence,
which was in the 1980's,

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I lived in northern New Jersey.

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So we moved from the Bronx to a

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largely white suburb in New Jersey.

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This was an era that later became known

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for the Dotbusters, a street gang that

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victimized people of South Asian origin.

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Have you all heard of the Dotbusters?

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Okay, most people have not.

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It wasn't, it's not remembered
in our history, largely.

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So this was a street gang
that, a white street gang

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that would victimize people
of South Asian origin.

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There were documented
murders, assaults and so on.

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My brother and I often
walked home from our

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predominantly white school feeling anxious

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about whether or not we would be followed

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and harassed by these kids
from a neighboring town

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who would seek us out on the
walking path from school.

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This was everyday.

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Our home was vandalized with racial slurs

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etched into the snow in our front yard.

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So, by the way, do you know
why it's called the Dotbusters?

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Because of the bindi that
many Hindu women wear.

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So it was called the
Dotbusters based on that.

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These painful events
made it very clear to me

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that being seen as
different meant that one

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is an outsider even
though we were seemingly

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acculturating to mainstream culture,

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learning how to participate in it both

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at work and at school.

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We spoke English fluently,
wore western dress

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and ate western food,
however these changes

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did not secure insider status but instead

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created feelings of
otherness, hopelessness

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about belonging in a new country.

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Well one might think, well this was

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a long time ago and now it's 2017.

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Back then maybe you
lived in a racist region

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of the country, maybe you
lived in a certain part,

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a certain neighborhood,
maybe that was the exception.

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This a common misnomer
and this is something

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that we hear in racial narratives

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in the United States over and over again.

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However we know that the problem of race

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and racism continues from one generation

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to the next and across regions.

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I can see this clearly
when my older son is

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called the N word in his
middle school cafeteria

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and when my younger son
in elementary school

258
00:13:51.466 --> 00:13:53.648
is told by a classmate that he will never

259
00:13:53.648 --> 00:13:56.916
get the part of Willy
Wonka in his school musical

260
00:13:56.916 --> 00:13:59.119
because Willy Wonka is not brown and

261
00:13:59.119 --> 00:14:01.474
this is all in Lexington Massachusetts,

262
00:14:01.474 --> 00:14:05.224
which is progressive,
liberal, affluent town.

263
00:14:06.758 --> 00:14:10.389
So to me race and racism
remains a problem of

264
00:14:10.389 --> 00:14:14.309
everyday life for those
perceived as the other.

265
00:14:14.309 --> 00:14:17.147
By the way, he did get
the Willy Wonka part.

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00:14:17.147 --> 00:14:20.426
(audience laughing and cheering)

267
00:14:20.426 --> 00:14:22.093
So that was hopeful.

268
00:14:25.022 --> 00:14:29.014
So, all right, so I'm going to
move now from the personal to

269
00:14:29.014 --> 00:14:32.013
somewhat more academic
and also professional.

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00:14:32.013 --> 00:14:35.535
I'm gonna talk a bit specifically about

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00:14:35.535 --> 00:14:38.245
constraints related to
race and immigration,

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00:14:38.245 --> 00:14:40.201
conflicts inherent to the development of

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00:14:40.201 --> 00:14:43.017
cultural identity and the intrapsychic

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00:14:43.017 --> 00:14:47.175
and interpersonal implications
of immigration and race.

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Okay so let's think about the effects of

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00:14:50.090 --> 00:14:53.515
social oppression with
more depth for a moment.

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00:14:53.515 --> 00:14:55.942
In recent years psychoanalytic inquiry

278
00:14:55.942 --> 00:14:57.989
has expanded understandings of social

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00:14:57.989 --> 00:15:01.372
and contextual issues
relevant to identity.

280
00:15:01.372 --> 00:15:03.938
Discrimination and stereotyping contribute

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00:15:03.938 --> 00:15:07.414
to a powerful social mirror
and social unconscious.

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00:15:07.414 --> 00:15:09.838
This idea of the social mirror which was

283
00:15:09.838 --> 00:15:14.303
a beautifully articulated
concept by Carola Suarez-Orozco

284
00:15:14.303 --> 00:15:17.137
who is an immigration researcher at UCLA,

285
00:15:17.137 --> 00:15:20.114
who took Winnicott's idea of mirroring

286
00:15:20.114 --> 00:15:23.531
in the mother infant, mother toddler diad

287
00:15:24.420 --> 00:15:27.762
and extended it to the types of messages

288
00:15:27.762 --> 00:15:30.299
that are fed back to individuals from

289
00:15:30.299 --> 00:15:33.022
the social environment
outside of one's home

290
00:15:33.022 --> 00:15:37.148
and outside of the parent
child relationship.

291
00:15:37.148 --> 00:15:41.010
But these, the social mirror
and social unconscious

292
00:15:41.010 --> 00:15:43.736
as it's been described shape self images

293
00:15:43.736 --> 00:15:46.238
and perceptions by others both of which

294
00:15:46.238 --> 00:15:48.883
are recreated consciously
and unconsciously

295
00:15:48.883 --> 00:15:50.838
in ones life and certainly in

296
00:15:50.838 --> 00:15:53.500
the therapeutic relationship as well.

297
00:15:53.500 --> 00:15:56.635
Attention to social
oppression and it's effect

298
00:15:56.635 --> 00:15:59.824
on the psyche in psychoanalytic literature

299
00:15:59.824 --> 00:16:02.363
has brought to the
foreground the inextricable

300
00:16:02.363 --> 00:16:03.961
connection between what clients and

301
00:16:03.961 --> 00:16:06.415
therapists experience
outside and what they

302
00:16:06.415 --> 00:16:09.184
experience inside the
therapeutic relationship.

303
00:16:09.184 --> 00:16:11.712
So therefore, it's worth looking at,

304
00:16:11.712 --> 00:16:13.832
how different forms of social oppression

305
00:16:13.832 --> 00:16:16.981
influence identity and relationships.

306
00:16:16.981 --> 00:16:19.318
The effects of unconscious implicit or

307
00:16:19.318 --> 00:16:22.000
aversive discrimination are insidious

308
00:16:22.000 --> 00:16:26.084
and they have lasting
effects over the lifespan.

309
00:16:26.084 --> 00:16:30.189
My client, bringing this
to a clinical example,

310
00:16:30.189 --> 00:16:32.827
my client who's a Dominican American woman

311
00:16:32.827 --> 00:16:35.452
in her 30's reported that she never

312
00:16:35.452 --> 00:16:38.123
quite understood why she felt increasingly

313
00:16:38.123 --> 00:16:41.401
distant form her boyfriend
who was a white man.

314
00:16:41.401 --> 00:16:43.674
She deeply admired him.

315
00:16:43.674 --> 00:16:45.935
She fell in love with
him, but months into,

316
00:16:45.935 --> 00:16:49.416
we couldn't quite figure out
what was the issue really,

317
00:16:49.416 --> 00:16:51.041
why should couldn't quite settle down

318
00:16:51.041 --> 00:16:52.889
with him and months into our work

319
00:16:52.889 --> 00:16:54.763
she remembered that her
boyfriend had told her

320
00:16:54.763 --> 00:16:56.406
at the very start of their relationship

321
00:16:56.406 --> 00:16:59.279
just sort of in passing
that he'd never thought

322
00:16:59.279 --> 00:17:02.038
that he'd be attracted to
a girl from the Caribbean,

323
00:17:02.038 --> 00:17:05.486
specifically a black girl as he did not

324
00:17:05.486 --> 00:17:08.586
find women with darker skin attractive.

325
00:17:08.586 --> 00:17:11.556
I asked my client at
that moment how she felt

326
00:17:11.556 --> 00:17:13.543
about this statement
and it's as if though,

327
00:17:13.543 --> 00:17:15.286
you know in that moment
in therapy she just

328
00:17:15.286 --> 00:17:17.496
sort of wanted to glide through it

329
00:17:17.496 --> 00:17:19.354
and began her next sentence and

330
00:17:19.354 --> 00:17:23.354
I had to stop her and I
said, you know, hold on.

331
00:17:24.705 --> 00:17:26.445
Just say what you said again.

332
00:17:26.445 --> 00:17:28.488
Let me hear it one more time.

333
00:17:28.488 --> 00:17:30.628
And so then I asked her to tell me what

334
00:17:30.628 --> 00:17:33.336
she felt when he said
this to her and she said,

335
00:17:33.336 --> 00:17:36.092
at the moment she didn't find it offensive

336
00:17:36.092 --> 00:17:37.906
but over the course of the relationship,

337
00:17:37.906 --> 00:17:40.746
it lasted about eight
months, she felt that she

338
00:17:40.746 --> 00:17:42.865
was never quite able to settle

339
00:17:42.865 --> 00:17:46.270
in fully and be with her boyfriend.

340
00:17:46.270 --> 00:17:48.445
We were then able to talk about racism

341
00:17:48.445 --> 00:17:51.068
that affected her identity
and her life choices.

342
00:17:51.068 --> 00:17:54.444
This is an illustration
how injustice in both

343
00:17:54.444 --> 00:17:57.091
subtle and explicit ways leaves a

344
00:17:57.091 --> 00:17:59.575
lasting impact on the individuals psyche.

345
00:17:59.575 --> 00:18:01.799
I want to note that if we had not explored

346
00:18:01.799 --> 00:18:04.720
her experience of racism then I may have

347
00:18:04.720 --> 00:18:06.824
attributed the problem she faced in her

348
00:18:06.824 --> 00:18:09.468
relationship to only her conscious and

349
00:18:09.468 --> 00:18:11.732
unconscious fears of commitment and

350
00:18:11.732 --> 00:18:15.034
intimacy which of course
is highly individualized,

351
00:18:15.034 --> 00:18:17.826
right, in terms of conceptualization.

352
00:18:17.826 --> 00:18:19.822
The negative affects of stereotyping

353
00:18:19.822 --> 00:18:21.627
can further present themselves in the

354
00:18:21.627 --> 00:18:23.373
transference and counter transference

355
00:18:23.373 --> 00:18:27.351
a client may seek or avoid
at different moments,

356
00:18:27.351 --> 00:18:29.789
a therapist of a particular
cultural background

357
00:18:29.789 --> 00:18:31.524
as an attempt to find someone who will

358
00:18:31.524 --> 00:18:35.329
understand him or her or they completely

359
00:18:35.329 --> 00:18:37.479
including social identities and

360
00:18:37.479 --> 00:18:39.679
experiences of marginalization.

361
00:18:39.679 --> 00:18:41.978
In a different example a client who's been

362
00:18:41.978 --> 00:18:44.706
targeted for racism may
have a more difficult

363
00:18:44.706 --> 00:18:46.537
transition to working with a therapist

364
00:18:46.537 --> 00:18:48.916
who's either affiliated with or perceived

365
00:18:48.916 --> 00:18:51.934
as affiliated with an oppressing group.

366
00:18:51.934 --> 00:18:54.569
The therapist then in
turn may find himself

367
00:18:54.569 --> 00:18:57.655
or herself or themselves,
emotionally distancing

368
00:18:57.655 --> 00:19:00.049
from the client who's perceived as

369
00:19:00.049 --> 00:19:03.095
disinterested in the
therapists desire to help.

370
00:19:03.095 --> 00:19:05.445
So you see how this becomes cyclical

371
00:19:05.445 --> 00:19:08.273
and this issue becomes
a point of avoidance

372
00:19:08.273 --> 00:19:11.678
and think about the
different types of things

373
00:19:11.678 --> 00:19:15.586
that we tend to focus on in psychotherapy

374
00:19:15.586 --> 00:19:17.444
and traditional psychotherapy.

375
00:19:17.444 --> 00:19:19.974
We're not afraid to talk about sex,

376
00:19:19.974 --> 00:19:22.964
which is really interesting.

377
00:19:22.964 --> 00:19:26.046
We're not usually, increasingly we're

378
00:19:26.046 --> 00:19:28.488
less worried about talking about money

379
00:19:28.488 --> 00:19:30.545
although I think that's still a taboo

380
00:19:30.545 --> 00:19:34.306
in certain ways, but
this is really difficult.

381
00:19:34.306 --> 00:19:36.707
Race is a traumatic subject.

382
00:19:36.707 --> 00:19:40.291
It's a traumatic topic,
yet when we don't talk

383
00:19:40.291 --> 00:19:44.365
about it the issues still are there right?

384
00:19:44.365 --> 00:19:46.151
They don't go away.

385
00:19:46.151 --> 00:19:48.023
Different types of social oppression share

386
00:19:48.023 --> 00:19:50.871
common effects with
respect to intrapsychic

387
00:19:50.871 --> 00:19:53.043
and relational worlds
but also have distinct

388
00:19:53.043 --> 00:19:56.425
effects based in historical
and cultural context.

389
00:19:56.425 --> 00:19:58.906
Colonization and slavery
of people of color

390
00:19:58.906 --> 00:20:01.495
in the U.S. and elsewhere has left

391
00:20:01.495 --> 00:20:04.904
a painful legacy of
distrust and disavowal.

392
00:20:04.904 --> 00:20:07.588
More recently relived in the overt acts

393
00:20:07.588 --> 00:20:10.022
of hatred during and since Donald Trump

394
00:20:10.022 --> 00:20:12.100
has campaigned for the presidency.

395
00:20:12.100 --> 00:20:14.775
The use of terms like law and order in his

396
00:20:14.775 --> 00:20:17.332
campaign bring people of color back

397
00:20:17.332 --> 00:20:20.655
into the position of
subjugation and immigrants

398
00:20:20.655 --> 00:20:24.116
to a position of being
the dangerous other.

399
00:20:24.116 --> 00:20:27.857
Within psychology,
challenges faced by people

400
00:20:27.857 --> 00:20:31.231
of color continue to be
located almost exclusively

401
00:20:31.231 --> 00:20:33.277
within the confines of either individual

402
00:20:33.277 --> 00:20:36.058
characteristics or attributes assigned

403
00:20:36.058 --> 00:20:38.528
to specific cultural groups.

404
00:20:38.528 --> 00:20:41.386
For example, the issue of acculturation

405
00:20:41.386 --> 00:20:44.654
among immigrants has
traditionally been thought

406
00:20:44.654 --> 00:20:48.162
to be a problem of conflicting
values across context.

407
00:20:48.162 --> 00:20:50.847
People say, well they're intergenerational

408
00:20:50.847 --> 00:20:52.970
conflicts in immigrant homes.

409
00:20:52.970 --> 00:20:55.350
The parents have one world view that's

410
00:20:55.350 --> 00:20:57.099
closely tied to the heritage culture

411
00:20:57.099 --> 00:21:00.578
and the children have
an American world view,

412
00:21:00.578 --> 00:21:02.894
whatever we consider
to be American, right,

413
00:21:02.894 --> 00:21:05.986
more mainstream dominant
culture kind of thinking.

414
00:21:05.986 --> 00:21:09.560
Yet in the acculturation
literature, rarely

415
00:21:09.560 --> 00:21:12.024
do we ever talk about the idea that

416
00:21:12.024 --> 00:21:14.394
each member of the
family is actually having

417
00:21:14.394 --> 00:21:17.072
a very unique and separate independent

418
00:21:17.072 --> 00:21:20.775
acculturative process
that is rarely talked

419
00:21:20.775 --> 00:21:24.623
about explicitly within
the family environment.

420
00:21:24.623 --> 00:21:27.115
So it could be that the
parents are experiencing

421
00:21:27.115 --> 00:21:30.945
challenges at work or
in their neighborhood,

422
00:21:30.945 --> 00:21:34.553
the children are
experiencing issues at school

423
00:21:34.553 --> 00:21:37.356
and what happens and often times in homes

424
00:21:37.356 --> 00:21:39.827
of immigrants is that there isn't

425
00:21:39.827 --> 00:21:41.717
a real conversation about it.

426
00:21:41.717 --> 00:21:44.435
Nobody actually knows what
the other is going through.

427
00:21:44.435 --> 00:21:47.112
So what I'm saying is
that true that cultural

428
00:21:47.112 --> 00:21:49.575
world views can shift
across family members,

429
00:21:49.575 --> 00:21:51.605
within family members over time,

430
00:21:51.605 --> 00:21:54.548
however acculturation, the concept

431
00:21:54.548 --> 00:21:57.078
of that rarely acknowledges the idea

432
00:21:57.078 --> 00:22:00.317
that external threats and demands also

433
00:22:00.317 --> 00:22:02.888
influence what's happening
within the family

434
00:22:02.888 --> 00:22:05.993
and largely this is unspoken, but

435
00:22:05.993 --> 00:22:08.063
when we think about how we talk about

436
00:22:08.063 --> 00:22:10.150
acculturation gaps between parents

437
00:22:10.150 --> 00:22:11.711
and kids we still attribute it

438
00:22:11.711 --> 00:22:13.711
to a problem of their culture.

439
00:22:13.711 --> 00:22:16.102
A problem that lies in the family.

