Tag Archives: diversity

Happiness, Love, Multicultural, Personal Reflections, Writing

The Roots of the Problem

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Today, Dr. Bossypants (aka Rita) offered me a coauthor opportunity. Thanks Dr. BP!

Problems, like trees, have roots. As Alfred Adler (and many others) would have said, problems are multi-determined, meaning: There’s always more than one root. Most of us agree that the United States has big problems. But what are the roots of our troubles?

One side insists that the roots of our troubles include unworthy and illegal immigrants, burdening the rich with taxes, satanic trans folk, welfare fakers, and bleeding hearts. The media picks up this messaging, repeating these highly questionable theories until they sink into our psyches as if they were true.

But we are being played.

As they said back in the Watergate era, follow the money.

The rare transgender athlete is not to blame for your low wages or the price of food and shelter. Tending to the disabled and disadvantaged is not breaking the bank. Social Security makes us a strong, compassionate society—providing for all of us as we age. Social Security isn’t going broke. It’s being dismantled and privatized so the wealthy benefit.

We’re chopping off our noses to spite our faces. USAID greatly contributed to the health of the poor, the planet, and developing societies trying to recover, survive, and grow. NPR and PBS cost about $1.50 per person per year. Although their coverage has been leaning right, they work toward being objective, balanced, and accurate. A free press is at the heart of democracy.

Hiding the contributions of people of color from American history involves rewriting reality. What might be the purpose of excluding honorable actions and voices of diverse individuals and groups from our history? There’s an African proverb: “Until lions have their historians, tales of the hunt shall always glorify the hunter.” Preserving real history doesn’t make us less safe. Massive salaries, bonuses, and advantages given to those mismanaging and/or dismantling our social and financial safety nets is a real danger.

Billionaires have lied so well for so long that many Americans blame poor people and the middle class for government waste and fraud. As everyone admits, government waste and fraud exist, and there are effective strategies for minimizing waste and fraud. One billionaire strategy is this: Get the American people to blame each other for their financial woes. Then, through their tax loopholes, billionaires walk right into the henhouse and steal the country’s eggs.

Most billionaires don’t become billionaires because of their compassion and generosity. They’re billionaires because of miners, farmers, mill workers, steelmakers, refinery workers, teachers, servers, nurses, doctors, social workers, inventors, and small businesspeople: THESE are the people who make becoming a billionaire possible.

Balanced budgets are possible. Giving billionaires MORE money will not balance the budget. Taxing them more will. A graduated income tax is not the same thing as socialism. Anyone who tells you that taxing the rich and providing a social safety net is socialism or communism either (a) wants YOUR money, (b) is lying, or (c) is ignorant.

Socialism is a political and economic theory advocating that the means of production, distribution of goods, and trade/exchange be owned by the collective. Taxing the wealthy in a proportionate manner is not the same as having the collective or the government take over ownership of their businesses. In a capitalist system, taxes and government regulation function to reduce power imbalance, abuse of the poor by the wealthy, and the development of social safety nets and public health systems that benefit the whole.

The ugly fights we’re in now were started purposefully and fueled by lies, phony moral outrage, purchased bots and paid “news” outlets.  We’ve been duped into “culture wars.” As if a gay marriage is why you aren’t paid fairly. As if God needs guns to defend holiness. As if basic health care for everyone will cost more than our broken system. As if we cannot share bathrooms. We share bathrooms all the time in our homes, while camping, at outdoor sporting events (think porta potties). Our economic and social problems are NOT ABOUT BATHROOMS.

We would say “wake up,” but the billionaires have cleverly stolen that concept. They want us asleep. They want us less educated, less compassionate, and more frightened.

Those in power twist science, scripture, economics, virtue, common sense, and the idea of community. But they can’t take your soul; they can’t eliminate your deep awareness of right and wrong. Only you can do that.

