Voices of Color

First-Person Accounts of Ethnic Minority Therapists

Mudita Rastogi, Elizabeth Wieling

• Publisher: SAGE Publications, Inc
• Year: 2004
• ISBN:
  9781506319766
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Voices of Color: First Person Accounts of Ethnic Minority Therapists is the first book to address the training, academic, and professional experiences of ethnic minority therapists. Using real cases, narratives, and biographical material, each chapter motivates the reader to ponder and challenge how issues related to mental health intersect with race/ethnicity within a broader diversity framework. The contributors represent various mental health disciplines, and they all write from a systemic perspective on therapy cases, theory, new models, and research. The authors present powerful narratives of how their personal and professional experiences inform each other.

1

Introduction

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Mudita Rastogi and Elizabeth Wieling

Voices of Color emerged from a serendipitous meeting. We (the coeditors) were introduced to each other at the AAMFT (American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy) Research Conference in Chicago in 1999, and we realized immediately that we had several common interests. When we later talked on the phone to discuss collaboration, the name of AALANAMFT (African American, Latino/a, Asian and Native American Marriage and Family Therapists) emerged as a logical venue to explore our interests. We had met some of the members of the group and were impressed by their mission and convictions. This online group is a community comprised primarily of MFTs (marriage and family therapists) of color who actively discuss topics ranging from members’ personal updates to their professional struggles. The group members also meet in person at the annual AAMFT conferences. Both of us became members of AALANAMFT (which is also called just AALANA), and later we did a pilot study on the experiences of the group’s members (Rastogi & Wieling, 2000; Wieling & Rastogi, 2001, 2003). AALANA became important to us because it gave us a community within which to discuss issues that are significant to us and sorely underrepresented in the field. We found AALANA a very supportive environment, with a communication style and group process which differ from those of other professional groups that communicate via a listserv. Our study documented the voices of MFTs of color, a small minority group in the field of marriage and family therapy and the mental health profession in general. We were interested in the members’ perceptions of their ethnic identity and their experiences in graduate school, in work settings, and in the AAMFT.

In conducting the pilot study, our literature search revealed that, barring a few exceptions, a strong, first-person voice of therapists of color was missing from the literature (Wieling & Rastogi, in press). When we presented this finding at conferences and discussed it further with the AALANA members, a consensus emerged that

(a)	Therapists of color have unique experiences related and relevant to their profession.
(b)	These therapists, while by no means a homogeneous group, have certain consistent experiences by virtue of being persons of color within a U.S. context.
(c)	The constructs of ethnicity, racism, and oppression often help therapists of color organize and give meaning to their experiences.
(d)	The perspectives of these therapists are valuable, rich, and complex. They add to the current knowledge and literature in the field of mental health and contribute to our understanding of ethnicity, cultural differences, and diversity.
(e)	This discourse, in the therapists’ own voices, needs to be an integral part of the mental health field.
(f)	Therapists of color, like other mental health professionals, can and do foster positive social change through their personal and professional interactions with other people.

We wanted to record and disseminate these perspectives by documenting the experiences of therapists of color. Given the diversity of professional training in the field, we invited all ethnic minority mental health professionals—including psychologists, social workers, counselors, and marriage and family therapists—to contribute to this venture. When we floated our ideas for this book to colleagues and listservs for mental health professionals, we found ourselves flooded with email from interested authors. Even in our most optimistic moments we had not imagined that so many therapists of color wanted to have their voices heard. Clearly, this topic is very important and speaks to the burning issues of minority therapists. A number of mental health professionals who have given us feedback on this book say that its contents are intuitively and intellectually meaningful to them. The narratives included here capture the experiences of therapists of color, which range from ethnic identity development to struggling and thriving in agencies, universities, and classrooms to challenging our supervisees, our clients, and ourselves to grapple with oppression. Voices of Color shows us that therapists of color live these issues every day. Their stories and analyses give us a unique perspective on the arena of ethnic and cultural differences in the mental health field.

Both of us identify as women of color and as international persons, educators, and therapists. I (M.R.) received my doctoral degree in Marriage and Family Therapy in the United States, but I was born and raised in India and as an adult have lived in India and Hong Kong as well as the United States. In college and for a few years afterward, I worked with grassroots organizations, in economically oppressed communities, and on genderrelated issues in India. My current teaching, clinical, and research interests include exploring how gender and culture intersect with family and couple relationships, issues of bicultural and bilingual clients, access to mental health for minority communities, and social justice. I (E.W.) identify as multiethnic and am a citizen of both the United States and Brazil. My clinical research interests include the development of culturally effective and efficacious preventive and clinical interventions, methodological considerations in cross-cultural research, intercultural couple relationships, and issues related to the status of women—including women’s mental health, family relationships, education, economic well-being, and political influence in the United States and abroad. We would like to acknowledge up front that since neither of us grew up in the United States, we understand that our experiences around race, ethnicity, and culture are likely to be different from those of ethnic minority MFTs who were born and raised in this country. However, we also believe that as MFTs of color we share many points of connection in our experience of being “othered” within the dominant White U.S. culture.