440
00:22:16.102 --> 00:22:19.145
Not what somebody, an individual

441
00:22:19.145 --> 00:22:22.145
or a family is actually adapting to.

442
00:22:24.315 --> 00:22:28.900
Social oppression operates in
the psyche in profound ways.

443
00:22:28.900 --> 00:22:32.838
Chinua Achebe, in describing
European colonization

444
00:22:32.838 --> 00:22:36.054
in Africa, pointed out
the task of dispossessing

445
00:22:36.054 --> 00:22:39.887
others and he said, this
task of dispossessing

446
00:22:41.074 --> 00:22:43.819
others requires a story that's fabricated

447
00:22:43.819 --> 00:22:47.348
by the colonizer that
deems the colonized people

448
00:22:47.348 --> 00:22:49.923
as lacking intelligence, uncivilized

449
00:22:49.923 --> 00:22:51.718
and unable to care for themselves

450
00:22:51.718 --> 00:22:54.875
without the oversight of the colonizer.

451
00:22:54.875 --> 00:22:57.544
Does this sound contemporary to you?

452
00:22:57.544 --> 00:22:58.711
It does to me.

453
00:23:00.002 --> 00:23:02.661
He further noted, what is both unfortunate

454
00:23:02.661 --> 00:23:05.701
and unjust is the pain
the person dispossessed

455
00:23:05.701 --> 00:23:09.882
is forced to bear in
the act of dispossession

456
00:23:09.882 --> 00:23:12.231
itself and subsequently in the trauma

457
00:23:12.231 --> 00:23:14.304
of a diminished existence.

458
00:23:14.304 --> 00:23:17.214
In contemporary times attempts to reclaim

459
00:23:17.214 --> 00:23:20.790
and reposes is not
without danger as people

460
00:23:20.790 --> 00:23:23.763
of color are often perceived as ungrateful

461
00:23:23.763 --> 00:23:25.503
for the freedom they possess today

462
00:23:25.503 --> 00:23:28.328
or too sensitive to comment about race.

463
00:23:28.328 --> 00:23:30.860
In these cases race and racism are thought

464
00:23:30.860 --> 00:23:32.482
to be problems of the past,

465
00:23:32.482 --> 00:23:35.070
irrelevant to the modern society.

466
00:23:35.070 --> 00:23:38.505
We had a black president, Barrack Obama.

467
00:23:38.505 --> 00:23:40.052
We're post racial.

468
00:23:40.052 --> 00:23:43.074
The problem of dispossession
further implicates

469
00:23:43.074 --> 00:23:45.929
the invisibility of
whiteness and the projection

470
00:23:45.929 --> 00:23:47.535
of racial otherness onto people

471
00:23:47.535 --> 00:23:50.453
designated as people of color.

472
00:23:50.453 --> 00:23:52.721
More recently whiteness has been touted

473
00:23:52.721 --> 00:23:55.357
as the requirement to be a real American.

474
00:23:55.357 --> 00:23:57.438
We can see this in the political rhetoric

475
00:23:57.438 --> 00:24:00.029
about making America great again.

476
00:24:00.029 --> 00:24:02.461
The relationship of the individual to

477
00:24:02.461 --> 00:24:05.041
a broader social system
that either protects

478
00:24:05.041 --> 00:24:07.521
or places individuals at risk for danger

479
00:24:07.521 --> 00:24:11.076
plays an important role
in intrapsychic life.

480
00:24:11.076 --> 00:24:13.605
When institutions fail
to protect individuals

481
00:24:13.605 --> 00:24:15.864
and communities they
create traumatic stress

482
00:24:15.864 --> 00:24:17.800
and interfere with the ability to

483
00:24:17.800 --> 00:24:20.343
develop safe object relations.

484
00:24:20.343 --> 00:24:23.070
Further, when a system denies or minimizes

485
00:24:23.070 --> 00:24:25.672
the occurrence of trauma, the affects are

486
00:24:25.672 --> 00:24:28.923
more severe as they
involve a sense of betrayal

487
00:24:28.923 --> 00:24:33.547
by forces that are meant
to protect survivors.

488
00:24:33.547 --> 00:24:36.372
Lilian Gomez Diaz, she developed a concept

489
00:24:36.372 --> 00:24:39.444
called post colonization stress disorder

490
00:24:39.444 --> 00:24:42.492
and this is in contrast to PTSD.

491
00:24:42.492 --> 00:24:46.110
Which, what she does in this concept of

492
00:24:46.110 --> 00:24:48.374
post colonization stress disorder is that

493
00:24:48.374 --> 00:24:50.766
she locates pathology
not in the individual

494
00:24:50.766 --> 00:24:52.866
or even a particular event but

495
00:24:52.866 --> 00:24:55.340
rather in broader social structures.

496
00:24:55.340 --> 00:24:57.719
She pointed out that PTSD doesn't capture

497
00:24:57.719 --> 00:25:00.169
the problem of racial trauma and proposed

498
00:25:00.169 --> 00:25:01.862
an alternative diagnoses of

499
00:25:01.862 --> 00:25:04.580
post colonization stress disorder.

500
00:25:04.580 --> 00:25:07.156
It's similar in some
ways to Judith Herman's

501
00:25:07.156 --> 00:25:10.943
concept of complex PTSD
but it refers to a process

502
00:25:10.943 --> 00:25:15.681
that's repeated, prolonged
and ethnopolitically mediated.

503
00:25:15.681 --> 00:25:18.202
Post colonization stress disorder alters

504
00:25:18.202 --> 00:25:21.073
group identity,
relationships and world views

505
00:25:21.073 --> 00:25:24.695
and some intrapsychic
consequences can involve

506
00:25:24.695 --> 00:25:27.448
complicated mourning,
remembering of the past

507
00:25:27.448 --> 00:25:32.118
and imagining of the future
and a sense of not having home.

508
00:25:32.118 --> 00:25:33.929
It's worth noting that
a number of scholars

509
00:25:33.929 --> 00:25:36.663
drawing on research and clinical evidence

510
00:25:36.663 --> 00:25:39.399
have called for the
inclusion of racial trauma

511
00:25:39.399 --> 00:25:42.513
as an etiological factor in PTSD and

512
00:25:42.513 --> 00:25:47.234
complex PTSD but specifically
PTSD in the DSM-5.

513
00:25:47.234 --> 00:25:49.403
However, it continues to be excluded from

514
00:25:49.403 --> 00:25:52.314
our current diagnostic
systems and I will say

515
00:25:52.314 --> 00:25:55.345
that there are a group of us who advocated

516
00:25:55.345 --> 00:25:58.646
and wrote to the DSM task
force about this issue

517
00:25:58.646 --> 00:26:00.684
but we were told that we simply

518
00:26:00.684 --> 00:26:03.386
did not have enough research evidence.

519
00:26:03.386 --> 00:26:05.962
I think we have enough.

520
00:26:05.962 --> 00:26:10.180
Traumatic stress rooted
in social oppression

521
00:26:10.180 --> 00:26:13.117
poses challenges to a
sense of safety as we know.

522
00:26:13.117 --> 00:26:17.163
In fact many of our
racial minority clients,

523
00:26:17.163 --> 00:26:19.921
when describing experience
of discrimination

524
00:26:19.921 --> 00:26:21.906
wonder whether these incidents actually

525
00:26:21.906 --> 00:26:24.103
were discriminatory of
whether they're being

526
00:26:24.103 --> 00:26:26.613
too sensitive, a
perspective that they have

527
00:26:26.613 --> 00:26:29.003
partially internalized
from mainstream society

528
00:26:29.003 --> 00:26:31.522
that keeps their actual experience at bay

529
00:26:31.522 --> 00:26:34.765
to maintain and perpetuate the status quo.

530
00:26:34.765 --> 00:26:37.768
Derald Wing Sue and
colleagues and John Dovidio

531
00:26:37.768 --> 00:26:39.632
have elaborated on this problem of

532
00:26:39.632 --> 00:26:44.371
subtle ambiguous expressions
of racism in particular

533
00:26:44.371 --> 00:26:48.215
microaggressions with
Derald Wing Sue's work.

534
00:26:48.215 --> 00:26:51.393
So research in this area indicates that

535
00:26:51.393 --> 00:26:54.352
these interactions are
pervasive and detrimental.

536
00:26:54.352 --> 00:26:58.698
Interestingly Derald's
description of microaggressions

537
00:26:58.698 --> 00:27:00.856
as a real phenomenon in the experience

538
00:27:00.856 --> 00:27:03.558
of racial minorities has
been met with resistance

539
00:27:03.558 --> 00:27:05.836
with some psychologists who claim that

540
00:27:05.836 --> 00:27:08.853
the concept of microaggressions
is pure nonsense

541
00:27:08.853 --> 00:27:11.190
arguing that all people suffer

542
00:27:11.190 --> 00:27:13.053
verbal and behavioral insults.

543
00:27:13.053 --> 00:27:15.482
These psychologists have
also drawn attention

544
00:27:15.482 --> 00:27:18.863
to the ambiguous nature
of microaggressions

545
00:27:18.863 --> 00:27:21.064
suggesting that cross racial interactions

546
00:27:21.064 --> 00:27:24.086
interpreted as
microaggressions may in fact

547
00:27:24.086 --> 00:27:27.005
reflect factors unrelated
to race or racism.

548
00:27:27.005 --> 00:27:29.621
There was a whole back and forth in

549
00:27:29.621 --> 00:27:31.929
the American Psychologist which

550
00:27:31.929 --> 00:27:34.762
was published in 2009, 2008, 2009.

551
00:27:36.552 --> 00:27:38.731
Now Sue and colleagues responded to these

552
00:27:38.731 --> 00:27:41.629
arguments by underscoring the fact that

553
00:27:41.629 --> 00:27:43.609
people of color struggle
with the ambiguity

554
00:27:43.609 --> 00:27:45.832
of microaggressions and often attribute

555
00:27:45.832 --> 00:27:48.207
unconscious or unintentional racism

556
00:27:48.207 --> 00:27:50.905
to personal reactivity or sensitivity

557
00:27:50.905 --> 00:27:53.141
and yet are left wondering
about the intention

558
00:27:53.141 --> 00:27:54.921
and the behaviors of the people who

559
00:27:54.921 --> 00:27:58.261
directed these
microaggressions towards them.

560
00:27:58.261 --> 00:28:02.079
But the question, who's interpretation or

561
00:28:02.079 --> 00:28:05.778
narrative is privileged
is raised here, right?

562
00:28:05.778 --> 00:28:08.154
Which interpretation is correct?

563
00:28:08.154 --> 00:28:10.645
They posed, so Sue and colleagues response

564
00:28:10.645 --> 00:28:12.925
to these critics was the following,

565
00:28:12.925 --> 00:28:14.903
"If you want to understand
oppression do you

566
00:28:14.903 --> 00:28:18.490
"ask the oppressor or do
you ask the oppressed?"

567
00:28:18.490 --> 00:28:21.341
Stereotypes, right, lie at the base

568
00:28:21.341 --> 00:28:23.312
of microaggressions and other forms

569
00:28:23.312 --> 00:28:26.920
of discrimination and stereotypes embody

570
00:28:26.920 --> 00:28:29.127
the wish to get rid of social problems

571
00:28:29.127 --> 00:28:33.142
by locating them in
individual deficits, right?

572
00:28:33.142 --> 00:28:36.691
It's a way to diminish individuality.

573
00:28:36.691 --> 00:28:38.735
It's important to consider how stereotypes

574
00:28:38.735 --> 00:28:41.265
are projected and internalized.

575
00:28:41.265 --> 00:28:44.428
We're all socialized
with stereotypes about

576
00:28:44.428 --> 00:28:47.095
groups that we identify with and

577
00:28:47.969 --> 00:28:50.087
those who we don't identify with.

578
00:28:50.087 --> 00:28:52.831
Stereotypes reflect both curiosity and

579
00:28:52.831 --> 00:28:55.943
rejection of those
considered to be the other.

580
00:28:55.943 --> 00:28:58.663
Ambivalence towards people
outside the mainstream

581
00:28:58.663 --> 00:29:00.822
is further illustrated in current

582
00:29:00.822 --> 00:29:03.739
sentiment towards immigrants, right?

583
00:29:03.739 --> 00:29:06.104
Ricardo Ainslie suggested
that the presence

584
00:29:06.104 --> 00:29:08.751
and increased visibility of racial

585
00:29:08.751 --> 00:29:10.604
minority immigrants in the U.S. trigger

586
00:29:10.604 --> 00:29:12.549
a sense of collective anxiety where

587
00:29:12.549 --> 00:29:15.245
dissociative defenses
maintain an emotional

588
00:29:15.245 --> 00:29:17.957
distance from a potentially
threatening group.

589
00:29:17.957 --> 00:29:20.107
As such, immigrants are the scapegoats

590
00:29:20.107 --> 00:29:22.283
for economic and social problems.

591
00:29:22.283 --> 00:29:25.785
They're taking our jobs
away, the real Americans.

592
00:29:25.785 --> 00:29:28.744
Fockery Davids from
England further suggested

593
00:29:28.744 --> 00:29:31.299
that internal racism reflects a normal

594
00:29:31.299 --> 00:29:34.797
pathological organization
in mainstream society

595
00:29:34.797 --> 00:29:37.635
where people of the marginalized group are

596
00:29:37.635 --> 00:29:40.242
recruited into a structure
of defenses that protect

597
00:29:40.242 --> 00:29:43.274
against anxiety and fear
of that marginalized group.

598
00:29:43.274 --> 00:29:45.617
They maintain the racist position and

599
00:29:45.617 --> 00:29:48.812
perpetuate an avoidance of
personal responsibility.

600
00:29:48.812 --> 00:29:51.749
He, in fact, would argue
that in a racist mindset

601
00:29:51.749 --> 00:29:54.026
we remain convinced
that our prejudice view

602
00:29:54.026 --> 00:29:57.898
of that object, of a
particular object, is true.

603
00:29:57.898 --> 00:30:00.895
To the extent that contrary
facts are assimilated

604
00:30:00.895 --> 00:30:05.310
in a way that in essence
confirms our view.

605
00:30:05.310 --> 00:30:07.711
In other words, a paranoid interpretation

606
00:30:07.711 --> 00:30:10.590
about the marginalized group created by

607
00:30:10.590 --> 00:30:13.719
a dominant group becomes
a part of internal life

608
00:30:13.719 --> 00:30:15.904
of members of the marginalized group

609
00:30:15.904 --> 00:30:18.379
where fantasies about
specific cultural groups

610
00:30:18.379 --> 00:30:21.446
are mistaken to be facts and think about

611
00:30:21.446 --> 00:30:24.337
how much information we are absorbing

612
00:30:24.337 --> 00:30:27.364
everyday about various groups.

613
00:30:27.364 --> 00:30:29.884
Even though consciously
we reject them perhaps,

614
00:30:29.884 --> 00:30:32.807
but unconsciously they lie in our minds.

615
00:30:32.807 --> 00:30:34.546
It's very powerful.

616
00:30:34.546 --> 00:30:36.955
In addition to recognizing the realities

617
00:30:36.955 --> 00:30:38.997
of social oppression it's important

618
00:30:38.997 --> 00:30:42.468
to recognize how it's influence on

619
00:30:42.468 --> 00:30:45.395
socialization processes within families

620
00:30:45.395 --> 00:30:47.351
and communities and societies.

621
00:30:47.351 --> 00:30:50.566
In a recent study that
was published last year,

622
00:30:50.566 --> 00:30:54.374
along with some students I conducted

623
00:30:54.374 --> 00:30:57.139
a study that, it was a focus group study.

624
00:30:57.139 --> 00:31:00.722
We conducted discussion
groups with various

625
00:31:03.057 --> 00:31:05.519
adolescents in a high school from

626
00:31:05.519 --> 00:31:08.210
different backgrounds, ethnic backgrounds

627
00:31:08.210 --> 00:31:10.566
and racial backgrounds and we asked them

628
00:31:10.566 --> 00:31:12.387
questions about their identity and

629
00:31:12.387 --> 00:31:13.835
how they form their identity and

630
00:31:13.835 --> 00:31:15.936
what about the messages
they receive at home

631
00:31:15.936 --> 00:31:18.103
and at school and so across,

632
00:31:18.103 --> 00:31:20.580
we learned some really interesting things.

633
00:31:20.580 --> 00:31:24.861
At home generally they
received positive messages

634
00:31:24.861 --> 00:31:27.072
about their cultural groups, about

635
00:31:27.072 --> 00:31:30.538
prioritizing education, about what

636
00:31:30.538 --> 00:31:33.622
a good person that they are and so on.

637
00:31:33.622 --> 00:31:36.135
At school many of the
adolescents experience

638
00:31:36.135 --> 00:31:38.877
microaggressions,
stereotyping and other types

639
00:31:38.877 --> 00:31:40.944
of discrimination by teachers and peers

640
00:31:40.944 --> 00:31:44.039
and I would say an equal number, sort of

641
00:31:44.039 --> 00:31:45.792
an equal extent of the teachers and

642
00:31:45.792 --> 00:31:48.830
the peers which is really concerning.