Ask yourselves:

  • If climate change caused by humans is wrong, why not clean things up anyway? Powerful people can say “drill baby drill” and it sounds aggressively American, but really, who’s pro-pollution? Denying climate change will cost us our planet.
  • All religions, including Christianity, advocate for taking care of the poor. Yes, it costs a few shekels. But do we want the alternative? Shall we harden our hearts and let others suffer and die?
  • If you believe YOU should have control over your own body and your own sexual decisions, maybe YOU can let others own their bodies and make their own choices as well?
  • Science is not a simplistic fact-finding mission. Science is a disciplined process of inquiry. Scientific knowledge has saved millions of lives. Funding science is about progress and having a higher quality of living. Superstition, politicizing, and irrational attacks on science is regressive, ignorant, and dangerous.
  • Do you think the Creator expects YOU to force your version of morality onto others? Should you enforce thou shalt not kill with weapons? Aren’t you busy enough just finding the time and resources to love your neighbor? Care for the poor? Offer your coat to anyone who needs it? It takes a lifetime to remove the log in your eye, so you can see well enough to help someone with a splinter? Isn’t God, by definition, omnipotent? We should all stop confusing our will, our interests, and our greed, with God’s will.
  • We need the rule of law. When people in power disregard and disparage the courts, they’re not acting for the common good. If we lose the rule of law, we’ll be ruled by outlaws.

Over our long history, humans have been conned, cheated, manipulated, and enslaved many times by the rich, powerful, and depraved. Trusting billionaires and others who are energized by the pursuit of power, greed, and revenge does not end well.

For a pdf of this post, click here:

Bossy and John Piece FinalDownload
Clinical Interviewing, culture, diversity, Happiness, Suicide Assessment and Intervention, Uncategorized

Tomorrow Morning in Ronan, MT: A Presentation and Conversation about Strengths-Based Suicide Assessment and Treatment

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Tomorrow morning, three counseling interns and I will hit the road for Ronan, where we’ll spend the day with the staff of CSKT Tribal Health. We are honored and humbled to engage in a conversation about how to make the usual medical model approach to suicide be more culturally sensitive and explicitly collaborative.

Here are the ppts for the day:

Clinical Interviewing, diversity, Happiness, Suicide Assessment and Intervention

Strengths-Based Suicide Assessment with Diverse Populations — The PPTs

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Tomorrow morning (Wednesday, October 2) I have the honor and privilege of being the keynote speaker for Maryland’s 36th Annual Suicide Prevention Conference. So far, everyone I’ve met associated with this conference is amazing. I suspect tomorrow will be filled with excellent presentations and fabulous people who are in the business of mental health and saving lives.

I hope I can do justice to my role in this very cool conference.

Here’s a link to tomorrow’s ppts:

SB Assessment for Diverse People Maryland REVDownload
Clinical Interviewing, Counseling and Psychotherapy Theory and Practice, culture, diversity, Happiness, Suicide Assessment and Intervention

Coming Soon: Maryland’s 36th Annual Suicide Prevention Conference

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Why Do We Need a Strengths-Based Approach to Suicide Assessment and Treatment?

Imagine this: You’re living in a world that seems like it would just as soon forget you exist. Maybe your skin color is different than the dominant people who hold power. Maybe you have a disability. Whatever the case, the message you hear from the culture is that you’re not important and not worthy. You feel oppressed, marginalized, unsupported, and as if much of society would just as soon have you become invisible or go away.

In response, you intermittently feel depressed and suicidal. Then, when you enter the office of a health or mental health professional, the professional asks you about depression and suicide. Even if the professional is well-intended, judgment leaks through. If you admit to feeling depressed and having suicidal thoughts, you’ll get a diagnosis that implies you’re to blame for having depressing and suicidal thoughts.  

The medical model overfocuses on trying to determine: “Are you suicidal?” The medical model is also based on the assumption that the presence of suicidality indicates there’s something seriously wrong with you. But if we’re working with someone who has been or is currently being marginalized, a rational response from the patient might be:

“As it turns out, I’ve internalized systemic and intergenerational racism, sexism, ableism, and other dehumanizing messages from society. I’ve been devalued for so long and so often that now, I’ve internalized societal messages: I devalue myself and wonder if life is worth living. And now, you’re blaming me with a label that implies I’m the problem!”