While teaching courses that focus on diversity and during clinical discussions on topics addressing multiculturalism, we found that when students relate concepts like oppression, racism, and discrimination to reallife situations, they seem to “get it”—they are able to more readily grasp concepts such as White privilege, internalized racism, patriarchy, and so on. Therefore, among our primary goals for this book is to help students to become sensitive to differences and similarities, increase their self-awareness, question their own values and beliefs, and eventually integrate a thorough and complex understanding of culture and ethnicity in their work as clinicians, educators, supervisors, researchers, and administrators. We utilize our own stories and those of our clients and students to generate lively discussion in classes and in supervision. We hope that this book will serve as a resource for exploring the multiple meanings of diversity. Several of the chapters detail the authors’ struggles with racism in the therapy room, within institutions, and with peers. The collection of writings here speaks to the multiple ways in which mental health professionals can be agents of social change. We hope that our readers will ponder this aspect of their professional role as well.

Finally, we would like to underscore the complexity of language usage and discuss the terms we employ to signify diversity. We believe that all the terms used here have political undertones and that ultimately our use of language will include and exclude particular groups in ways that might obscure, be offensive, or be hurtful. We do not know how to avoid this language trap, but we would like to encourage our readers to deconstruct the terms and their multiple implications. We see this issue—language—as one of the challenges that we must continue to think through as teachers, researchers, and clinicians so that we can develop more acceptable, appropriate, and respectful ways to refer to ourselves and others as we communicate and interact. Our contributors have used different terms to refer to diverse peoples. We have chosen to use the terms therapists of color and ethnic minority with the recognition of some of the inherent pros and cons of this terminology. The former term carries with it the connotation of solidarity among a group of people by virtue of their common experiences, but it erroneously implies that European Americans do not have “color” or ethnicity. The latter, the term ethnic minority, could be applied to any ethnic group, but it emphasizes the underprivileged status of these groups. Yet another factor to consider regarding the language used to refer to diversity is that although the focus of this book is the experiences of populations of color, other forms of diversity such as gender, social class, sexual orientation, religion, national origin, and physical ability or disability are an integral part of discussions on diversity. In fact, it is critical that the points of intersection between multiple “diversities” be acknowledged and understood in all their complexity.

Many of the chapters in the book discuss the intersection of ethnicity with gender, religion, social class, nationality, immigration history, and disability. However, in the spirit of accountability, we would like to mention an unfortunate omission in this book. Like many other books on ethnicity, Voices of Color does not discuss issues related to sexual and/or romantic orientation in depth. We recognize the importance of the perspectives and lived experiences of the various subgroups that identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered, to list a few, and that there are a vast range of ways in which sexuality and love are expressed and intersect with other dynamics of diversity. We could report that we were simply unable to easily secure submissions on these topics, but we realize now that we could have been more aggressive in seeking contributions in these areas. Voices of Color is divided into three sections.

Section I of the book, “Identity and Professional Development of Therapists of Color,” contains accounts by trainees and therapists of their own growth and ethnic identity development. Section II, “Ethnicity and Race in the Therapy Room and in the Classroom,” contains chapters by clinicians, supervisors, and academics. Often referring to real cases, they write about their memorable and painful moments and help us look at the dynamics of race and ethnicity in clinical settings, in academic institutions, and in the supervisor-trainee relationship. Section III, “Theory- and Research-Based Interventions and Approaches,” consists of chapters that bring together research and clinical practice to present culturally sensitive models that are relevant to specific populations. A brief note about each chapter follows.

Chapter 2 is an account by Monika Sharma of her life as an Asian Indian woman and a psychologist. She documents in painful detail the struggles she faced growing up in a primarily White neighborhood, her ethnic identity development, and her entry into the psychology profession. Sharma weaves into her story the issue of gender; as a woman of Asian Indian origin, it’s an issue that’s never too far away. She also confronts her internal racism and discusses the lessons she learned about herself in the classroom and in the therapy room.

Three Latino therapists from different countries of origin, Luis Antonio Rivas, Edward A. Delgado-Romero, and Kelly Ramón Ozambela, provide a superb account of their “narratives” as they converge language, professional, and identity issues. This chapter is an exemplar in its articulation of the multiple complexities of being bilingual and bicultural within White dominant culture. Each of the authors describes a personal journey and manages to weave into it important theoretical, clinical, and research considerations. The authors accomplish their purpose of sharing their experiences with a strong sense of personalismo and genuineness.