643
00:31:48.830 --> 00:31:50.700
For example, in one of
the group interviews

644
00:31:50.700 --> 00:31:53.312
a Cuban American student
described a feeling

645
00:31:53.312 --> 00:31:57.365
of connection to other
Latinos and this person said,

646
00:31:57.365 --> 00:31:59.803
"I feel really proud of being a Latina

647
00:31:59.803 --> 00:32:03.283
"because I remember after
9/11 a lot of people

648
00:32:03.283 --> 00:32:04.912
"went to help clean up the city.

649
00:32:04.912 --> 00:32:07.131
"The most people who went were Latino's.

650
00:32:07.131 --> 00:32:09.645
"That made me feel very proud."

651
00:32:09.645 --> 00:32:11.769
On the other hand, a different response

652
00:32:11.769 --> 00:32:14.082
from another student in
the same exact group,

653
00:32:14.082 --> 00:32:16.386
a Guatemalan American student who's

654
00:32:16.386 --> 00:32:19.809
fluent in English followed this discussion

655
00:32:19.809 --> 00:32:23.058
with her comment, "My
teacher came up to me.

656
00:32:23.058 --> 00:32:24.382
"She grabbed me by my shoulder

657
00:32:24.382 --> 00:32:26.994
"and she says loudly, Hello. How are you?

658
00:32:26.994 --> 00:32:28.304
"Do you understand?

659
00:32:28.304 --> 00:32:30.304
"Nod if you understand."

660
00:32:31.336 --> 00:32:34.772
Now the disparity between
experiences at home

661
00:32:34.772 --> 00:32:37.023
and at school in this case is striking

662
00:32:37.023 --> 00:32:39.378
and we would hear this
over and over again.

663
00:32:39.378 --> 00:32:41.230
We interviewed students who are

664
00:32:41.230 --> 00:32:43.135
from Haitian American backgrounds,

665
00:32:43.135 --> 00:32:46.336
from South Asian backgrounds, from Chinese

666
00:32:46.336 --> 00:32:49.085
and Korean and Japanese backgrounds

667
00:32:49.085 --> 00:32:53.505
and we saw this pattern
over and over again.

668
00:32:53.505 --> 00:32:57.113
These were ninth and 10th graders.

669
00:32:57.113 --> 00:32:59.054
So when you think about this disparity,

670
00:32:59.054 --> 00:33:01.476
we have to raise the question of

671
00:33:01.476 --> 00:33:03.749
how socialization experiences of children

672
00:33:03.749 --> 00:33:06.745
and adolescents either
facilitates or impedes

673
00:33:06.745 --> 00:33:09.708
a sense of belonging in mainstream society

674
00:33:09.708 --> 00:33:11.808
and how and from whom these

675
00:33:11.808 --> 00:33:14.439
adolescents actually seek help, right?

676
00:33:14.439 --> 00:33:16.790
Who are they talking to when
they have these experiences?

677
00:33:16.790 --> 00:33:18.343
Are they even talking to anybody?

678
00:33:18.343 --> 00:33:20.913
And another thing we
learned is that most of them

679
00:33:20.913 --> 00:33:22.713
would never go see a guidance counselor

680
00:33:22.713 --> 00:33:25.480
or a school counselor to
talk about these issues.

681
00:33:25.480 --> 00:33:27.330
They are socialized to
believe that you don't

682
00:33:27.330 --> 00:33:29.478
actually have to get help for something

683
00:33:29.478 --> 00:33:31.945
like this, that this is normative.

684
00:33:31.945 --> 00:33:34.219
Right, this is the norm so therefore

685
00:33:34.219 --> 00:33:37.043
you have to adjust to it.

686
00:33:37.043 --> 00:33:38.981
So again there is absolutely no point

687
00:33:38.981 --> 00:33:41.484
of trying to resist it because it will

688
00:33:41.484 --> 00:33:44.144
happen over and over again.

689
00:33:44.144 --> 00:33:46.757
So I want to say a couple of things

690
00:33:46.757 --> 00:33:49.566
about multiple marginalization.

691
00:33:49.566 --> 00:33:52.854
We know that many
individuals face multiple

692
00:33:52.854 --> 00:33:56.120
types of oppression both
within dominant context

693
00:33:56.120 --> 00:33:59.442
and within their own ethnic
or racial communities.

694
00:33:59.442 --> 00:34:02.565
It's important to note that all aspects

695
00:34:02.565 --> 00:34:05.102
of a persons identity are intertwined

696
00:34:05.102 --> 00:34:08.017
and each aspect such as race, gender

697
00:34:08.017 --> 00:34:10.594
or spirituality does not
develop independently

698
00:34:10.594 --> 00:34:13.322
of any other aspect of identity.

699
00:34:13.322 --> 00:34:16.453
Relatedly, oppression related to any one

700
00:34:16.453 --> 00:34:20.176
aspect of identity can
be mutually reinforcing.

701
00:34:20.176 --> 00:34:23.384
So people facing multiple
forms of marginalization

702
00:34:23.384 --> 00:34:25.518
cope with conflicting
loyalties to different

703
00:34:25.518 --> 00:34:29.247
communities with whom they
affiliate and identify.

704
00:34:29.247 --> 00:34:31.774
This type of conflict is illustrated in

705
00:34:31.774 --> 00:34:34.940
one of my clients who is Iraqi American.

706
00:34:34.940 --> 00:34:38.255
She told me in one
session, "It's hard for me

707
00:34:38.255 --> 00:34:40.149
"to talk about sometimes how the men

708
00:34:40.149 --> 00:34:42.142
"in my family are more dominating.

709
00:34:42.142 --> 00:34:44.037
"If I tell outsiders they will think

710
00:34:44.037 --> 00:34:46.348
"that our men are all terrorists."

711
00:34:46.348 --> 00:34:49.269
For this client, her
experience of being dominated

712
00:34:49.269 --> 00:34:52.232
by men in her family is compounded by her

713
00:34:52.232 --> 00:34:55.750
experience with racism and
stereotyping outside the home.

714
00:34:55.750 --> 00:34:57.736
So what does this do, right?

715
00:34:57.736 --> 00:35:00.206
It limits her possibility
of openly voicing

716
00:35:00.206 --> 00:35:02.789
her distress in either context.

717
00:35:03.763 --> 00:35:05.919
Multiple forms of marginalization are also

718
00:35:05.919 --> 00:35:09.097
faced by immigrants and
refugees escaping persecution

719
00:35:09.097 --> 00:35:11.705
from their countries of origin and

720
00:35:11.705 --> 00:35:13.615
living with discrimination and fear

721
00:35:13.615 --> 00:35:15.733
of deportation in the U.S.

722
00:35:15.733 --> 00:35:19.175
Very recently I met a
client, a new client,

723
00:35:19.175 --> 00:35:22.659
who is an immigrant from
Venezuela with whom,

724
00:35:22.659 --> 00:35:26.826
and he contacted me because
he was intensely anxious.

725
00:35:29.927 --> 00:35:34.639
He was having panic
attacks and having a really

726
00:35:34.639 --> 00:35:38.008
hard time sleeping and when I asked him

727
00:35:38.008 --> 00:35:40.715
about the source of it when we talked

728
00:35:40.715 --> 00:35:42.886
on the phone at first he said,

729
00:35:42.886 --> 00:35:45.969
"well, I'm afraid I'm gonna be deported."

730
00:35:45.969 --> 00:35:50.156
And there's something about that statement

731
00:35:50.156 --> 00:35:53.972
right there which becomes
a presenting problem right?

732
00:35:53.972 --> 00:35:56.819
The anxiety is not intrapsychic anxiety.

733
00:35:56.819 --> 00:36:00.475
It is only because of the reality.

734
00:36:00.475 --> 00:36:02.707
This is not neurotic anxiety.

735
00:36:02.707 --> 00:36:06.124
This is real and so here he has witnessed

736
00:36:07.957 --> 00:36:12.644
multiple murders of loved
ones while in Venezuela

737
00:36:12.644 --> 00:36:16.243
where political persecution
is an ongoing reality.

738
00:36:16.243 --> 00:36:18.393
He has legal status in the U.S. but

739
00:36:18.393 --> 00:36:20.927
the consequences of
losing his documentation

740
00:36:20.927 --> 00:36:23.553
are so dire that he lays awake at night

741
00:36:23.553 --> 00:36:26.828
fearing for his life both in
the U.S. and in Venezuela.

742
00:36:26.828 --> 00:36:30.152
So where is his intrapsychic space?

743
00:36:30.152 --> 00:36:31.889
Where is he, right?

744
00:36:31.889 --> 00:36:35.782
He is neither here nor
there and Andrew Harlem

745
00:36:35.782 --> 00:36:37.406
has written a beautiful paper about

746
00:36:37.406 --> 00:36:41.584
this concept of exile
around what it feels like

747
00:36:41.584 --> 00:36:44.986
because when somebody is an
exile, intrapsychic exile

748
00:36:44.986 --> 00:36:49.153
and this traumatic space,
that they are lost in transit.

749
00:36:50.419 --> 00:36:53.745
That home is neither here, there, anywhere

750
00:36:53.745 --> 00:36:57.569
and so intra psychically
one lives with fear

751
00:36:57.569 --> 00:36:59.819
and anxiety and never quite arrives

752
00:36:59.819 --> 00:37:03.065
and never quite leaves,
right, as in the case

753
00:37:03.065 --> 00:37:05.250
of voluntary immigration where

754
00:37:05.250 --> 00:37:08.167
safety in some ways is more secure.

755
00:37:09.806 --> 00:37:12.470
Now even in instances that do not involve

756
00:37:12.470 --> 00:37:15.126
imminent danger in a country of origin,

757
00:37:15.126 --> 00:37:16.974
immigrants fear that their legal status

758
00:37:16.974 --> 00:37:19.765
does not matter any
longer in the U.S. today.

759
00:37:19.765 --> 00:37:22.321
In fact I remember the
morning after the November

760
00:37:22.321 --> 00:37:24.902
presidential election, asking my husband

761
00:37:24.902 --> 00:37:27.171
if our passports were up to date,

762
00:37:27.171 --> 00:37:30.014
the first thing I did when I woke up.

763
00:37:30.014 --> 00:37:33.448
I was like, are the
kids passports updated?

764
00:37:33.448 --> 00:37:35.547
We're both naturalized U.S. citizens

765
00:37:35.547 --> 00:37:37.871
and our children were born in the U.S.

766
00:37:37.871 --> 00:37:40.621
If I'm feeling this way, imagine.

767
00:37:41.811 --> 00:37:44.118
Shortly after this
conversation I went to work

768
00:37:44.118 --> 00:37:46.151
and taught my psychology of trauma class

769
00:37:46.151 --> 00:37:49.732
where many of my students
wept and some of them

770
00:37:49.732 --> 00:37:53.427
talked about their dismay
towards immigrants for,

771
00:37:53.427 --> 00:37:56.559
who voted for Trump and one student said,

772
00:37:56.559 --> 00:37:58.671
"How could they have voted for him?

773
00:37:58.671 --> 00:38:00.658
"Did they forget where they came from?

774
00:38:00.658 --> 00:38:04.880
"All of a sudden they
think they're white."

775
00:38:04.880 --> 00:38:08.378
Right, this is the
complexity of this issue,

776
00:38:08.378 --> 00:38:11.192
so we are indeed in a
crisis state right now

777
00:38:11.192 --> 00:38:14.226
This is a traumatic state that we are in.

778
00:38:14.226 --> 00:38:16.739
Conflicting loyalties across host and

779
00:38:16.739 --> 00:38:19.143
heritage cultures are further complicated

780
00:38:19.143 --> 00:38:21.273
in the case of interpersonal violence

781
00:38:21.273 --> 00:38:24.653
that occurs within a
community, within a family,

782
00:38:24.653 --> 00:38:26.852
as the survivors compromised sense

783
00:38:26.852 --> 00:38:29.564
of safety shapes cultural identity.

784
00:38:29.564 --> 00:38:32.780
Several scholars have
described the experience

785
00:38:32.780 --> 00:38:36.377
of sexism and sexual
violence among women of color

786
00:38:36.377 --> 00:38:39.322
who develop ambivalence
about their heritage cultures

787
00:38:39.322 --> 00:38:41.017
and feel compromised in developing

788
00:38:41.017 --> 00:38:42.982
a positive ethnic identity.

789
00:38:42.982 --> 00:38:46.612
Recently Chris Yee, my
colleague from Los Angeles,

790
00:38:46.612 --> 00:38:50.487
introduced the concept
of cultural dissociation

791
00:38:50.487 --> 00:38:53.502
and this is an experience
of merging between

792
00:38:53.502 --> 00:38:55.841
the suffering of the traumatized person

793
00:38:55.841 --> 00:38:57.889
and the heritage culture.

794
00:38:57.889 --> 00:39:00.536
A person who experiences
cultural dissociation

795
00:39:00.536 --> 00:39:03.359
may distance the self from participating

796
00:39:03.359 --> 00:39:05.384
in cultural traditions, speaking in a

797
00:39:05.384 --> 00:39:07.589
native language or heritage language

798
00:39:07.589 --> 00:39:10.129
and from interacting with
similar ethnic people

799
00:39:10.129 --> 00:39:13.683
and instead identify with only
mainstream cultural norms.

800
00:39:13.683 --> 00:39:17.419
According to Ye, cultural dissociation is

801
00:39:17.419 --> 00:39:19.762
untenable as the experience of trauma

802
00:39:19.762 --> 00:39:23.006
inevitably reappears in relational life

803
00:39:23.006 --> 00:39:25.911
disrupting a persons sense of stability.

804
00:39:25.911 --> 00:39:28.521
As such, what she does
is caution therapists

805
00:39:28.521 --> 00:39:30.844
to carefully attend to the problem of

806
00:39:30.844 --> 00:39:32.545
differentiating between a clients

807
00:39:32.545 --> 00:39:35.544
traumatic experiences
and normative experiences

808
00:39:35.544 --> 00:39:38.333
within the heritage culture and community

809
00:39:38.333 --> 00:39:41.463
in order to effectively
explore ethnic identity.

810
00:39:41.463 --> 00:39:43.295
It's important to consider that people

811
00:39:43.295 --> 00:39:46.144
who are marginalized within
their cultural groups

812
00:39:46.144 --> 00:39:50.318
also face challenges in developing
a sense of authenticity.

813
00:39:50.318 --> 00:39:52.912
When people of color are told by members

814
00:39:52.912 --> 00:39:55.425
of their own communities that they're not

815
00:39:55.425 --> 00:39:58.329
real members of the group,
you're not black enough,

816
00:39:58.329 --> 00:40:01.491
you're white identified, you're a coconut,

817
00:40:01.491 --> 00:40:04.122
you're a Twinkie, I'm sure there are many

818
00:40:04.122 --> 00:40:07.126
other things and they face discrimination

819
00:40:07.126 --> 00:40:09.890
from people outside and a compounded

820
00:40:09.890 --> 00:40:12.040
stress from within the group.

821
00:40:12.040 --> 00:40:13.923
Members of a cultural group can become

822
00:40:13.923 --> 00:40:16.614
screens of projection
for a cultural groups

823
00:40:16.614 --> 00:40:19.278
fear of losing a sense
of collective identity

824
00:40:19.278 --> 00:40:21.693
that protects against the discrimination

825
00:40:21.693 --> 00:40:24.518
by those outside the cultural group.

826
00:40:24.518 --> 00:40:27.289
So this is why often you might see people

827
00:40:27.289 --> 00:40:29.990
trying to uphold a more positive image

828
00:40:29.990 --> 00:40:32.343
of their cultural group
or their racial group

829
00:40:32.343 --> 00:40:34.962
or their religious group, right, as a way

830
00:40:34.962 --> 00:40:37.315
of protecting against that discrimination

831
00:40:37.315 --> 00:40:39.555
because if I actually
reveal what I'm doing

832
00:40:39.555 --> 00:40:43.615
and what I'm really feeling
and all the complexity of it.

833
00:40:43.615 --> 00:40:45.684
That I like certain things,
I don't like other things,

834
00:40:45.684 --> 00:40:49.037
these things stress me out
and these things are positive.

835
00:40:49.037 --> 00:40:52.004
If I actually am truly myself, right,

836
00:40:52.004 --> 00:40:55.337
then that stereotyped projection will be

837
00:40:56.972 --> 00:41:00.298
so hurtful and damaging not only to me

838
00:41:00.298 --> 00:41:02.405
but those who I love and care about

839
00:41:02.405 --> 00:41:05.604
and those who I identify with
and this is a big problem.

840
00:41:05.604 --> 00:41:09.260
I will share with you
a quick vignette about

841
00:41:09.260 --> 00:41:13.584
this where I recently
did, completed a study

842
00:41:13.584 --> 00:41:17.929
looking at, examining, it
was a quantitative study.