No wonder most people who are feeling suicidal don’t bother telling their health professionals.

When I think of this preceding scenario, I want to add profanity into my response, so I can adequately convey that it’s completely unjust to BLAME patients for absorbing repeated negative messages about people who look like or sound like or act like them. WTH else do you think should happen?

This is why we need to integrate strengths-based principles into traditional suicide assessment and prevention models. Of course, we shouldn’t use strengths-based ideas in ways that are toxically positive. We ALWAYS need to start by coming alongside and feeling with our patients and clients. As it turns out, if we do a good job of coming alongside patients/clients who are in emotional pain, natural opportunities for focus on strengths and resources, including cultural, racial, sexual, and other identities that give the person meaning.

I’m reminded of an interview I did with an Alaskan Native person from the Yupik tribe. She talked at length about her depression, about feeling like a zombie, and past and current suicidal thoughts. Eventually, I inquired: “What’s happening when you’re not having thoughts about suicide?” She seemed surprised. Then she said, “I’d be singing or writing poetry.” I instantly had a sense that expressing herself held meaning for her. In particular, her singing Native songs and contemporary pop songs became important in our collaborative efforts to build her a safety plan.

This coming Wednesday morning I have the honor of presenting as the keynote speaker for the Maryland Department of Health 36th Annual Suicide Prevention Conference. During this keynote, I’ll share more ideas about why a strengths-based model is a good fit when working with diverse clients who are experiencing suicidal thoughts and impulses.

With all that said, here’s the title and abstract of my upcoming presentation.

Strengths-Based Assessment, Treatment, and Prevention with Diverse Populations

Traditional suicide assessment tends to be a top-down information-gathering process wherein healthcare or prevention professionals use questionnaires and clinical interviews to determine patient or client suicide risk. This approach may not be the best fit for people from populations with historical trauma, or for people who continue to experience oppression or marginalization. In this presentation, John Sommers-Flanagan will review principles of a strengths-based approach to suicide prevention, assessment, and treatment. He will also discuss how to be more sensitive, empowering, collaborative, and how to leverage cultural strengths when working with people who are potentially suicidal. You will learn at least three practical strengths-based strategies for initiating conversations about suicide, conducting culturally-sensitive assessments, and implementing suicide interventions—that you can immediately use in your prevention work.

Clinical Interviewing, Cool Counseling, Counseling and Psychotherapy Theory and Practice, Multicultural

Professional Identity Among Diverse Counselors and Psychotherapists: One Perspective

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I’m continuing with the theme of featuring diverse identities from the Clinical Interviewing (7th edition) textbook with a case example written by Dr. Umit Arslan. Dr. Arslan is writing about his experience as an international graduate student in counseling, when he was at the University of Montana. Currently, he’s a faculty member at the University of Nebraska-Kearney.

The photo is from when I visited him in Istanbul in January, 2023.

Enjoy!

As you’ll see below, Umit’s experience was unique. Given his Turkish heritage and cultural background, he needed to reflect and engage in a self-awareness process to experiment with finding a better way to introduce himself to clients. What I love most about this essay is Umit’s authentic description of his own experience. His answer to a better way to introduce himself won’t be the right answer for everyone. But his process is open and admirable.

CASE EXAMPLE 2.2: BEING A COUNSELOR FIRST . . . AND TURKISH SECOND, WORKED BETTER THAN BEING TURKISH FIRST . . . AND A COUNSELOR SECOND

Finding the right words and ways to introduce yourself is important. In this essay, Ümüt Arslan, Ph.D., an associate professor of counseling at İzmir Democracy University (Turkey), writes about challenges he faced as an international doctoral student in counseling at the University of Montana. Put yourself in Dr. Arslan’s shoes as he discovers (for him) a better way of introducing himself. 