Janet M. Derrick contributes a remarkable chapter depicting her clinical and professional perspectives as a Metis woman of Mohawk ancestry living in Canada. This chapter is submitted to the reader in a poetic yet highly informative manner. Derrick illustrates her experiences with rich stories and provides important definitions, a literature review, and a case study to further illustrate current Native family dynamics in a clinical context.

Shalonda Kelly and Nancy Boyd-Franklin’s chapter explores the relational dynamics among African American clients, therapists, and supervisors. The chapter does a superb job of describing how racial, cultural, and familial factors become manifest across these difference roles. Case examples are used to illustrate relational dynamics within parallel processes that lead to personal empowerment in each of these three levels.

The chapter by Larry Jin (Kwok Hung) Lee is very powerful due to his sensitivity and honesty. A social worker by training, Lee says he was taught to leave all references to racism outside the therapy room door. By using vignettes of difficult exchanges he had with clients and colleagues, he compels the reader to enter into a discourse about the “unmentionable.” Lee’s chapter shows us that racism can be, and often is, a presenting problem. Mental health professionals cannot not deal with it.

The chapter by Saba Rasheed Ali, Jonathan R. Flojo, Krista M. Chronister, Diane Hayashino, Quincy R. Smiling, Danielle Torres, and Ellen Hawley McWhirter resulted from a conference presentation. These seven authors discuss situations where the therapist of color is on the receiving end of racism. How do we react to and address racism directed at us by our clients, supervisors, and supervisees? Each of the authors describes a vignette of a powerful experience with racism, as well as how he or she responded to it and perhaps resolved it. The last part of the chapter includes excellent suggestions for educators, supervisors, and program directors to use to plug the hole in training regarding multicultural issues.

As a child, Debra A. Nixon dreamt of becoming a teacher, but she imagined all her students and colleagues as Black. She is now teaching at a predominantly White university. Her chapter describes specific interactions with students and colleagues around issues of ethnicity and race and the difficulties faced by female faculty of color. She also discusses her approaches to teaching diversity courses and to teaching itself. As a Black scholar, she embraces a certain pedagogical style that matches her values and culture. Nixon shows us how she does an effective job of getting her students to have difficult dialogues.

The chapter by Azmaira H. Maker is timely and offers unique insights regarding a highly sensitive and political topic within the current milieu. Maker dares to share her experiences as a Muslim woman and therapist in the United States. She accomplishes the task of opening the space for dialogue around stereotypic notions of Muslim families. She challenges assumptions of differences between therapists and clients based on race, religion, nationality, and culture, and she concludes by sharing accounts of how she uses her “self” in the clinical context to dismantle long-held negative assumptions that often interfere with therapeutic progress.

In her chapter exploring urban and rural landscapes of ethnicity and gender, Laurie L. Charlés provides a thorough and insightful account of her experiences as a Latina supervisor and educator. In addition to sharing personal accounts, Charlés provides a case example and proceeds to engage in a dialogue that involves her perspectives and experiences and moves from upholding a culture of sameness, to developing a metacultural awareness, to what she refers to as “changing colors in a tiny village in Togo.” She concludes the chapter by proposing questions related to her case example.

Carmen Aguirre, Judith Maria Bermúdez, J. Ruben Parra Cardona, Jorge Antonio Zamora, and Nenetzin Angelica Reyes provide an exemplary and thought-provoking account of their journeys, as individuals and as a group, as they deconstructed the processes involved in integrating language, context, and meaning making as bilingual and bicultural therapists. The chapter describes their challenges as they engaged in the process of actively co-constructing more authentic bicultural selves. The authors provide helpful suggestions and propose important questions that may be used by mental health providers and supervisors in clinical training settings.

Mudita Rastogi and Carole Woolford-Hunt provide a compelling and deeply personal account of their experiences as “academic sojourners” in the United States. Anyone who was raised in another country and later entered the United States for academic and professional pursuits is likely to find validation and affirmation in this chapter. The authors provide insightful discussions on “internationals” as a neglected category within the diversity discourse, identity struggles of persons with international and/or dual citizenship status, the lack of knowledge surrounding the experiences of foreigners in the United States, issues around role overload, experiences of isolation, and professional issues specific to persons with international status. The chapter concludes with a list of helpful hints for international faculty and institutional administrators.

In their chapter about South Asians in the United States, Amaira H. Maker, Mona Mittal, and Mudita Rastogi provide an in-depth account of the current status of this much neglected population within the mental health clinical and research literature. The authors document the immigration history and changing demographics of the subgroups that comprise South Asians. Next, they provide a discussion on acculturation and ethnic identity issues, followed by a thorough literature review on clinical issues for this population. A signi...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Dedication
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• 1. Introduction
• SECTION I: Identity and Professional Development of Therapists of Color
• SECTION II: Ethnicity and Race in the Therapy Room and in the Classroom
• SECTION III: Theory- and Research-Based Interventions and Approaches
• Index
• About the Editors
• About the Contributors