843
00:41:17.929 --> 00:41:21.662
It was an online study
where I asked questions

844
00:41:21.662 --> 00:41:25.052
about sexual violence and attitudes about

845
00:41:25.052 --> 00:41:28.374
sexual violence within
the Asian Indian community

846
00:41:28.374 --> 00:41:32.304
and so these were
participants, participants

847
00:41:32.304 --> 00:41:34.987
who were invited had to
be of Asian Indian origin.

848
00:41:34.987 --> 00:41:37.256
So Indian American, it
could be first generation,

849
00:41:37.256 --> 00:41:40.496
second generation and I had a whole range

850
00:41:40.496 --> 00:41:42.725
of responses from participants or

851
00:41:42.725 --> 00:41:45.262
potential participants,
people who received

852
00:41:45.262 --> 00:41:48.221
my invitation letter and anywhere from,

853
00:41:48.221 --> 00:41:50.046
thank you for doing this work because

854
00:41:50.046 --> 00:41:51.700
we don't talk enough about sexual violence

855
00:41:51.700 --> 00:41:53.821
in the Indian community in the U.S.,

856
00:41:53.821 --> 00:41:57.932
to other people saying, why
are you doing this research?

857
00:41:57.932 --> 00:42:00.300
Are you trying to reify stereotypes about

858
00:42:00.300 --> 00:42:03.074
South Asian men being dominant, being

859
00:42:03.074 --> 00:42:06.438
aggressive sexually
towards South Asian women?

860
00:42:06.438 --> 00:42:09.964
So you can understand see,
doing research in this area

861
00:42:09.964 --> 00:42:13.236
is not without it's
complexities nor it's dangers

862
00:42:13.236 --> 00:42:16.208
I would say or it's critics but it's an

863
00:42:16.208 --> 00:42:18.297
interesting thing even to try to examine

864
00:42:18.297 --> 00:42:20.535
a problem within a particular community

865
00:42:20.535 --> 00:42:24.213
like this because it is
so compelling to try to

866
00:42:24.213 --> 00:42:27.617
protect an image, an impression seen by

867
00:42:27.617 --> 00:42:30.893
those who are not Indian
and it isn't fair.

868
00:42:30.893 --> 00:42:35.060
It is absolutely a constraint
on identity development.

869
00:42:36.695 --> 00:42:40.208
Now cultural identity
from a psychoanalytic

870
00:42:40.208 --> 00:42:43.206
perspective is an amalgam of multiple

871
00:42:43.206 --> 00:42:45.823
group memberships that
interact with each other

872
00:42:45.823 --> 00:42:49.823
and it's a complex, I
would say the multiplicity

873
00:42:51.422 --> 00:42:54.086
of identity implicates and interaction

874
00:42:54.086 --> 00:42:56.185
of oppression, privilege, marginalization

875
00:42:56.185 --> 00:42:59.612
across dimensions and layers of experience

876
00:42:59.612 --> 00:43:04.115
that occur within the family,
community, society and so on.

877
00:43:04.115 --> 00:43:06.458
And a contemporary psychoanalytic view

878
00:43:06.458 --> 00:43:09.178
contrasts from other psychological models

879
00:43:09.178 --> 00:43:12.583
that support linear,
sequential or conscious level

880
00:43:12.583 --> 00:43:15.917
processes in racial and
cultural identity development.

881
00:43:15.917 --> 00:43:18.072
Now these models are important.

882
00:43:18.072 --> 00:43:20.979
I learn a lot from them because they

883
00:43:20.979 --> 00:43:24.371
describe particular
statuses, racial identity

884
00:43:24.371 --> 00:43:27.130
statuses for example or particular

885
00:43:27.130 --> 00:43:29.898
experiences in a given time period.

886
00:43:29.898 --> 00:43:32.776
However, they do not
capture the dynamic nature

887
00:43:32.776 --> 00:43:35.095
of how cultural identity continues

888
00:43:35.095 --> 00:43:38.012
to transform within a persons life.

889
00:43:39.164 --> 00:43:41.937
There's also an emphasis in psychoanalysis

890
00:43:41.937 --> 00:43:44.573
on unconscious conflict and subjectivity

891
00:43:44.573 --> 00:43:47.065
of internal experience that contributes

892
00:43:47.065 --> 00:43:49.858
to a more complex understanding
of cultural identity

893
00:43:49.858 --> 00:43:52.196
and the development of coexisting

894
00:43:52.196 --> 00:43:55.113
divergent cultural identifications.

895
00:43:56.405 --> 00:44:00.475
In recent years we've had
growing media attention

896
00:44:00.475 --> 00:44:03.254
to racial profiling, violence against

897
00:44:03.254 --> 00:44:06.492
African American men
and boys in particular.

898
00:44:06.492 --> 00:44:08.775
Less so in terms of the violence

899
00:44:08.775 --> 00:44:12.048
against African American women and girls

900
00:44:12.048 --> 00:44:16.215
although that is obviously
a reality that's persisting.

901
00:44:18.872 --> 00:44:22.546
But when we, when you have
these traumatic events

902
00:44:22.546 --> 00:44:25.459
that you're exposed to
as a person of color

903
00:44:25.459 --> 00:44:28.218
you have to prepare children and people

904
00:44:28.218 --> 00:44:31.225
in your community to protect themselves

905
00:44:31.225 --> 00:44:34.148
in potentially dangerous environments.

906
00:44:34.148 --> 00:44:36.868
So certainly these are
conversations that I have

907
00:44:36.868 --> 00:44:39.015
with my two sons and that my husband

908
00:44:39.015 --> 00:44:41.256
has with my two sons around how you

909
00:44:41.256 --> 00:44:44.187
behave in a certain way in public.

910
00:44:44.187 --> 00:44:46.410
How do you deflect, right?

911
00:44:46.410 --> 00:44:49.743
So my older son is a tall, muscular boy,

912
00:44:51.629 --> 00:44:55.462
17 years old who has
been identified by others

913
00:44:56.442 --> 00:44:59.230
as South Asian, Middle Eastern, Latino.

914
00:44:59.230 --> 00:45:02.800
He sort of can be seen
as various different

915
00:45:02.800 --> 00:45:06.755
ethnicities and so how do
I prepare my 17 year old

916
00:45:06.755 --> 00:45:09.835
son who gets profiled, by the way,

917
00:45:09.835 --> 00:45:11.276
every time he's in the airport.

918
00:45:11.276 --> 00:45:12.640
He goes on a school trip, he's the one

919
00:45:12.640 --> 00:45:15.865
pulled out in the airports
and so this is a reality

920
00:45:15.865 --> 00:45:19.798
and we have to then, in
this particular parameter

921
00:45:19.798 --> 00:45:23.351
that we're working with, we have to then

922
00:45:23.351 --> 00:45:25.617
prepare children to potentially face

923
00:45:25.617 --> 00:45:29.444
some type of discrimination or negativity.

924
00:45:29.444 --> 00:45:33.611
So unfortunately these,
these types of experiences

925
00:45:36.135 --> 00:45:41.002
form strict parameters around
how one can develop ones self.

926
00:45:41.002 --> 00:45:42.902
So when we think about identity formation

927
00:45:42.902 --> 00:45:45.850
we tell our kids, you could
be whatever you want to be.

928
00:45:45.850 --> 00:45:48.383
Now is that really true in all

929
00:45:48.383 --> 00:45:51.135
the situations that I described?

930
00:45:51.135 --> 00:45:53.189
Do I want it to be true?

931
00:45:53.189 --> 00:45:55.454
Of course, but is that true?

932
00:45:55.454 --> 00:45:57.991
And these are the kinds of dilemmas that

933
00:45:57.991 --> 00:46:01.595
families, parents and children face.

934
00:46:01.595 --> 00:46:03.874
Right, what is reality exactly?

935
00:46:03.874 --> 00:46:06.369
And when it's ambiguous
and when you're told

936
00:46:06.369 --> 00:46:09.847
that that's not really happening
over and over again, right?

937
00:46:09.847 --> 00:46:12.264
This is a state of confusion.

938
00:46:14.998 --> 00:46:18.165
Let me move on to speaking a bit about

939
00:46:19.229 --> 00:46:23.284
conflicting loyalties within communities.

940
00:46:23.284 --> 00:46:25.414
People develop cultural identities we know

941
00:46:25.414 --> 00:46:28.864
across multiple contexts
with contradictory narratives

942
00:46:28.864 --> 00:46:32.197
and shifting happens for most people who

943
00:46:33.190 --> 00:46:37.253
identify as racial minorities
or cultural minorities,

944
00:46:37.253 --> 00:46:39.340
sexual minorities where you have

945
00:46:39.340 --> 00:46:42.985
shifting unconsciously from
one context to another.

946
00:46:42.985 --> 00:46:46.055
So I have to present myself
a certain way in this context

947
00:46:46.055 --> 00:46:50.204
and then in another context
I can be this part of myself.

948
00:46:50.204 --> 00:46:53.339
Right, but you're not quite
every fully yourself because

949
00:46:53.339 --> 00:46:56.447
the context around you
does not allow for that.

950
00:46:56.447 --> 00:47:00.535
It does not tolerate the
other aspects of you.

951
00:47:00.535 --> 00:47:02.714
So this is an example of my client

952
00:47:02.714 --> 00:47:05.036
Crystal that illustrates this.

953
00:47:05.036 --> 00:47:07.172
She's a Jamaican American woman who moved

954
00:47:07.172 --> 00:47:08.926
to the U.S. with her family when she was

955
00:47:08.926 --> 00:47:11.848
in her teens and she told
me, "It's like you have

956
00:47:11.848 --> 00:47:14.383
"to act a certain way when
you're with certain people.

957
00:47:14.383 --> 00:47:18.014
"That's true for everybody I
guess but it's also different.

958
00:47:18.014 --> 00:47:21.573
"People see me and they
think, this is a black woman.

959
00:47:21.573 --> 00:47:23.515
"I have to act a certain way so they

960
00:47:23.515 --> 00:47:25.188
"don't see me as negative.

961
00:47:25.188 --> 00:47:29.096
"So I try to act like
them, like they want me to.

962
00:47:29.096 --> 00:47:31.341
"Then I go home and I'm Jamaican.

963
00:47:31.341 --> 00:47:35.022
"Not black or anything,
just Jamaican, just me."

964
00:47:35.022 --> 00:47:37.539
Hiding aspects of the self
can be used to protect

965
00:47:37.539 --> 00:47:40.014
against anticipated discrimination but

966
00:47:40.014 --> 00:47:42.941
it comes at the cost of
increased anxiety related

967
00:47:42.941 --> 00:47:46.229
to a sense of falseness
and a sense of invisibility

968
00:47:46.229 --> 00:47:49.707
and this is the kind of
cost that I'm talking about.

969
00:47:49.707 --> 00:47:52.256
Shifting for many people
does not really rely

970
00:47:52.256 --> 00:47:56.151
on real choice but rather
operates unconsciously

971
00:47:56.151 --> 00:47:58.472
through a dual sense of
self that's necessary

972
00:47:58.472 --> 00:48:02.793
for survival and sometimes
for thriving also in context.

973
00:48:02.793 --> 00:48:05.565
A person has to be creative
in terms of dealing

974
00:48:05.565 --> 00:48:07.741
with this dilemma of managing public and

975
00:48:07.741 --> 00:48:10.324
private selves in order
to cope with the stress

976
00:48:10.324 --> 00:48:12.769
that accompanies shifting and despite

977
00:48:12.769 --> 00:48:16.246
how seamless it seems, largely because

978
00:48:16.246 --> 00:48:18.444
it's unconscious, shifting poses

979
00:48:18.444 --> 00:48:21.001
a risk for individual experience.

980
00:48:21.001 --> 00:48:23.153
The experience of not having a home.

981
00:48:23.153 --> 00:48:25.839
In some cases an individual
can develop split

982
00:48:25.839 --> 00:48:28.085
identifications with important people

983
00:48:28.085 --> 00:48:30.965
in their lives who
remain separated as a way

984
00:48:30.965 --> 00:48:34.073
of bearing the anxiety of
two or more contradictory

985
00:48:34.073 --> 00:48:36.755
cultural beliefs that
clash with each other.

986
00:48:36.755 --> 00:48:39.204
For example my client Ravi.

987
00:48:39.204 --> 00:48:41.473
He's a first generation Indian American

988
00:48:41.473 --> 00:48:43.599
man in his early 30's.

989
00:48:43.599 --> 00:48:46.743
He told me that he had
not introduced his white,

990
00:48:46.743 --> 00:48:49.088
Irish American girlfriend to his parents

991
00:48:49.088 --> 00:48:51.254
although he and his girlfriend had talked

992
00:48:51.254 --> 00:48:54.112
about the possibility of getting married.

993
00:48:54.112 --> 00:48:56.159
So this was a serious relationship.

994
00:48:56.159 --> 00:48:58.420
Ravi, since moving away from home

995
00:48:58.420 --> 00:49:00.689
to attend college, gradually revealed less

996
00:49:00.689 --> 00:49:02.417
and less about himself to his

997
00:49:02.417 --> 00:49:04.283
parents and his family members.

998
00:49:04.283 --> 00:49:06.719
However, when he went to visit his family

999
00:49:06.719 --> 00:49:08.376
he would say, "I feel happy.

1000
00:49:08.376 --> 00:49:09.997
"I feel grounded."

1001
00:49:09.997 --> 00:49:11.986
And he would describe similar experiences

1002
00:49:11.986 --> 00:49:13.612
of being with his girlfriend and

1003
00:49:13.612 --> 00:49:15.923
at the same time could not image bringing

1004
00:49:15.923 --> 00:49:19.320
these two disparate worlds together.

1005
00:49:19.320 --> 00:49:21.542
As he expressed different
parts of his identity

1006
00:49:21.542 --> 00:49:25.158
when he was with her versus
when he was with his parents.

1007
00:49:25.158 --> 00:49:28.001
Specifically he felt that
he was more American,

1008
00:49:28.001 --> 00:49:30.008
independent, adventurous when he was with

1009
00:49:30.008 --> 00:49:32.526
his girlfriend and more
Indian and oriented

1010
00:49:32.526 --> 00:49:35.818
towards his family when
he was with his parents.

1011
00:49:35.818 --> 00:49:38.084
He imagined that his
parents and his girlfriend

1012
00:49:38.084 --> 00:49:40.040
would not connect with each other and

1013
00:49:40.040 --> 00:49:42.883
that they were way too
different from each other.

1014
00:49:42.883 --> 00:49:45.373
He fantasized that if the
parents and the girlfriends

1015
00:49:45.373 --> 00:49:48.083
knew about each other and knew each other

1016
00:49:48.083 --> 00:49:49.692
that they would not approve and

1017
00:49:49.692 --> 00:49:52.284
consequently be disappointed with him.

1018
00:49:52.284 --> 00:49:54.061
You see how this comes back to this

1019
00:49:54.061 --> 00:49:57.131
internal conflict, right,
the intrapsychic conflict.

1020
00:49:57.131 --> 00:49:59.485
In essence, in an effort to cope with

1021
00:49:59.485 --> 00:50:02.327
the anxiety of divergent
cultural identifications

1022
00:50:02.327 --> 00:50:04.542
which he had developed
in multiple contexts

1023
00:50:04.542 --> 00:50:07.788
had lived a dual existence
in which self states

1024
00:50:07.788 --> 00:50:10.792
associated with each aspect
of his cultural identity,

1025
00:50:10.792 --> 00:50:13.586
the American, the
Indian, were disconnected

1026
00:50:13.586 --> 00:50:16.503
and he seamlessly shifted across Indian

1027
00:50:16.503 --> 00:50:19.760
and mainstream context and
over time began to feel

1028
00:50:19.760 --> 00:50:22.702
as though he didn't know who he was

1029
00:50:22.702 --> 00:50:25.567
and where he actually existed.

1030
00:50:25.567 --> 00:50:28.320
In psychotherapy our work
focused on the ability

1031
00:50:28.320 --> 00:50:31.663
to imagine a safe enough way, there's no

1032
00:50:31.663 --> 00:50:34.756
safe way here, but
there's a safe enough way

1033
00:50:34.756 --> 00:50:37.481
of bringing his worlds together and

1034
00:50:37.481 --> 00:50:39.351
to mourn the ways in which his worlds

1035
00:50:39.351 --> 00:50:43.455
perhaps would not be able
to merge as he had wished.

1036
00:50:43.455 --> 00:50:46.490
So I will say about him, also add,

1037
00:50:46.490 --> 00:50:50.077
that he came to me referred by a therapist

1038
00:50:50.077 --> 00:50:53.183
whom he had worked with
for about two years.

1039
00:50:53.183 --> 00:50:55.529
This was a white, female therapist who

1040
00:50:55.529 --> 00:50:58.533
I had a very close relationship with but

1041
00:50:58.533 --> 00:51:01.668
she sensed somewhere
along the way in working

1042
00:51:01.668 --> 00:51:04.779
with him that he wasn't
revealing certain things to her.