While pursuing my doctoral degree in the U.S., my supervisor and I discussed how to share my cultural identity and accent to clients. When I shared, my clients were not only interested in my appearance and accent, but also about my diet, coffee preferences, job, and of course, about my native country, Turkey. But they were reluctant to talk about themselves. 

Clients assumed I was Muslim and against alcohol. Their assumptions were especially challenging because they were inaccurate. I was not religious, and like many Americans, I enjoyed having a beer after work. I wanted to challenge clients’ assumptions about my identity, but worried about countertransference and focusing too much on myself.

One cisgender female client came for an intake interview. She saw me, grabbed her bag (almost the size of a camping tent), and put it on her knees. I couldn’t see her face. I told her she could put the bag down if she wanted to. She declined.

When I re-watched this and other sessions, the striking thing was that my clients (mostly White) appeared stressed at the sight of me, a bearded Turkish man with dark skin. They didn’t even talk about the problems they had written on their intake form. My identity as a Turkish man overshadowed everything else. I needed a path forward.

In class, my supervisor discussed alternative ways to open sessions. I tried asking clients: “If you were the counselor today, what question would you ask yourself?” Clients suddenly engaged with me, giving deep and enthusiastic answers to their own questions. I stopped opening sessions by emphasizing cultural differences. Instead, I focused on my counselor identity, saying: “I completed my master’s degree and am currently a doctoral student. What do you think is the best question for me to ask you for us to have a good start here today?”The message, “I am here with my counselor identity” instead of “I’m a Turkish man in the U.S., and desperate to explain my culture to you,” had an amazing effect. Using a less cultural opening was more culturally sensitive. Clients could naturally introduce their own cultural identities, with fewer assumptions about me. Although I could still talk about culture, emphasizing my counselor identity enabled me to focus on counseling goals, the therapeutic relationship, and evidence-based counseling interventions.

[End of Case Example 2.2]

Clinical Interviewing, Writing

Culture-Specific Expertise in Clinical Interviewing

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For the next several weeks I’ll be sharing from our almost new 7th edition of Clinical Interviewing.
One of our goals for the 7th edition of Clinical Interviewing is to move toward greater representation of different ethnic/cultural/sexual identities. We want all potential counseling, psychology, and social work students to be able to identify with counseling, psychology, and social work professionals. To accomplish this goal, we added greater representation by broadening our usual chapter content, as well as including case examples contributed by professionals with diverse identities.
Here’s an excerpt from Chapter 1 on culture-specific expertise

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Culture-Specific Expertise

Culture-specific expertise speaks to the need for clinicians to learn skills for working effectively with diverse populations. For example, learning the attitudes and skills associated with affirmative therapy is important for clinicians working with diverse sexualities, including lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning (sexual or gender identity), intersex, and asexual/aromantic/agender (LGBTQIA+) clients (Heck et al., 2013). Similarly, integrating skills for talking about spiritual constructs into your work with African American, Latinx, Indigenous, and traditionally religious clients is often essential (Mandelkow et al., 2021; Sandage & Strawn, 2022).

Stanley Sue (1998, 2006) described two general skills for working with diverse cultures: (a) scientific mindedness and (b) dynamic sizing.

Scientific mindedness involves forming and testing hypotheses about client culture, rather than coming to premature conclusions. Although many human experiences are universal, it’s risky to assume you know the underlying meaning of your clients’ behavior, especially minoritized clients. As Case Example 1.3 illustrates, culturally sensitive clinicians avoid stereotypic generalizations.

Dynamic sizing is a complex multicultural concept that guides clinicians on when they should and should not generalize based on an individual client’s belonging to a specific cultural group. For example, filial piety is a value associated with certain Asian families and cultures (Ge, 2021). Filial piety involves the honoring and caring for one’s parents and ancestors. However, it would be naïve to assume that all Asian people believe in or have their lives affected by this particular value; making such an assumption can inaccurately influence your expectations of client behavior. At the same time, you would be remiss if you were uninformed about the power of filial piety in some families and the possibility that it might play a large role in relationship and career decisions in many Asians’ lives. When clinicians use dynamic sizing appropriately, they remain open to significant cultural influences, but they minimize the pitfalls of stereotyping clients.