1043
00:51:04.779 --> 00:51:07.623
That he wasn't telling her
everything about himself.

1044
00:51:07.623 --> 00:51:10.022
You'll see the parallel of
what I just talked about

1045
00:51:10.022 --> 00:51:13.576
in the therapy relationship
and so the therapist

1046
00:51:13.576 --> 00:51:15.684
thought maybe he should see somebody

1047
00:51:15.684 --> 00:51:18.756
from a similar ethnic background

1048
00:51:18.756 --> 00:51:21.241
and this is a very
controversial thing, right?

1049
00:51:21.241 --> 00:51:23.087
It's a very difficult dilemma.

1050
00:51:23.087 --> 00:51:24.092
Do you refer?

1051
00:51:24.092 --> 00:51:26.525
Do you try to figure out how
to work with this client?

1052
00:51:26.525 --> 00:51:29.408
Is this client willing to engage?

1053
00:51:29.408 --> 00:51:31.241
Is he ready to engage?

1054
00:51:32.347 --> 00:51:34.132
It's a very complex question.

1055
00:51:34.132 --> 00:51:36.326
I do believe this
particular therapist worked

1056
00:51:36.326 --> 00:51:37.921
really hard to figure this out

1057
00:51:37.921 --> 00:51:39.737
and struggled with this dilemma.

1058
00:51:39.737 --> 00:51:41.487
It was not a simple, I can't deal

1059
00:51:41.487 --> 00:51:43.133
with this so I'm gonna refer you.

1060
00:51:43.133 --> 00:51:45.478
It wasn't one of those,
but she did struggle

1061
00:51:45.478 --> 00:51:48.510
with this and he disagreed
with the therapist

1062
00:51:48.510 --> 00:51:50.574
and he said I don't want to work with

1063
00:51:50.574 --> 00:51:53.657
an Indian therapist or
a South Asian therapist

1064
00:51:53.657 --> 00:51:55.948
and he absolutely was against it for many,

1065
00:51:55.948 --> 00:51:58.194
many months and he specifically chose

1066
00:51:58.194 --> 00:52:00.297
a therapist who was not South Asian

1067
00:52:00.297 --> 00:52:03.244
or Indian because he did not want to talk

1068
00:52:03.244 --> 00:52:05.334
about his personal matters
with somebody Indian

1069
00:52:05.334 --> 00:52:08.454
and so when he arrived
to me you can imagine

1070
00:52:08.454 --> 00:52:11.091
his state of mind when
he's sitting with me

1071
00:52:11.091 --> 00:52:15.570
and it was very uncomfortable
when we first met

1072
00:52:15.570 --> 00:52:20.079
and when we sat together
he told me immediately,

1073
00:52:20.079 --> 00:52:22.425
I just want to tell you that I'm

1074
00:52:22.425 --> 00:52:24.690
not attracted at all to Indian women.

1075
00:52:24.690 --> 00:52:26.775
(audience laughing)

1076
00:52:26.775 --> 00:52:28.559
Now how can you not
think psychoanalytically

1077
00:52:28.559 --> 00:52:30.193
when you hear this?

1078
00:52:30.193 --> 00:52:31.526
So I said, okay.

1079
00:52:32.609 --> 00:52:34.937
Thanks for telling me.

1080
00:52:34.937 --> 00:52:36.893
(audience laughing)

1081
00:52:36.893 --> 00:52:39.037
So this is how we began, right.

1082
00:52:39.037 --> 00:52:40.930
So we had to work
through tremendous amount

1083
00:52:40.930 --> 00:52:44.948
of ambivalence around
not just what I told you

1084
00:52:44.948 --> 00:52:46.842
about his relationship with his girlfriend

1085
00:52:46.842 --> 00:52:48.993
and his parents but the
ambivalence was present

1086
00:52:48.993 --> 00:52:51.548
in the here and now in the
therapeutic relationship

1087
00:52:51.548 --> 00:52:55.245
and we had to figure out
a way in which we could

1088
00:52:55.245 --> 00:52:58.146
talk about it and it took many months

1089
00:52:58.146 --> 00:53:01.563
to be able to go there because he was not

1090
00:53:02.819 --> 00:53:07.450
interested in having an
intimate connection with me.

1091
00:53:07.450 --> 00:53:10.450
It was very difficult, but we worked

1092
00:53:11.347 --> 00:53:12.969
together for several years.

1093
00:53:12.969 --> 00:53:13.964
I will say that.

1094
00:53:13.964 --> 00:53:18.330
Okay, so I think I have
just a couple minutes left

1095
00:53:18.330 --> 00:53:21.164
so I'm going to just
say a couple of things

1096
00:53:21.164 --> 00:53:25.302
about mourning because
this is a critical issue

1097
00:53:25.302 --> 00:53:29.135
in psychotherapy that I
didn't touch upon yet.

1098
00:53:32.032 --> 00:53:36.008
There are a couple of theorists
who I absolutely adore

1099
00:53:36.008 --> 00:53:37.945
in psychoanalytic
literature, this is David Ang

1100
00:53:37.945 --> 00:53:41.951
and Shin Hye Han who
extended Freud's concept

1101
00:53:41.951 --> 00:53:45.849
of melancholia into
describing what they call

1102
00:53:45.849 --> 00:53:49.016
racial melancholia and what they do is

1103
00:53:50.160 --> 00:53:53.160
a beautiful analysis of how race and

1104
00:53:55.663 --> 00:53:59.289
Freud's concept of melancholia meet

1105
00:53:59.289 --> 00:54:01.361
and they specifically talk about the

1106
00:54:01.361 --> 00:54:04.809
Asian American experience
and what they say

1107
00:54:04.809 --> 00:54:08.392
is that even when Asian Americans are born

1108
00:54:08.392 --> 00:54:11.231
in the United States they're
treated as foreigners

1109
00:54:11.231 --> 00:54:13.519
due to phenotypical
markers and this of course

1110
00:54:13.519 --> 00:54:15.595
can apply to many other cultural groups

1111
00:54:15.595 --> 00:54:17.747
as well not just Asian Americans.

1112
00:54:17.747 --> 00:54:19.768
But in the case of
Asian Americans the myth

1113
00:54:19.768 --> 00:54:23.073
of model minority or the
notion that Asian Americans

1114
00:54:23.073 --> 00:54:26.057
are economically,
academically, professionally

1115
00:54:26.057 --> 00:54:28.207
successful, immune to everything,

1116
00:54:28.207 --> 00:54:30.125
immune to personal problems.

1117
00:54:30.125 --> 00:54:32.488
This idea works to dismiss the reality

1118
00:54:32.488 --> 00:54:34.862
of discrimination against Asian Americans

1119
00:54:34.862 --> 00:54:37.580
and serves and what
they call a melancholic

1120
00:54:37.580 --> 00:54:40.694
mechanism facilitating the erasure and

1121
00:54:40.694 --> 00:54:45.604
loss of repressed history and
identities of Asian Americans.

1122
00:54:45.604 --> 00:54:48.574
Racial melancholia involves
the internalization

1123
00:54:48.574 --> 00:54:50.564
of the model minorities stereotype

1124
00:54:50.564 --> 00:54:53.718
which becomes a partial
success in the sense

1125
00:54:53.718 --> 00:54:56.153
that it serves as a way of being seen

1126
00:54:56.153 --> 00:54:58.699
in mainstream society which becomes,

1127
00:54:58.699 --> 00:55:01.646
so it becomes a way of being seen

1128
00:55:01.646 --> 00:55:04.174
in mainstream society
but it's also a failure.

1129
00:55:04.174 --> 00:55:06.788
So it's a success that
you are seen as something,

1130
00:55:06.788 --> 00:55:08.702
the model minority I guess which is seen

1131
00:55:08.702 --> 00:55:10.778
as positive in certain ways, but

1132
00:55:10.778 --> 00:55:13.212
it's also a partial failure
in that Asian Americans

1133
00:55:13.212 --> 00:55:17.054
contend with an unattainable
ideal of whiteness.

1134
00:55:17.054 --> 00:55:19.338
There's a hope of the American dream

1135
00:55:19.338 --> 00:55:22.832
that's transferred across
immigrant generations

1136
00:55:22.832 --> 00:55:25.591
such that parents imagine that their

1137
00:55:25.591 --> 00:55:27.864
children will do better than them.

1138
00:55:27.864 --> 00:55:30.412
They'll succeed in
achieving the American dream

1139
00:55:30.412 --> 00:55:33.787
in ways that were not accessible
to the parent generation.

1140
00:55:33.787 --> 00:55:36.955
Yet this places children
of Asian immigrants

1141
00:55:36.955 --> 00:55:39.437
at an impossible bind where racism and

1142
00:55:39.437 --> 00:55:42.246
othering permeate their efforts

1143
00:55:42.246 --> 00:55:44.965
to achieve the American dream.

1144
00:55:44.965 --> 00:55:47.447
So the mourning of identifications with

1145
00:55:47.447 --> 00:55:50.226
heritage cultures and with whiteness

1146
00:55:50.226 --> 00:55:53.211
becomes critical in
addressing this concept,

1147
00:55:53.211 --> 00:55:56.735
this phenomenon or experience
of racial melancholia.

1148
00:55:56.735 --> 00:55:59.132
So working through unresolved grief

1149
00:55:59.132 --> 00:56:01.623
and melancholia resulting
from social oppression,

1150
00:56:01.623 --> 00:56:04.552
by recognizing and
validating the connection

1151
00:56:04.552 --> 00:56:07.479
between past atrocities
and present day stress

1152
00:56:07.479 --> 00:56:10.609
lies at the heart of
psychoanalytic psychotherapy.

1153
00:56:10.609 --> 00:56:13.233
We have to remember
traumatic events that are

1154
00:56:13.233 --> 00:56:15.558
suffered by cultures and communities and

1155
00:56:15.558 --> 00:56:18.643
understand the depth of
their effects because

1156
00:56:18.643 --> 00:56:22.097
if we don't witness and
listen and attune ourselves

1157
00:56:22.097 --> 00:56:26.264
to what has happened, right,
we miss an entire aspect,

1158
00:56:27.562 --> 00:56:30.569
an incredibly critical
aspect of ones experience

1159
00:56:30.569 --> 00:56:34.178
and witnessing requires us to examine

1160
00:56:34.178 --> 00:56:36.133
our own feelings and our reactions

1161
00:56:36.133 --> 00:56:38.451
to our clients histories of oppression.

1162
00:56:38.451 --> 00:56:40.198
It engages conflict rather than

1163
00:56:40.198 --> 00:56:42.537
contributing to further repression.

1164
00:56:42.537 --> 00:56:45.398
As therapists we
consciously or unconsciously

1165
00:56:45.398 --> 00:56:48.409
choose whether or not
to explore experiences

1166
00:56:48.409 --> 00:56:51.438
of social oppression and marginalization.

1167
00:56:51.438 --> 00:56:53.933
Notice that by and large we're far more

1168
00:56:53.933 --> 00:56:55.624
comfortable talking about culture and

1169
00:56:55.624 --> 00:56:58.181
cultural differences than we are about

1170
00:56:58.181 --> 00:57:01.438
oppression based on culture, race, gender,

1171
00:57:01.438 --> 00:57:05.021
right, sexual identity
and so on and class.

1172
00:57:07.335 --> 00:57:10.160
Despite the decision to initiate or deepen

1173
00:57:10.160 --> 00:57:12.073
the dialogue concerning oppression the

1174
00:57:12.073 --> 00:57:15.099
client's experiences
remain and as therapists

1175
00:57:15.099 --> 00:57:16.968
we have to think about our own willingness

1176
00:57:16.968 --> 00:57:19.759
to engage with difference and similarity,

1177
00:57:19.759 --> 00:57:23.294
in privilege and marginalization
with our clients.

1178
00:57:23.294 --> 00:57:25.439
So let me end with that.

1179
00:57:25.439 --> 00:57:26.662
Okay.

1180
00:57:26.662 --> 00:57:28.182
All right, thank you.

1181
00:57:28.182 --> 00:57:31.265
(audient applauding)

1182
00:57:46.158 --> 00:57:48.461
- So there's a time for questions.

1183
00:57:48.461 --> 00:57:52.591
There's a mic here and I have one roaming.

1184
00:57:52.591 --> 00:57:54.091
Who has questions?

1185
00:58:08.718 --> 00:58:11.973
- [Brianna] Hi, I'm
Brianna. I'm a second summer

1186
00:58:11.973 --> 00:58:15.727
and so I'm reading your book
right now in my practice class.

1187
00:58:15.727 --> 00:58:16.560
- Oh okay.

1188
00:58:16.560 --> 00:58:18.609
- So first of all I
just wanted to thank you

1189
00:58:18.609 --> 00:58:20.990
so much for really producing something

1190
00:58:20.990 --> 00:58:23.417
that has become a core
part of our curriculum

1191
00:58:23.417 --> 00:58:26.201
here because I personally
as a student of color

1192
00:58:26.201 --> 00:58:27.796
and as a future clinician of color

1193
00:58:27.796 --> 00:58:30.157
am really grateful for your perspectives

1194
00:58:30.157 --> 00:58:32.075
in the classroom and the way that they

1195
00:58:32.075 --> 00:58:34.461
bridge so many of the concepts that are

1196
00:58:34.461 --> 00:58:37.241
important to me personally
with the material

1197
00:58:37.241 --> 00:58:39.910
that's really interesting
to me intellectually.

1198
00:58:39.910 --> 00:58:42.708
With that in mind I'm
thinking about a lot of

1199
00:58:42.708 --> 00:58:44.931
the studies that you
referenced and the ways

1200
00:58:44.931 --> 00:58:48.937
that it seems that, like,
in terms of epistemologies

1201
00:58:48.937 --> 00:58:52.028
and like knowledge
production within social work

1202
00:58:52.028 --> 00:58:55.564
and psychology there's
this almost like enactment

1203
00:58:55.564 --> 00:58:59.130
of invalidating even like
studies of microaggressions

1204
00:58:59.130 --> 00:59:02.070
and since you have written so much and

1205
00:59:02.070 --> 00:59:05.056
have been published so much and have done

1206
00:59:05.056 --> 00:59:08.074
such an amazing job of
bridging psychodynamic theory

1207
00:59:08.074 --> 00:59:12.065
with a lot of these types of conflicts

1208
00:59:12.065 --> 00:59:14.539
in the literature I'm just interested

1209
00:59:14.539 --> 00:59:16.454
to hear your perspective in terms of

1210
00:59:16.454 --> 00:59:19.092
how we can continue to produce and

1211
00:59:19.092 --> 00:59:21.522
do a better job of privileging the sort of

1212
00:59:21.522 --> 00:59:23.401
perspectives that you bring and

1213
00:59:23.401 --> 00:59:25.397
that I'm sure like many
others in this room

1214
00:59:25.397 --> 00:59:27.740
are hoping to bring in our careers?

1215
00:59:27.740 --> 00:59:28.907
- Yes okay.

1216
00:59:28.907 --> 00:59:29.761
That's such a great question.

1217
00:59:29.761 --> 00:59:31.954
Thank you so much for your comments and

1218
00:59:31.954 --> 00:59:34.083
this is such an important question because

1219
00:59:34.083 --> 00:59:37.584
you're thinking I think very deeply about

1220
00:59:37.584 --> 00:59:40.983
how we continue the work that we do but

1221
00:59:40.983 --> 00:59:45.052
also how it can have an
impact at a policy level

1222
00:59:45.052 --> 00:59:46.902
I think is what you're getting to,

1223
00:59:46.902 --> 00:59:49.109
as well as you refer to curriculum, right?

1224
00:59:49.109 --> 00:59:50.810
Not only in the university level but also

1225
00:59:50.810 --> 00:59:53.893
beyond training and into practice and

1226
00:59:55.368 --> 00:59:57.928
I can tell you a couple of experiences

1227
00:59:57.928 --> 01:00:00.761
that I've had because as I mentioned

1228
01:00:00.761 --> 01:00:03.676
this is not the safest thing to study.

1229
01:00:03.676 --> 01:00:07.062
I don't know, I mentioned
this to Phebe earlier today

1230
01:00:07.062 --> 01:00:08.459
but I don't know if you all

1231
01:00:08.459 --> 01:00:10.462
heard of the Professor Watchlist?

1232
01:00:10.462 --> 01:00:11.295
(audience murmuring)

1233
01:00:11.295 --> 01:00:12.328
Some of you have right?

1234
01:00:12.328 --> 01:00:16.411
This is an all right thing
where they have posted

1235
01:00:17.586 --> 01:00:21.586
on one of their websites
the Professor Watchlist

1236
01:00:23.014 --> 01:00:25.757
that includes a number of
professors in universities

1237
01:00:25.757 --> 01:00:29.833
by name who, and if you look at this list

1238
01:00:29.833 --> 01:00:32.143
most of them are people
of color, most of them

1239
01:00:32.143 --> 01:00:34.704
are studying issues
like race, immigration,

1240
01:00:34.704 --> 01:00:36.621
class, sexual identity,

1241
01:00:39.103 --> 01:00:40.770
gender and these are

1242
01:00:42.607 --> 01:00:45.924
the professors that we're
supposed to watch out for

1243
01:00:45.924 --> 01:00:50.007
because they are negatively
impacting children's,

1244
01:00:51.496 --> 01:00:55.246
right, youth minds in
using liberal politics.

1245
01:00:57.778 --> 01:01:01.246
So this is, this is where
we're at in terms of

1246
01:01:01.246 --> 01:01:04.579
the degree of hostility and intimidation

1247
01:01:06.425 --> 01:01:09.342
and fear around people of color and

1248
01:01:11.586 --> 01:01:15.510
people of minority status and marginalized

1249
01:01:15.510 --> 01:01:18.400
status speaking about their experiences.

1250
01:01:18.400 --> 01:01:22.317
So my colleague Mahzarin
Banaji who developed

1251
01:01:22.317 --> 01:01:25.857
the Implicit Bias Test
at Harvard University,

1252
01:01:25.857 --> 01:01:28.940
she has faced numerous death threats.

1253
01:01:30.665 --> 01:01:33.403
She's a social psychologist
professor at Harvard

1254
01:01:33.403 --> 01:01:36.275
who gets death threats regularly because

1255
01:01:36.275 --> 01:01:39.216
she came up with some research project

1256
01:01:39.216 --> 01:01:43.216
that illustrated that we
all have implicit bias.

1257
01:01:44.096 --> 01:01:46.079
So these are real things and you can see

1258
01:01:46.079 --> 01:01:49.585
in conversations with
someone as eminent as

1259
01:01:49.585 --> 01:01:52.157
Derald Wing Sue, right, having these back

1260
01:01:52.157 --> 01:01:54.670
and forth discussions and
the American Psychologist.

1261
01:01:54.670 --> 01:01:57.218
Now, so this is the bad part and the

1262
01:01:57.218 --> 01:02:01.746
negative part but I will
say that we need more.

1263
01:02:01.746 --> 01:02:03.630
We need more people in the field.

1264
01:02:03.630 --> 01:02:06.723
This is a very logistical kind
of explanation but it's true.

1265
01:02:06.723 --> 01:02:09.067
We need more people in
the field who study this.

1266
01:02:09.067 --> 01:02:10.414
We need people of color as well as

1267
01:02:10.414 --> 01:02:12.317
people who are not people of color.

1268
01:02:12.317 --> 01:02:14.272
We need to come together as a community

1269
01:02:14.272 --> 01:02:17.325
and this issue, these
set of issues have to be

1270
01:02:17.325 --> 01:02:19.113
owned by everybody, not just the people

1271
01:02:19.113 --> 01:02:21.510
who can personally
identify with some aspect

1272
01:02:21.510 --> 01:02:25.702
of these issues, but this becomes
something that we all own.

1273
01:02:25.702 --> 01:02:29.285
So one of the things
that I, and I'll share

1274
01:02:30.427 --> 01:02:33.177
one more kind of experience I had

1275
01:02:34.085 --> 01:02:36.053
and this is with a scientific journal,

1276
01:02:36.053 --> 01:02:39.229
this is psychology
journal, a trauma journal

1277
01:02:39.229 --> 01:02:42.028
where I submitted a paper that eventually

1278
01:02:42.028 --> 01:02:45.641
got published there but the
reviews were really telling.

1279
01:02:45.641 --> 01:02:49.446
This was a paper that
examined the narratives

1280
01:02:49.446 --> 01:02:52.780
of survivors of complex trauma and

1281
01:02:52.780 --> 01:02:57.032
it explored their relational
life from their own words.

1282
01:02:57.032 --> 01:02:59.849
So it was a set of interviews
and qualitative data

1283
01:02:59.849 --> 01:03:03.248
analysis and one of the
reviews that I got back

1284
01:03:03.248 --> 01:03:06.745
and this is a trauma psychology journal

1285
01:03:06.745 --> 01:03:09.927
said something, one of the reviewers said

1286
01:03:09.927 --> 01:03:11.771
something like, well we all know that

1287
01:03:11.771 --> 01:03:14.753
trauma survivors don't
have good reality testing

1288
01:03:14.753 --> 01:03:18.920
so how are we to believe the
accuracy of these narratives?

1289
01:03:20.230 --> 01:03:24.090
This was about four, five years ago so

1290
01:03:24.090 --> 01:03:27.086
this was recent and so we cannot assume

1291
01:03:27.086 --> 01:03:30.337
that people within our professions, right,

1292
01:03:30.337 --> 01:03:34.504
are thinking about the
subjective experience of people.

1293
01:03:36.340 --> 01:03:39.041
You know because we also have paradigms,

1294
01:03:39.041 --> 01:03:41.089
research paradigms that are favored,

1295
01:03:41.089 --> 01:03:42.822
some over the other, right, quantitative

1296
01:03:42.822 --> 01:03:45.186
designs being favored over qualitative.

1297
01:03:45.186 --> 01:03:47.971
I do both partly as a form of defense

1298
01:03:47.971 --> 01:03:51.493
I will admit because,
because if I can do both

1299
01:03:51.493 --> 01:03:53.547
and speak in multiple
languages I feel like

1300
01:03:53.547 --> 01:03:57.520
I can reach more people
and so this is part

1301
01:03:57.520 --> 01:04:01.257
of why I draw psychoanalysis
into this because

1302
01:04:01.257 --> 01:04:05.441
for me I tend to have a
little bit more credibility

1303
01:04:05.441 --> 01:04:08.440
in certain circles by
the function that I also

1304
01:04:08.440 --> 01:04:10.789
do empirical quantitative research

1305
01:04:10.789 --> 01:04:13.284
in addition to empirical
qualitative research.

1306
01:04:13.284 --> 01:04:16.767
So it's a little bit
harder to argue with that

1307
01:04:16.767 --> 01:04:19.112
when you have multiple sources of evidence

1308
01:04:19.112 --> 01:04:21.881
but the reason, one of
the reasons I do that,

1309
01:04:21.881 --> 01:04:24.924
aside from my love of
that work, is because

1310
01:04:24.924 --> 01:04:27.711
there is, there are
enough problems like this

1311
01:04:27.711 --> 01:04:29.883
politically within the
professions let alone

1312
01:04:29.883 --> 01:04:33.028
outside of it and the other suggestion

1313
01:04:33.028 --> 01:04:35.248
I would have is in addition to continuing

1314
01:04:35.248 --> 01:04:37.269
to having more people study these areas

1315
01:04:37.269 --> 01:04:40.602
is to join task forces, join committees,

1316
01:04:42.168 --> 01:04:46.001
get politically involved
within organizations.

1317
01:04:47.670 --> 01:04:49.728
We just completed a draft of the new

1318
01:04:49.728 --> 01:04:51.959
multicultural guidelines for the APA and

1319
01:04:51.959 --> 01:04:53.989
I've been on that task force
now for a couple of years

1320
01:04:53.989 --> 01:04:57.137
and the kinds of influence one can have.

1321
01:04:57.137 --> 01:05:00.982
So I was able to get in
there psychodynamic thinking.

1322
01:05:00.982 --> 01:05:03.338
I was able to get in there the idea of

1323
01:05:03.338 --> 01:05:07.005
self definition and the
idea of multiplicity

1324
01:05:08.134 --> 01:05:10.498
and hybridity of identity.

1325
01:05:10.498 --> 01:05:12.366
Which as you know is quite different

1326
01:05:12.366 --> 01:05:15.215
from the original
multicultural guidelines.

1327
01:05:15.215 --> 01:05:19.178
So you can have influence
in those kinds of ways.

1328
01:05:19.178 --> 01:05:22.231
Yeah, I hope that gets your, maybe

1329
01:05:22.231 --> 01:05:24.881
a long winded way of answering you.

1330
01:05:24.881 --> 01:05:25.714
Yes.

1331
01:05:25.714 --> 01:05:26.984
- [Stacey Jackson Roberts]
I'm Stacey Jackson Roberts.

1332
01:05:26.984 --> 01:05:30.980
I'm a lead therapist for
LGBT Behavioral Health

1333
01:05:30.980 --> 01:05:32.643
in Baltimore city at a federally

1334
01:05:32.643 --> 01:05:34.332
qualified health center there.

1335
01:05:34.332 --> 01:05:36.720
I say that to kind of
contextualize my question

1336
01:05:36.720 --> 01:05:39.745
and that's around this
idea from psycho analytics,

1337
01:05:39.745 --> 01:05:42.580
psychodynamic thought around kind of rigid

1338
01:05:42.580 --> 01:05:45.610
and strict boundaries around
dual relationships and.

1339
01:05:45.610 --> 01:05:46.443
- Yeah.

1340
01:05:46.443 --> 01:05:48.427
- [Stacey Jackson Roberts]
Multiple relationships

1341
01:05:48.427 --> 01:05:49.287
if you will.

1342
01:05:49.287 --> 01:05:50.975
Particularly your call right at the end

1343
01:05:50.975 --> 01:05:52.641
is to become involved in different aspects

1344
01:05:52.641 --> 01:05:55.337
of the community and that's coming out of,

1345
01:05:55.337 --> 01:05:57.418
you know there was a
recent discussion in an

1346
01:05:57.418 --> 01:06:00.381
online forum calling therapists that work

1347
01:06:00.381 --> 01:06:03.474
with the transgender
community into that they

1348
01:06:03.474 --> 01:06:05.716
need to also become
involved in the community

1349
01:06:05.716 --> 01:06:07.863
and what not and yet there
was this tensions around,

1350
01:06:07.863 --> 01:06:10.385
how do we navigate that and
maintain these boundaries

1351
01:06:10.385 --> 01:06:13.910
and what not and I see
it in Baltimore where

1352
01:06:13.910 --> 01:06:16.433
I'm at a federally qualified health center

1353
01:06:16.433 --> 01:06:20.282
that the building is located
in what we call the L,

1354
01:06:20.282 --> 01:06:22.479
which is the white,
privileged area of Baltimore

1355
01:06:22.479 --> 01:06:24.405
and you've got east
Baltimore and west Baltimore

1356
01:06:24.405 --> 01:06:27.435
that is very marginalized,
lots of poverty,

1357
01:06:27.435 --> 01:06:30.320
lots of red lining historic and what not

1358
01:06:30.320 --> 01:06:32.426
and with the uprising a
few years ago I noticed

1359
01:06:32.426 --> 01:06:34.963
that we've got largely white professionals

1360
01:06:34.963 --> 01:06:38.382
not connecting with really what's going on

1361
01:06:38.382 --> 01:06:40.783
in the therapeutic process around racism

1362
01:06:40.783 --> 01:06:43.429
and systemic racism, complex trauma and

1363
01:06:43.429 --> 01:06:45.222
they're often living in, you know,

1364
01:06:45.222 --> 01:06:47.070
Maryland's got five of the wealthiest

1365
01:06:47.070 --> 01:06:49.435
counties in the country of the top 25.

1366
01:06:49.435 --> 01:06:50.887
They're living in Howard County

1367
01:06:50.887 --> 01:06:54.130
which is the wealthiest county per capita.

1368
01:06:54.130 --> 01:06:55.822
They're not connecting with what's really

1369
01:06:55.822 --> 01:06:58.951
going on dynamically in
the room as far as race

1370
01:06:58.951 --> 01:07:01.765
and identity and how
to we not navigate that

1371
01:07:01.765 --> 01:07:04.090
without actually maybe taking a different

1372
01:07:04.090 --> 01:07:07.673
look at kind of where
those boundaries are?

1373
01:07:08.657 --> 01:07:10.728
- So this is a really
interesting question.

1374
01:07:10.728 --> 01:07:15.201
So how do we negotiate
boundaries when we're

1375
01:07:15.201 --> 01:07:18.631
also trying to be part of the
community in a sense right?

1376
01:07:18.631 --> 01:07:20.595
To involve the community
in the development

1377
01:07:20.595 --> 01:07:22.953
maybe of the intervention or being a part

1378
01:07:22.953 --> 01:07:25.335
of the process of helping people get help

1379
01:07:25.335 --> 01:07:28.890
and access help and
you're asking specifically

1380
01:07:28.890 --> 01:07:32.213
from a psychoanalytic
perspective to it seems like.

1381
01:07:32.213 --> 01:07:34.480
- [Stacey Jackson Roberts]
Mostly around that concept of.

1382
01:07:34.480 --> 01:07:35.313
- Okay.

1383
01:07:35.313 --> 01:07:36.209
- [Stacey Jackson Roberts]
Sort of boundaries

1384
01:07:36.209 --> 01:07:37.846
around people that aren't there yet.

1385
01:07:37.846 --> 01:07:40.478
We call them Baltimore's
small square for a reason

1386
01:07:40.478 --> 01:07:42.415
and particularly if
I'm a transgender woman

1387
01:07:42.415 --> 01:07:45.502
working primarily with
transgender individuals

1388
01:07:45.502 --> 01:07:48.454
specifically transgender
individuals of color

1389
01:07:48.454 --> 01:07:50.953
who wouldn't have access
to healthcare otherwise.

1390
01:07:50.953 --> 01:07:51.786
- Yeah.

1391
01:07:51.786 --> 01:07:52.978
- So how do I make sure
that I'm doing good

1392
01:07:52.978 --> 01:07:54.670
clinical work while also being able to

1393
01:07:54.670 --> 01:07:56.295
still see those patients and what not?

1394
01:07:56.295 --> 01:07:57.128
- Yeah

1395
01:07:57.128 --> 01:07:58.362
- [Stacey Jackson
Roberts] And being totally

1396
01:07:58.362 --> 01:08:00.248
conscious of their projected realities?

1397
01:08:00.248 --> 01:08:01.269
- Mm-hmm right.

1398
01:08:01.269 --> 01:08:03.500
Okay, so there, I'm
gonna try to address this

1399
01:08:03.500 --> 01:08:04.864
in multiple ways cause there's so many

1400
01:08:04.864 --> 01:08:07.394
parts of this very important question.

1401
01:08:07.394 --> 01:08:11.116
Just you know, to contextualize this

1402
01:08:11.116 --> 01:08:14.718
theoretically, contemporary models in

1403
01:08:14.718 --> 01:08:18.118
psychoanalysis would advocate for more

1404
01:08:18.118 --> 01:08:20.906
self disclosure when
it's appropriate right,

1405
01:08:20.906 --> 01:08:23.862
when it's helpful to the client and

1406
01:08:23.862 --> 01:08:27.031
I would extend that into
a community as well.

1407
01:08:27.031 --> 01:08:29.808
So when, you know, I have
gone into communities

1408
01:08:29.808 --> 01:08:32.054
where I have just talked
about mental health,

1409
01:08:32.054 --> 01:08:35.648
you know about saying,
just educating people

1410
01:08:35.648 --> 01:08:38.589
and educating myself
in that process of what

1411
01:08:38.589 --> 01:08:40.420
they know about mental health and

1412
01:08:40.420 --> 01:08:43.019
about the therapists out there and

1413
01:08:43.019 --> 01:08:45.496
often times there are
a lot of fears around

1414
01:08:45.496 --> 01:08:48.122
therapists who will actually get it,

1415
01:08:48.122 --> 01:08:49.687
who know who they are, who are curious

1416
01:08:49.687 --> 01:08:52.756
about them in a sensitive
way, in a warm way.

1417
01:08:52.756 --> 01:08:55.334
Not curious in sort of
this voyeuristic way

1418
01:08:55.334 --> 01:08:59.001
and so there, I think
there's a way in which

1419
01:09:00.197 --> 01:09:03.313
we have to allow ourselves to be part of a

1420
01:09:03.313 --> 01:09:07.385
community in order to
understand the community better.

1421
01:09:07.385 --> 01:09:10.180
So my, a large part of
what I would advocate

1422
01:09:10.180 --> 01:09:13.868
is not just simply sort of going out

1423
01:09:13.868 --> 01:09:17.367
and applying a theory,
you know, to a community

1424
01:09:17.367 --> 01:09:20.349
or to an individual but
rather to really learn

1425
01:09:20.349 --> 01:09:23.291
and see, what is the experience and

1426
01:09:23.291 --> 01:09:26.255
have that inform and modify what I already

1427
01:09:26.255 --> 01:09:29.337
come in with in terms
of my understanding and

1428
01:09:29.337 --> 01:09:32.948
so I think it has to be
collaborative on some level.

1429
01:09:32.948 --> 01:09:35.547
If we believe that in
the therapy relationship

1430
01:09:35.547 --> 01:09:38.493
the therapist and the
client have mutual influence

1431
01:09:38.493 --> 01:09:41.394
and impact and I would say that if I'm not

1432
01:09:41.394 --> 01:09:43.458
being transformed by the person

1433
01:09:43.458 --> 01:09:46.243
I'm working with something
is not going right.

1434
01:09:46.243 --> 01:09:48.165
You know, it's not just influence.