Another facet of dynamic sizing involves therapists’ knowing when to generalize their own experiences to their clients. S. Sue (2006) explained that it’s possible for clinicians who have experienced discrimination and prejudice to use their experiences to more fully understand the discrimination-related struggles of clients. However, having had experiences similar to a client may cause you to project your own thoughts and feelings onto that client—instead of drawing out the client’s emotions and showing empathy. Dynamic sizing requires that you know and understand and not know and not understand at the same time. Not knowing—or at least not presuming you know—is essential to interviewer-client collaboration.

CASE EXAMPLE 1.3: NOT AT HOME ANYWHERE

In this case, Devika Dibya Choudhuri, Ph.D., LPC (CT/MI), a self-described Buddhist, South Asian, cisfemale, middle-aged, middle-class, Queer, disabled counselor and professor at Eastern Michigan University, illustrates sophisticated cultural-specific expertise in cross-cultural work with a bi-cultural college student. Dr. Choudhuri uses self-disclosure, researches her client’s culture, and integrates culturally meaningful symbols into her sessions. Imagine how you can aspire to be like Dr. Choudhuri.

Darla, a 19-year-old Ghanian-American cisfemale college student, felt something was wrong with her. Her mother was from Ghana, while her father, with whom she had little contact, was generationally African American. She was halting in the first session, trying to decide whether she could trust me, and talking about her recent visit to Accra where her mother’s family lived. I said, “I know when I go to India, I’m American, and when I’m here, I’m Indian. Is it a bit like that for you?” She emphatically replied, “Yes! I’m not at home anywhere!” “Or,” I returned, “almost at home everywhere, like the rest of us global nomads.” She laughed, then spoke far more comfortably about her friends and boyfriend. I had, in that brief exchange, told Darla very important things about me. I self-disclosed casually about my ethnicity and international navigation, normalized her sense of homelessness, while reframing it to join a new group identity.

After having done some research, I asked Darla if her Ghanian kin were the majority Akan or a minority group. She said they were minority. I reflected on whether she might have picked up a sense of marginalization, not just from being Black in America, but also from being minority in Ghana. This became a deep and intense conversation. She reflected on how her American status in Ghana protected her from discrimination, but also alienated her from her cousins.

Another use of culture as intervention came when I brought in Adinkra (visual pictograph meaning saturated symbols originating in Ghana) for her use. Darla chose four to represent her aspirations, and then designed ways to use them in her daily life, incorporating her cultural roots into her present. One of them, Sankofa, is a symbol of the wisdom of learning from the past to build for the future; expressed in the proverb, “it is not taboo to go back for what you left behind.” Feeling grounded in multiple cultures, and being able to navigate from one context to another with her whole and complex self, rather than fragmenting, led her to see she wasn’t “wrong.” Sometimes the spaces were too limited; it was ok to fit and not fit, just as leftover food on a Ghanian table represented abundance.

[End of Case Example 1.3]

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As always, feel free to share your thoughts on and reactions to this content. We’re always looking for practical feedback that will help us continue to become better learners and teachers.

Counseling and Psychotherapy Theory and Practice, Multicultural, Personal Reflections

Integrating Multicultural Sensitivity into CBT

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Woman Statue

A question and brief discussion on Twitter about integrating multicultural competence into CBT inspired me to look back and see what the heck we wrote for that section in our theories text. In the Twitter discussion, we agreed that Pam Hays’s work on CBT and multicultural content is good.

Here’s what I found in our theories text. Obviously it’s a short section and limited, but there are a few interesting points and a citation or two.