1435
01:09:48.165 --> 01:09:51.265
There's a transformation
happening that I am

1436
01:09:51.265 --> 01:09:53.845
learning in such a way with depth

1437
01:09:53.845 --> 01:09:56.460
that something has fundamentally changed

1438
01:09:56.460 --> 01:10:00.114
about my understanding and I
think that has to be respected.

1439
01:10:00.114 --> 01:10:03.550
So for me, those transformative moments

1440
01:10:03.550 --> 01:10:07.202
lead to better access and
then I can also gauge,

1441
01:10:07.202 --> 01:10:09.236
you know, there's certain people that

1442
01:10:09.236 --> 01:10:11.672
I will not refer to at this point in my

1443
01:10:11.672 --> 01:10:14.503
profession right, because I already know

1444
01:10:14.503 --> 01:10:17.446
that they're not gonna
listen to certain things.

1445
01:10:17.446 --> 01:10:19.648
They're not, they have not developed

1446
01:10:19.648 --> 01:10:22.221
that attunement towards certain issues.

1447
01:10:22.221 --> 01:10:23.316
We all know this right?

1448
01:10:23.316 --> 01:10:25.657
I'm just speaking I
think what we all know,

1449
01:10:25.657 --> 01:10:28.447
that there's certain
things that we pick up on

1450
01:10:28.447 --> 01:10:30.704
colleagues or people that you know,

1451
01:10:30.704 --> 01:10:34.001
are in our professions and so, but

1452
01:10:34.001 --> 01:10:36.909
unless I talk to the
client about what they need

1453
01:10:36.909 --> 01:10:40.040
and what they want, what their
experience is, I won't know.

1454
01:10:40.040 --> 01:10:41.725
So I think it's important that you stay

1455
01:10:41.725 --> 01:10:45.620
a part of that community
but also be very clear

1456
01:10:45.620 --> 01:10:49.302
on what your role is,
you know, and where you

1457
01:10:49.302 --> 01:10:51.569
might run into each other again or

1458
01:10:51.569 --> 01:10:54.052
how do we negotiate our boundaries

1459
01:10:54.052 --> 01:10:57.049
and have an open conversation about that.

1460
01:10:57.049 --> 01:10:58.643
I don't think it's
something we can determine

1461
01:10:58.643 --> 01:11:01.562
without talking to the people themselves.

1462
01:11:01.562 --> 01:11:03.629
Is that getting to your question.

1463
01:11:03.629 --> 01:11:04.635
- Stacey Jackson Roberts] Yes.

1464
01:11:04.635 --> 01:11:05.582
- Okay, thank you.

1465
01:11:05.582 --> 01:11:09.317
- [Moderator] Question on
this side of the room here.

1466
01:11:09.317 --> 01:11:11.172
- [Jade] Hi, my name's Jade.

1467
01:11:11.172 --> 01:11:13.008
I'm trying to figure out how I'm going

1468
01:11:13.008 --> 01:11:15.841
to ask this question but basically

1469
01:11:17.374 --> 01:11:20.364
my, you know, in the Asian community

1470
01:11:20.364 --> 01:11:23.147
and I'm speaking in general here,

1471
01:11:23.147 --> 01:11:25.465
there's so much stigma to mental health.

1472
01:11:25.465 --> 01:11:26.298
- Yeah.

1473
01:11:26.298 --> 01:11:28.792
- [Jade] And a lot of
the interventions and

1474
01:11:28.792 --> 01:11:31.880
the treatment that
we're learning are very,

1475
01:11:31.880 --> 01:11:34.393
I mean are based on western ideals and

1476
01:11:34.393 --> 01:11:37.441
like very Eurocentric
and I'm just curious,

1477
01:11:37.441 --> 01:11:41.080
how do we reach certain populations where,

1478
01:11:41.080 --> 01:11:43.092
you know like I know Chinese communities

1479
01:11:43.092 --> 01:11:46.361
are very kind of, the stigma's so strong

1480
01:11:46.361 --> 01:11:48.535
that we can't even talk about it.

1481
01:11:48.535 --> 01:11:49.368
- Mm-hmm.

1482
01:11:49.368 --> 01:11:51.468
- [Jade] And how do we engage them

1483
01:11:51.468 --> 01:11:53.913
and also provide interventions that

1484
01:11:53.913 --> 01:11:55.531
are like culturally sensitive?

1485
01:11:55.531 --> 01:11:56.364
- Mm-hmm.

1486
01:11:56.364 --> 01:11:59.157
- [Jade] And I'm just curious
what your recommendations are.

1487
01:11:59.157 --> 01:12:00.421
- Yeah that's a great question.

1488
01:12:00.421 --> 01:12:02.879
So how do we engage communities where

1489
01:12:02.879 --> 01:12:06.197
there's a great deal of stigma around

1490
01:12:06.197 --> 01:12:10.085
mental health issues, seeing a therapist

1491
01:12:10.085 --> 01:12:14.825
and maybe some unfamiliarity
with it as well, right?

1492
01:12:14.825 --> 01:12:18.376
So what I have found and I've worked

1493
01:12:18.376 --> 01:12:21.161
with Asian American
communities in particular

1494
01:12:21.161 --> 01:12:23.413
because I used to direct
the Asian American

1495
01:12:23.413 --> 01:12:25.993
or the Asian Mental Health Clinic at the

1496
01:12:25.993 --> 01:12:28.636
Cambridge Hospital years
ago and one of the things

1497
01:12:28.636 --> 01:12:30.507
that we would do is outreach but

1498
01:12:30.507 --> 01:12:32.284
the way that we did outreach often times

1499
01:12:32.284 --> 01:12:34.986
with the first generation mostly was,

1500
01:12:34.986 --> 01:12:38.124
and by first generation I mean the folks

1501
01:12:38.124 --> 01:12:40.975
who grew up in another country and arrived

1502
01:12:40.975 --> 01:12:43.524
as adults and the second
generation would be

1503
01:12:43.524 --> 01:12:47.024
those born and raised in the U.S., so the,

1504
01:12:49.007 --> 01:12:52.035
we kind of did it differently
with different generations.

1505
01:12:52.035 --> 01:12:54.734
So with the first
generation we paired up with

1506
01:12:54.734 --> 01:12:56.664
our primary care doctors and we would do

1507
01:12:56.664 --> 01:12:58.760
health fairs and at the health fairs

1508
01:12:58.760 --> 01:13:00.542
we would have mental health tables

1509
01:13:00.542 --> 01:13:03.013
and we would just sit down one on one

1510
01:13:03.013 --> 01:13:05.369
in lines of people and talk about,

1511
01:13:05.369 --> 01:13:07.566
what do you know about mental health?

1512
01:13:07.566 --> 01:13:09.551
What do you think happens in therapy?

1513
01:13:09.551 --> 01:13:12.220
And we would have
guides, you know, written

1514
01:13:12.220 --> 01:13:16.014
information as well as
just informal conversations

1515
01:13:16.014 --> 01:13:18.156
and it's, you know,
because for many of the

1516
01:13:18.156 --> 01:13:20.073
first generation folks they were,

1517
01:13:20.073 --> 01:13:22.555
they thought about
health more holistically.

1518
01:13:22.555 --> 01:13:24.729
It wasn't sort of
separated into this thing

1519
01:13:24.729 --> 01:13:27.008
and that thing but
rather it's how you feel

1520
01:13:27.008 --> 01:13:30.175
and so we did that and but I would say

1521
01:13:31.375 --> 01:13:34.091
that that worked with
some first generation.

1522
01:13:34.091 --> 01:13:37.450
There were others who
came in with the help

1523
01:13:37.450 --> 01:13:41.010
of someone else in
their family or a friend

1524
01:13:41.010 --> 01:13:43.603
or when something reached a crisis level,

1525
01:13:43.603 --> 01:13:46.574
when there was a problem
that became a crisis.

1526
01:13:46.574 --> 01:13:49.961
Another category of first generation folks

1527
01:13:49.961 --> 01:13:52.529
would come on their own because they had

1528
01:13:52.529 --> 01:13:54.501
a very different acculturative experience

1529
01:13:54.501 --> 01:13:57.932
than other people in
their same generation.

1530
01:13:57.932 --> 01:13:59.660
So the reason I'm pointing
this out is because

1531
01:13:59.660 --> 01:14:03.602
there's so much variation within groups

1532
01:14:03.602 --> 01:14:06.888
and across individuals and what
people have been exposed to.

1533
01:14:06.888 --> 01:14:08.999
So we can't only assume that, okay

1534
01:14:08.999 --> 01:14:10.721
this is a first generation person so they

1535
01:14:10.721 --> 01:14:13.683
think this way and a second
generation thinks another way.

1536
01:14:13.683 --> 01:14:16.422
In fact in the clinic that I directed,

1537
01:14:16.422 --> 01:14:18.282
we saw equal numbers of first and

1538
01:14:18.282 --> 01:14:20.476
second generation Asian Americans.

1539
01:14:20.476 --> 01:14:22.454
We saw equal numbers of men and women

1540
01:14:22.454 --> 01:14:24.479
which was also unusual because in the

1541
01:14:24.479 --> 01:14:26.439
general psychotherapy population we see

1542
01:14:26.439 --> 01:14:29.753
mostly women, more women
than men I would say.

1543
01:14:29.753 --> 01:14:33.814
So it was unusual so we
were surprised by that.

1544
01:14:33.814 --> 01:14:35.982
So I think you have to sort of think about

1545
01:14:35.982 --> 01:14:39.137
who the community is,
what their particular

1546
01:14:39.137 --> 01:14:41.039
needs are and what the variations

1547
01:14:41.039 --> 01:14:42.903
within the community might be.

1548
01:14:42.903 --> 01:14:44.955
But I think, you know,
we would do a lot of

1549
01:14:44.955 --> 01:14:48.755
informal, out of the office
kind of work you know.

1550
01:14:48.755 --> 01:14:50.537
Sometimes it would involve home visits,

1551
01:14:50.537 --> 01:14:53.100
sometimes it would mean we
met at the Dunkin Donuts

1552
01:14:53.100 --> 01:14:55.744
down the street because they didn't

1553
01:14:55.744 --> 01:14:57.867
want to be seen in a clinic you know,

1554
01:14:57.867 --> 01:14:59.813
they didn't want to enter a hospital.

1555
01:14:59.813 --> 01:15:02.703
They wanted to sort of just
talk and that was okay.

1556
01:15:02.703 --> 01:15:06.087
So we modified what we did to
figure out what made sense.

1557
01:15:06.087 --> 01:15:09.616
So you know, those are some ideas.

1558
01:15:09.616 --> 01:15:10.449
Yeah.

1559
01:15:11.765 --> 01:15:14.129
- [Audience Member] So I have a question.

1560
01:15:14.129 --> 01:15:15.047
Thank you so, I'm here.

1561
01:15:15.047 --> 01:15:15.880
- Where are you?

1562
01:15:15.880 --> 01:15:16.713
Okay.

1563
01:15:16.713 --> 01:15:17.546
- Should I stand up?

1564
01:15:17.546 --> 01:15:18.504
- Yes you're here.

1565
01:15:18.504 --> 01:15:20.543
Sorry I was just scanning the room.

1566
01:15:20.543 --> 01:15:24.647
- [Audience Member] So I'm
the child of immigrants.

1567
01:15:24.647 --> 01:15:28.330
My family immigrated here from Panama.

1568
01:15:28.330 --> 01:15:29.926
So I'm first generation American

1569
01:15:29.926 --> 01:15:33.176
and they came here and became what they

1570
01:15:34.122 --> 01:15:37.837
describe as subjugated,
marginalized minority

1571
01:15:37.837 --> 01:15:40.372
and although they knew
that they were black

1572
01:15:40.372 --> 01:15:43.441
in Panama they considered
themselves Panamanian

1573
01:15:43.441 --> 01:15:46.319
just like your client
considered herself Jamaican

1574
01:15:46.319 --> 01:15:48.398
and I thought that was really interesting

1575
01:15:48.398 --> 01:15:51.847
and it's a really, it's
interesting conversation

1576
01:15:51.847 --> 01:15:55.730
with my parents and I
and so there's something

1577
01:15:55.730 --> 01:15:57.253
about the way in which they hold onto

1578
01:15:57.253 --> 01:15:58.832
their culture that didn't allow them

1579
01:15:58.832 --> 01:16:00.791
to think of themselves as less than

1580
01:16:00.791 --> 01:16:04.971
in a country that the only, the only story

1581
01:16:04.971 --> 01:16:07.024
that they have of black folks or

1582
01:16:07.024 --> 01:16:08.965
folks of color are less than.

1583
01:16:08.965 --> 01:16:09.798
- Yeah.

1584
01:16:09.798 --> 01:16:12.752
- [Audience Member] And so
you didn't speak to that

1585
01:16:12.752 --> 01:16:16.438
in terms of resiliency, or
holding onto peoples culture.

1586
01:16:16.438 --> 01:16:17.271
- Yes.

1587
01:16:17.271 --> 01:16:18.291
- [Audience Member] Like
my mom speaks Spanish,

1588
01:16:18.291 --> 01:16:20.225
that's her mother tongue and people would

1589
01:16:20.225 --> 01:16:22.029
make fun of her because she had an accent,

1590
01:16:22.029 --> 01:16:24.816
but she got jobs because
she can speak mother tongue

1591
01:16:24.816 --> 01:16:26.425
and then when she got around other people

1592
01:16:26.425 --> 01:16:28.325
that spoke Spanish they could speak about

1593
01:16:28.325 --> 01:16:30.220
the system and about white people in their

1594
01:16:30.220 --> 01:16:33.444
mother tongue and have a
hell of a time doing so

1595
01:16:33.444 --> 01:16:35.695
and it was their sort of
everyday act of resistance.

1596
01:16:35.695 --> 01:16:36.528
- Yes.

1597
01:16:36.528 --> 01:16:38.769
- [Audience Member] So there
is something very different

1598
01:16:38.769 --> 01:16:41.298
about me because I grew up in that culture

1599
01:16:41.298 --> 01:16:44.078
and then just considered myself Panamanian

1600
01:16:44.078 --> 01:16:46.245
for a very long time until I became black

1601
01:16:46.245 --> 01:16:49.377
like in college, but
then when I became black

1602
01:16:49.377 --> 01:16:51.854
I entered into black feminism so I didn't

1603
01:16:51.854 --> 01:16:54.732
have that space of subjugation in a way

1604
01:16:54.732 --> 01:16:57.191
in which I think my nieces and nephews

1605
01:16:57.191 --> 01:16:58.736
are coming up against it.

1606
01:16:58.736 --> 01:16:59.569
- Yeah.

1607
01:16:59.569 --> 01:17:02.799
- [Audience Member] So I want
to know, great conversation

1608
01:17:02.799 --> 01:17:04.961
and I felt like there was a space missing

1609
01:17:04.961 --> 01:17:06.840
in terms of the resiliency of our culture

1610
01:17:06.840 --> 01:17:08.648
so I want to know what happened with that

1611
01:17:08.648 --> 01:17:11.815
and along with that, how have you used

1612
01:17:12.830 --> 01:17:17.058
culture and people's sort of holding onto

1613
01:17:17.058 --> 01:17:19.190
that sense of themselves that has

1614
01:17:19.190 --> 01:17:21.333
nothing to do with American racism

1615
01:17:21.333 --> 01:17:24.083
as a space for potential healing,

1616
01:17:25.280 --> 01:17:28.120
reconciliation and potential.

1617
01:17:28.120 --> 01:17:29.530
- Yeah, that's a great point.

1618
01:17:29.530 --> 01:17:32.268
I didn't focus on resilience
and I didn't focus on,

1619
01:17:32.268 --> 01:17:36.018
on sort of the choices
people have, you know,

1620
01:17:37.570 --> 01:17:41.643
that they can access,
partly because of time

1621
01:17:41.643 --> 01:17:44.393
and my focus was elsewhere today,

1622
01:17:45.482 --> 01:17:49.037
but it is an important thing because

1623
01:17:49.037 --> 01:17:53.287
I think alongside of
experiences of marginalization

1624
01:17:53.287 --> 01:17:55.005
there are also experiences of hope

1625
01:17:55.005 --> 01:17:58.347
and they're acts of resistance as you say.

1626
01:17:58.347 --> 01:18:00.638
There are also experiences that people

1627
01:18:00.638 --> 01:18:04.788
draw great strength from
their cultural communities,

1628
01:18:04.788 --> 01:18:08.169
ethnic communities, religious communities

1629
01:18:08.169 --> 01:18:12.054
and so on and their families of course,

1630
01:18:12.054 --> 01:18:14.065
whatever the parents and grandparents

1631
01:18:14.065 --> 01:18:16.985
and relatives are passing on.

1632
01:18:16.985 --> 01:18:19.964
One of the things that
I find, what I wanted

1633
01:18:19.964 --> 01:18:23.297
to focus on today was that even in those

1634
01:18:24.214 --> 01:18:27.631
situations where one has access to choice

1635
01:18:28.942 --> 01:18:33.112
in terms of who they
can be and what they can

1636
01:18:33.112 --> 01:18:36.560
experience interpersonally
in those spaces,

1637
01:18:36.560 --> 01:18:40.435
those spaces are challenged
by a broader structure

1638
01:18:40.435 --> 01:18:42.864
and so the point is how do you then

1639
01:18:42.864 --> 01:18:46.499
retain those and hold onto those things

1640
01:18:46.499 --> 01:18:49.749
that feel good, that give you pleasure?

1641
01:18:50.610 --> 01:18:52.942
And I think that people do this everyday

1642
01:18:52.942 --> 01:18:54.514
and I think parents do this with

1643
01:18:54.514 --> 01:18:56.996
children all the time in particular.

1644
01:18:56.996 --> 01:19:00.395
Siblings do this for
each other and sometimes

1645
01:19:00.395 --> 01:19:02.947
on some days you're cheered up by the fact

1646
01:19:02.947 --> 01:19:05.797
that you can revel in
yourself and in a culture

1647
01:19:05.797 --> 01:19:08.382
that you love and for some people

1648
01:19:08.382 --> 01:19:10.897
it's more complicated because if

1649
01:19:10.897 --> 01:19:13.725
they're being traumatized within a family,

1650
01:19:13.725 --> 01:19:15.521
within a community, they don't have

1651
01:19:15.521 --> 01:19:18.500
access to that same kind
of pleasure you know?

1652
01:19:18.500 --> 01:19:20.099
So it's a complicated thing.

1653
01:19:20.099 --> 01:19:21.850
I think there's a lot
of individual variation

1654
01:19:21.850 --> 01:19:24.257
in how culture is
experienced and sometimes

1655
01:19:24.257 --> 01:19:27.278
it's absolutely full of pleasure and joy

1656
01:19:27.278 --> 01:19:30.643
and excitement and I
think some of the research

1657
01:19:30.643 --> 01:19:32.887
that I mentioned with
the focus group studies

1658
01:19:32.887 --> 01:19:36.883
with the kids, the
teenagers, they expressed

1659
01:19:36.883 --> 01:19:40.227
a lot of pride in their cultural heritage.

1660
01:19:40.227 --> 01:19:41.149
They loved it.

1661
01:19:41.149 --> 01:19:43.478
They talked about participating

1662
01:19:43.478 --> 01:19:46.065
in different celebrations and activities.

1663
01:19:46.065 --> 01:19:47.159
They had such a good time.

1664
01:19:47.159 --> 01:19:49.592
They felt connected and then in the very

1665
01:19:49.592 --> 01:19:51.903
same conversation you had this other part

1666
01:19:51.903 --> 01:19:54.820
of their experience being expressed

1667
01:19:55.849 --> 01:19:57.632
which was, but we could never

1668
01:19:57.632 --> 01:19:59.897
talk about that here in school.

1669
01:19:59.897 --> 01:20:01.151
Do you see what I mean?

1670
01:20:01.151 --> 01:20:04.366
So it felt really separated
over and over again

1671
01:20:04.366 --> 01:20:05.475
and that's what I see with a lot

1672
01:20:05.475 --> 01:20:07.744
of folks in my practice as well.

1673
01:20:07.744 --> 01:20:11.746
When it becomes like
they're multiple worlds

1674
01:20:11.746 --> 01:20:15.491
that cannot be put
together reasonably enough,

1675
01:20:15.491 --> 01:20:17.721
not that they can fully be integrated,

1676
01:20:17.721 --> 01:20:22.697
but that's what causes this
stress and the anxiety.

1677
01:20:22.697 --> 01:20:26.342
Kids would also talk about,
in that particular study,

1678
01:20:26.342 --> 01:20:28.600
we asked them for recommendations.

1679
01:20:28.600 --> 01:20:30.130
We said, well what would you want to see

1680
01:20:30.130 --> 01:20:33.024
different at school to
bring more of yourself

1681
01:20:33.024 --> 01:20:36.119
into school, for people
to see who you are?

1682
01:20:36.119 --> 01:20:38.302
Cause a lot of them talked
about this invisibility

1683
01:20:38.302 --> 01:20:41.327
that they felt cause they
felt all this joy at home

1684
01:20:41.327 --> 01:20:43.939
and in different community activities

1685
01:20:43.939 --> 01:20:45.822
and then they'd go to school but

1686
01:20:45.822 --> 01:20:49.075
nobody would know anything
about that experience.

1687
01:20:49.075 --> 01:20:51.298
It was just completely invisible.

1688
01:20:51.298 --> 01:20:53.418
So they said, well why don't we have,

1689
01:20:53.418 --> 01:20:56.639
you know, a culture
fair where we're talking

1690
01:20:56.639 --> 01:21:00.733
about our own cultures in a positive way?

1691
01:21:00.733 --> 01:21:02.494
Why don't we just celebrate it and

1692
01:21:02.494 --> 01:21:03.907
so that's what we ended up doing.

1693
01:21:03.907 --> 01:21:06.803
So this particular study
was a participatory action,

1694
01:21:06.803 --> 01:21:10.306
research study that led
to various discussions

1695
01:21:10.306 --> 01:21:13.275
and celebrations but also some other deep,

1696
01:21:13.275 --> 01:21:15.743
you know, sort of more difficult dialogues

1697
01:21:15.743 --> 01:21:18.962
I would say in the school about identity

1698
01:21:18.962 --> 01:21:21.151
and what's being seen and what's not

1699
01:21:21.151 --> 01:21:23.982
and that particular
study led to other kinds

1700
01:21:23.982 --> 01:21:27.173
of a film project actually where the kids

1701
01:21:27.173 --> 01:21:29.866
documented their experiences
of being invisible

1702
01:21:29.866 --> 01:21:32.421
and what aspects were
invisible and what weren't,

1703
01:21:32.421 --> 01:21:34.026
including things like being bullied

1704
01:21:34.026 --> 01:21:38.193
for having a disability and
other aspects of identity,

1705
01:21:39.473 --> 01:21:42.195
but thank you for
raising the point though.

1706
01:21:42.195 --> 01:21:43.862
It's very important.

1707
01:21:46.426 --> 01:21:48.480
- [Shawna] Hi my name is Shawna.

1708
01:21:48.480 --> 01:21:52.196
I'm a second summer as well
so I'm reading your book.

1709
01:21:52.196 --> 01:21:55.065
I just noticed as I was listening to you

1710
01:21:55.065 --> 01:21:57.982
that I got emotional and, you know,

1711
01:22:00.344 --> 01:22:02.657
thinking about concepts and experiences

1712
01:22:02.657 --> 01:22:06.650
like constraint and
dissociation and melancholia

1713
01:22:06.650 --> 01:22:09.759
in relation to marginalized identities

1714
01:22:09.759 --> 01:22:13.871
and those lived experiences
and so I'm sort of

1715
01:22:13.871 --> 01:22:15.718
trying to tease out, like there's this

1716
01:22:15.718 --> 01:22:18.002
expectation that therapists sort of work

1717
01:22:18.002 --> 01:22:21.603
through their own shit, but
what if that shit is ongoing?

1718
01:22:21.603 --> 01:22:22.539
- Yes.

1719
01:22:22.539 --> 01:22:25.695
- You know, and in the air that we breath

1720
01:22:25.695 --> 01:22:29.897
and I'm also wondering
about like what that means

1721
01:22:29.897 --> 01:22:32.467
for being in the room with
clients as these things

1722
01:22:32.467 --> 01:22:35.741
are not just actively
impacting them but us.

1723
01:22:35.741 --> 01:22:36.574
- Yes.

1724
01:22:36.574 --> 01:22:38.253
- So just wondering if you
had anything to say on that?

1725
01:22:38.253 --> 01:22:40.358
- Yes, yeah, very important point.

1726
01:22:40.358 --> 01:22:42.100
So how do we deal with our own stuff

1727
01:22:42.100 --> 01:22:45.009
and deal with it when
we're with the client

1728
01:22:45.009 --> 01:22:48.233
and this is active at the moment.

1729
01:22:48.233 --> 01:22:50.147
This is not like, let's
reflect on something

1730
01:22:50.147 --> 01:22:51.880
that a crisis that happened a year ago.

1731
01:22:51.880 --> 01:22:53.017
It's not like that.

1732
01:22:53.017 --> 01:22:55.593
We are in the crisis now
so you're absolutely right

1733
01:22:55.593 --> 01:22:59.981
that this is an enormously
stressful time for therapists.

1734
01:22:59.981 --> 01:23:02.169
I will say this, and for me, I can talk

1735
01:23:02.169 --> 01:23:04.192
about my experience and
what some of my colleagues

1736
01:23:04.192 --> 01:23:05.978
have been dealing with too but

1737
01:23:05.978 --> 01:23:10.042
maybe it's best to start
off with an example.

1738
01:23:10.042 --> 01:23:13.792
So I have a client who
I've been working with

1739
01:23:15.104 --> 01:23:18.937
who voted for Trump and
I have a few like this

1740
01:23:20.699 --> 01:23:23.107
who have voted for Trump and I've had to,

1741
01:23:23.107 --> 01:23:26.217
you know I did not, just
to contextualize this.

1742
01:23:26.217 --> 01:23:27.842
(audience laughing)

1743
01:23:27.842 --> 01:23:30.147
In case you didn't know this already, but,

1744
01:23:30.147 --> 01:23:33.153
so I felt you know, this was hard

1745
01:23:33.153 --> 01:23:36.565
to sit with him after the election.

1746
01:23:36.565 --> 01:23:40.732
I kind of wanted to jump out
of my skin and scream at him.

1747
01:23:41.620 --> 01:23:44.345
I was, so I had to sort of acknowledge

1748
01:23:44.345 --> 01:23:47.064
my own aggression but the first session

1749
01:23:47.064 --> 01:23:48.656
we had after the election I had to,

1750
01:23:48.656 --> 01:23:51.723
I just sort of, I literally
had to pinch myself

1751
01:23:51.723 --> 01:23:54.535
to keep myself together because I was

1752
01:23:54.535 --> 01:23:58.535
so devastated after this
election and how could,

1753
01:23:59.946 --> 01:24:03.363
how could I suppress that in that moment.

1754
01:24:05.222 --> 01:24:08.639
It was very painful and then I, so we had

1755
01:24:09.593 --> 01:24:12.294
a few sessions where I
think I said very little.

1756
01:24:12.294 --> 01:24:15.413
I was very unusually
quiet and I just sort of

1757
01:24:15.413 --> 01:24:18.081
let him talk and then
I would just feel sick

1758
01:24:18.081 --> 01:24:20.505
in my stomach after the sessions and

1759
01:24:20.505 --> 01:24:22.666
I had to talk with a colleague of mine,

1760
01:24:22.666 --> 01:24:24.537
a couple of colleagues, we would discuss

1761
01:24:24.537 --> 01:24:26.408
this feeling that we
were sharing with some

1762
01:24:26.408 --> 01:24:29.048
of similar kinds of
experiences and we thought,

1763
01:24:29.048 --> 01:24:31.911
what is going on with
us that we can tolerate

1764
01:24:31.911 --> 01:24:33.784
and bear so many things but this feels

1765
01:24:33.784 --> 01:24:35.669
so unbearable right now because

1766
01:24:35.669 --> 01:24:38.025
the threat is very imminent to us.

1767
01:24:38.025 --> 01:24:42.008
You know, it's not, it
felt like the client

1768
01:24:42.008 --> 01:24:46.175
is supporting the eradication
of me in a sense, you know?

1769
01:24:47.988 --> 01:24:50.397
So it cut to a core part of me.

1770
01:24:50.397 --> 01:24:52.007
This wasn't just sort
of like oh, that's my

1771
01:24:52.007 --> 01:24:53.974
political view point and
that's what I believe.

1772
01:24:53.974 --> 01:24:57.377
No, this cut down to like
the very core of my life

1773
01:24:57.377 --> 01:25:00.580
and so and the life of so many people

1774
01:25:00.580 --> 01:25:02.721
that I love and care about including

1775
01:25:02.721 --> 01:25:06.859
my other clients you know
who are weeping and in grief.

1776
01:25:06.859 --> 01:25:10.135
So it's, it was unbearable and I think

1777
01:25:10.135 --> 01:25:12.503
I had to acknowledge
that and work through it

1778
01:25:12.503 --> 01:25:15.393
separately in order to sit with him again,

1779
01:25:15.393 --> 01:25:18.232
and this was a client I've been
working with for some time.

1780
01:25:18.232 --> 01:25:21.815
So it's not a new client
and at some point,

1781
01:25:24.258 --> 01:25:27.492
about six sessions later, he asked me

1782
01:25:27.492 --> 01:25:30.275
if I had feelings about the election.

1783
01:25:30.275 --> 01:25:31.764
(audience laughing)

1784
01:25:31.764 --> 01:25:33.181
They always know.

1785
01:25:34.020 --> 01:25:37.324
So and I said yes, of
course I have feelings

1786
01:25:37.324 --> 01:25:39.907
about the election and he said,

1787
01:25:40.989 --> 01:25:42.751
I don't know if I really
want to know the answer

1788
01:25:42.751 --> 01:25:46.057
and I said, okay I won't tell you then

1789
01:25:46.057 --> 01:25:49.211
and so, you know, we
had to sort of go back

1790
01:25:49.211 --> 01:25:52.834
and forth like this but
it ultimately he wanted

1791
01:25:52.834 --> 01:25:56.176
to know at least a little
bit more and I told him.

1792
01:25:56.176 --> 01:25:58.343
I said, I feel hurt by it.

1793
01:25:59.881 --> 01:26:03.365
You know, I'm scared and this is why

1794
01:26:03.365 --> 01:26:06.043
and so this is a very
unusual thing for me to do

1795
01:26:06.043 --> 01:26:09.563
but then again I'm reminded,
as I'm saying this,

1796
01:26:09.563 --> 01:26:11.730
I'm reminded of Ilany Kogan's work.

1797
01:26:11.730 --> 01:26:13.537
I don't know if anybody's
familiar with her work.

1798
01:26:13.537 --> 01:26:16.870
She's an Israeli analyst who talks about

1799
01:26:18.778 --> 01:26:22.028
sharing a moment with her patient where

1800
01:26:23.775 --> 01:26:26.785
they were in the midst
of war and they both

1801
01:26:26.785 --> 01:26:30.187
had to sort of put on these gas masks

1802
01:26:30.187 --> 01:26:33.498
amidst war in the middle
of therapy as they were

1803
01:26:33.498 --> 01:26:37.657
continuing to talk and it
felt a little bit like that.

1804
01:26:37.657 --> 01:26:39.654
It felt a little bit like, okay,

1805
01:26:39.654 --> 01:26:42.370
let's just both put our
masks on to breath here

1806
01:26:42.370 --> 01:26:46.537
because the tension is so
deep and the conflict is real

1807
01:26:47.482 --> 01:26:50.113
and so I would say you have to be able

1808
01:26:50.113 --> 01:26:53.212
to talk with colleagues
that are like minded

1809
01:26:53.212 --> 01:26:56.821
and people who have different
opinions ultimately.

1810
01:26:56.821 --> 01:27:01.388
Once you can overcome the
initial shock in crisis.

1811
01:27:01.388 --> 01:27:04.041
I don't think you can do
it when you're in crisis.

1812
01:27:04.041 --> 01:27:06.182
I really resented the
people who would say,

1813
01:27:06.182 --> 01:27:08.764
well go and find out what
the other side thinks,

1814
01:27:08.764 --> 01:27:10.036
the day after the election.

1815
01:27:10.036 --> 01:27:12.132
I was really angry at that cause I said,

1816
01:27:12.132 --> 01:27:15.308
I'm in no mental space
to do that right now.

1817
01:27:15.308 --> 01:27:17.921
I'm in grief and don't ask me to do that.

1818
01:27:17.921 --> 01:27:19.923
So you have to be a bit real with yourself

1819
01:27:19.923 --> 01:27:22.086
in terms of what is possible,

1820
01:27:22.086 --> 01:27:24.273
what is humanly possible for you.

1821
01:27:24.273 --> 01:27:26.857
It doesn't mean you're going
to be in that space forever

1822
01:27:26.857 --> 01:27:29.314
but I think you do have
to honor those moments

1823
01:27:29.314 --> 01:27:31.898
about yourself and then work towards

1824
01:27:31.898 --> 01:27:35.202
being in a different kind of space.

1825
01:27:35.202 --> 01:27:36.619
That's very hard.

1826
01:27:38.268 --> 01:27:41.476
- [Moderator] That brings us
to the end of our evening.

1827
01:27:41.476 --> 01:27:42.395
So if you want to join me

1828
01:27:42.395 --> 01:27:44.357
in thanking Dr. Usha Tummala-Narra.

1829
01:27:44.357 --> 01:27:45.190
- Thanks.

1830
01:27:46.293 --> 01:27:49.460
(audience applauding)