Cultural and Diversity Considerations in CBT

CBT focuses on symptoms as manifest within individuals. This position can be (and is) sometimes viewed as disregarding important culture, gender, and sexual diversity issues. For most cognitive-behavioral therapists, culture, gender, and sexuality aren’t primary factors that drive successful outcomes.

This position is a two-edged sword. In the featured case (in Chapter 8), Richard is a white male living a life squarely in the middle of the dominant culture. The therapist was committed to Richard’s well-being. If the client had been an Asian Indian or a bisexual or a woman experiencing domestic abuse the cognitive-behavioral therapist would have been equally committed to the client’s well-being. This is the positive side of CBT being less diversity-oriented.

The negative side is that CBT can be viewed and experienced as blaming clients for their symptoms, when the symptoms may be a function of diversity bias. D. Dobson and K. S. Dobson (2009) articulated the potential for clients to experience blame,

By virtue of looking for distorted thoughts, cognitive-behavioral therapists are more likely than other therapists to find them. Furthermore, some clients do react to the terms distorted, irrational, or dysfunctional thinking. We have heard clients say something to the effect—” Not only do I feel bad, but now I’ve learned that my thoughts are all wrong.” (p. 252)

Awareness of the possibility of client blaming is crucial. For example, what if Richard were a Black American male? And what if his therapist noticed that Richard’s thought record included numerous personalization examples? If so, instead of concluding that Richard is displaying oversensitivity and paranoid cognitions, his therapist should explore the possibility of microaggressions in Richard’s daily life.

The term microaggression was coined by Chester Pierce (1978). Microaggressions were originally defined as “the everyday subtle and often automatic ‘put-downs’ and insults directed toward Black Americans” but now this is expanded so they “can be expressed toward any marginalized group in our society” (Sue, 2010, p. 5).

Microaggressions are typically unconscious. For example, we had a female client come to us in great distress because her vocational instructor had told her “You’re pretty strong for a girl.” Although the vocational instructor defended his “compliment,” the young woman clearly didn’t experience the statement as a compliment. In this circumstance if a therapist is insensitive to culture and gender issues, the young woman might feel blamed for having irrational thoughts and overreactive behaviors. Sue (2010) recommends that mental health professionals exercise vigilance to address microaggression issues inside and outside of counseling. One way in which cognitive behavioral practitioners have addressed the potential for committing microaggressions against sexually diverse clients is by using LGBTQ affirmative CBT (Pachankis, Hatzenbuehler, Rendina, Safren, & Parsons, 2015).

Returning to racial/cultural microaggressions, let’s briefly pretend that Richard is a 6′7′′ Black American male. In his thought record he notes:

Situation: Walking into the local grocery store. Young female makes eye contact with me and then quickly turns around and goes back and locks her car.

Thoughts: She thinks I’m going to steal her car.

Emotions: Anger.

Behavior: I act rude toward her and toward other white people I see in the store.

If the Black American version of Richard has a therapist who looks at this thought record and then talks with Richard about the distorted thinking style of mind-reading (“Richard, you didn’t really know what she was thinking, did you?”) this therapist is showing cultural insensitivity and will likely be fired by Richard. This is an example of one of the many growing edges CBT should address with respect to women and minority clients.

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As always, your reactions to this content are welcome.

 

Counseling and Psychotherapy Theory and Practice

Breathing New Life into Your Dead, White Counseling and Psychotherapy Theories Course

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IMG-4449

Artwork by Rita Sommers-Flanagan**

On April 18 at 1:00p.m. EST, I’ll be doing a Wiley Webinar. This webinar is free, and especially geared toward academics who want to expand their repertoire for teaching counseling and psychotherapy theories. Because this webinar is sponsored by my publisher, John Wiley & Sons, there will be some minor marketing of my textbook, Counseling and Psychotherapy Theories in Context and Practice (3rd ed.). However, you can attend this webinar regardless of the textbook you use. My goal is to help open all of us up to how we can integrate new ideas into existing “older” theoretical perspectives.

Here’s the link to register: https://www.wileyplus.com/wiley-webinar-series/#john-sommers-flanagan

And here’s the official blurb for the webinar:

Teaching traditional counseling and psychotherapy theories courses can feel dull and boring. In this webinar session, John Sommers-Flanagan will share pedagogical strategies for integrating culture into theory, and engaging students with here-now activities that bring the dusty old theories to life. This webinar will include specific recommendations for how to integrate culture and feminist ideas into traditional theories. Learning activities will be demonstrated, including: (a) early intercultural memories; (b) sex, feminism, and psychoanalytic defense mechanisms; (c) empowered narrative storytelling; and (d) spiritual and behavioral forms of relaxation. Handouts for each activity will be available later on this blogsite.

Beyond this short description, I also want to acknowledge the obvious. As a living White person who writes about, teaches, and practices theory-based counseling and psychotherapy, I know that my ability to claim expertise in making cultural adaptations is limited. I don’t want to be the expert on this (or most things). The purpose of this webinar is NOT to “tell” anyone exactly what diversity modifications “should” be made when teaching counseling and psychotherapy theories. Instead, my purpose is to talk about and illustrate ways in which new diversity-sensitive ideas might be creatively integrated into old theoretical perspectives. From there . . . the application of these and your own ideas about how to breathe new life into old theories is up to you and your unique personal and professional worldview.

Given this big preceding caveat, the webinar’s learner objectives are to help participants:

  • Identify compatibilities of culture, spirituality, and feminist thought with traditional counseling and psychotherapy theories
  • Implement an intercultural memory activity with large or small groups
  • Implement and discuss diverse sexualities along with psychoanalytic defense mechanisms
  • Implement a multicultural empowered storytelling strategy
  • Implement and debrief spiritual and behavioral integrations to achieve relaxation

Soon (right around 4/18/19) I’ll be posting more information related to this webinar. In the meantime, let me know your thoughts on this topic. As always, I value alternative perspectives and enjoy hearing your reactions to the posts on this blog.

Personal Reflections, Politics

The Psychology of Evidence-Based Haiku and Freedom (#WordsMatter)

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nick-nacks

“Words were originally magic.” At least that’s what Freud said.

Freud, Captain America, and most sentient humans and cartoon characters who haven’t sold their souls, would likely agree that restricting words and language constricts human creativity and potential.

The White House is trying to ban the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) from using specific words. Not long ago, a five-year-old I know used the F-word. I put him in time-out. In this case, the CDC will get put in time-out for using the words “evidence-based” or “vulnerable.” Who does that?

It’s hard to find words to describe people who would restrict words, especially the words needed to report scientific findings. Ironically, for this government: Hate speech is fine. Pornography is no problem. Sexist language designed to demean is something you should grab onto and never say you’re sorry about. This is not a government that promotes family values.

Thou shalt not say: “transgender” or “entitlement.”

Who can use words to prohibit words? That’s a narcissistic megalomaniac fantasy.

Government repression of free speech has inspired me to reflect on the power of words. This reflection somehow led me East, into a temporary preoccupation with Haiku. The impulse to create Haiku with forbidden CDC words was irresistible.

Thou shalt not speak truth

Totalitarians shout

No science for you!

Once upon a time, we the people, formed a more perfect union. The purpose of said union was predominately to protect life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. For many, happiness happens when freedom includes science and a recognition that the CDC, being a government agency, is funded by me and you and, by design, is all about protecting life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This made me think of Dr. Suess.

The White House is not the boss of me.

The White House is not the boss of the CDC.

The White House should not tell

Its citizens to go to hell.

We will free our words and use our actions.

To remove the man and all his factions.

I could understand the White House restricting use of the “F-word” or the “C-word.” But now the CDC isn’t supposed to use the word “diversity?” That’s a perversely impressive expression of totalitarian suppression. However, as with most totalitarian expressions, it misunderestimates (in honor of George W. Bush) a basic Haiku-truth.

Vulnerable white

Presidents must obey all

Science-based facts

There’s a robust psychological principle called reactance. In case you wondered, reactance is evidence-based. Reactance is resistance that naturally occurs when behavioral freedoms are threatened. What usually happens is: (a) Freedoms are threatened, (b) motivational arousal occurs, (c) efforts are made to restore threatened freedoms. This means we push back to affirm or re-affirm, our freedom. In honor of reactance, here’s a two-part 5-7-5 Haiku:

I: An entitled

Totalitarian once

Said: Shut the fuck up

II: Instead, we use words

To resist the regime that

Seeks devolution

Haiku can have spiritual dimensions. It requires slowing down, counting syllables, and ending a story near the beginning. There are several famous Zen Haiku poems. None of which are included here among my amateurish Haiku attempts.

This brings me to this blog’s end, which is also only the beginning of something else. To close, I offer a progressive Christian Haiku prayer for freedom:

Dear Lord Jesus, may

I kneel and say transgender?

Yes, my love, you may.

Clinical Interviewing, Cool Counseling, Counseling and Psychotherapy Theory and Practice, Multicultural, Therapy with Adolescents

Counseling Culturally Diverse Youth: Research-Based and Common Sense Tips

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This is a rough preview of a section from the 6th edition Clinical Interviewing. As always, your thoughts and feedback are welcome.

Counseling Culturally Diverse Youth: Research-Based and Common Sense Tips

Research on how to practice with culturally diverse youth is especially sparse. To make matters more complex, youth culture is already substantially different from adult culture. This means that if you’re different from young clients on traditional minority variables, you’ll be experiencing a double dose of the cultural divide. These complications led one writer to title an article “A knot in the gut” to describe the palpable transference and countertransference that can arise when working with race, ethnicity, and social class in adolescents (Levy-Warren, 2014).

To help reduce the size of the knot in your gut, we’ve developed a simple research- and common-sense list to guide your work with culturally diverse youth (Bhola & Kapur, 2013; Norton, 2011; Shirk, Karver, & Brown, 2011; Villalba, 2007):

1. Use the interpersonal skills (e.g., empathy, genuineness, respect) that are known to work well with adult minority group members. Keep in mind that interpersonal respect is an especially salient driver in smoothing out intercultural relationships.

2. Find ways to show genuine interest in your young clients, while also focusing on their assets or strengths.

3. Treat the meeting, greeting, and first session with freshness and eagerness. There’s evidence that young clients find less experienced therapists easier to form an alliance with.

4. Use a genuine and clear purpose statement. It should capture your “raison d’etre” (your reason for being in the room). We like a purpose statement that’s direct and has intrinsic limits built in. For example: “My goal is to help you achieve your goals . . . just as long as your goals are legal and healthy.” One nice thing about this purpose statement is that sometimes young clients think the “legal and healthy” limitations are funny.

5. Don’t use a standardized approach to always talking with youth about your cultural differences. Instead, wait for an opening that naturally springs up from your interactions. For example, when a teen says something like, “I don’t think you get what I’m saying” it’s a natural opening to talk about how you probably don’t get what the youth is saying. Then you can discuss some of your differences as well as you’re desire to understand as much as you can. For example: “You’re right. I probably don’t get you very well. It’s obvious that I’m way older than you and I’m not a Native American. But I’d like to understand you better and I hope you’ll be willing to help me understand you better. Then, in the end, you can tell me how much I get you and how much I don’t get you.”

6. Provide clear explanations of your procedure and rationale and then linger on those explanations as needed. If young clients don’t understand the point of what you’re doing, they’re less likely to engage.

7. Be patient with your clients; research with young clients and diverse clients indicate that alliance-building (and trust) takes extra time and won’t necessarily happen during an initial session

8. Be patient with yourself; it may take time for you to feel empathy for young clients who engage in behaviors outside your comfort zone (e.g., cutting)

I hope these ideas can help you make connections with youth from other cultures. The BIG summary is to BE GENUINE and BE RESPECTFUL. Nearly everything else flows from there.