Therapeutic Justice Project

TJP Update

2011-08-31T13:43:00.000-07:00

- by Stacey Prince

Over the summer and since the dissolving of the leadership council in May, I have had a lot of time to regroup and to think about the role of TJP in the community and in my own life. I have steadily found myself contemplating ending the project for a variety of reasons, primarily the following:

1) Since leadership council ended in May, I've been doing this solo. This was always a project I wanted to do in a group, in community - not in isolation, like so many of our other professional endeavors end up being. Yet many of the folks who I might think about asking to join me in leadership are deeply involved with other projects or endeavors and don't have the time or energy to add this on.

2) I'm not sure the project is serving the community in useful ways that are worth continuing. I base this on blog readership (which is steady but low) as well as the fact that so many of you are already doing great, social justice / anti-oppression based work in other groups and settings. It's not clear to me what additional value TJP brings beyond that.

And,

3) I myself have been quite busy with other projects, primarily Beyond the Bridge which many of you know about, as well as consultation on a national project to bring effective couple therapy approaches to veterans.

In light of these and other factors, I have been leaning toward bringing TJP to a close - feeling as if, while it served its purpose for a time including bringing together many people who might otherwise not have met, perhaps it has lived its course. However, there is something about this project that I still find very compelling and am not quite ready to let go of. So, as a compromise between continuing as is and ending it altogether, I've decided to take a several month TJP vacation between now and the end of the year. This means I won't be posting blog articles, Facebook posts or organizing retreats. This break will both give me some time to finish up some other pressing projects and allow me to sit with what makes the most sense for me and for TJP.

What I am hoping is that, toward the end of the year or beginning of the new year, we can have a mini (maybe half-day) retreat in which any interested parties can check in with one another as a group, and see what there is energy for to work on in community. "Energy" might be as simple as getting together periodically to discuss the work we're doing and support one another, or it might be more involved than that. If, when we touch base, other folks are not able or interested in engaging with me as part of TJP, I will be able to put it down with peace in my heart, and continue to pursue this work in other ways. If there is energy to collaborate and move forward, that will be exciting and we will do so... until TJP and the needs of our group change yet again.

So, I wanted to let you all know why you won't be hearing from me (at least in TJP capacity) for the next few months. I hope this makes sense and of course welcome any thoughts or comments you might have. I know this network of now 150+ people is deeply committed to, and already engaged in, work toward positive social change and redressing social inequities. If there are ways that TJP as a community can continue to serve that overarching goal, then great. If not, it has certainly been a great pleasure and honor to have done what we have in the last 3 1/2 years.

Art and Social Justice

2011-08-12T17:05:00.001-07:00

- by Stacey Prince

Picasso once said that “art is a lie that brings us nearer to the truth”. So true, but sometimes art also tells us the truth in ways that other media can’t. During my trip to Washington, DC this past week I had occasion to witness some difficult, beautiful, challenging, inspiring and visionary truths about social justice reflected through the visual arts. There are many ways to look at issues of social justice in the arts; for simplicity I will focus on the following three: inequities in the arts, social justice depicted through art, and art as social justice activism.

Inequities in the arts. While in DC I stumbled upon a lovely museum entitled the National Museum of Women in the Arts. I’ve been to DC many times, and yet have never heard about this wonderful museum, and I find it interesting that it has not been highlighted, or at least not prominently so, in guidebooks or local travel guides. Turns out it’s (from their website) “the only museum in the world dedicated exclusively to recognizing the contributions of women artists”. Though it is on the small side compared with some of the gigantic Smithsonian collections, it’s a treasure trove consisting of both permanent collections and special exhibitions. Its history on the website explains that the museum was a direct outgrowth of discourse beginning in the 1960’s regarding the underrepresentation of women and artists of color in museum collections and major art exhibitions, with two female curators taking it upon themselves to begin remedying that, at least with regard to female artists.

During my visit I enjoyed viewing works in the permanent exhibit which consists of over 3,000 pieces by women artists from the 16th century to the present. While some of the 20th century artists (Frida Kahlo, Georgia O’Keeffe) were quite recognizable, others, especially those from the 16th through 19th centuries, were new to me. As many of you may know, apart from brief eras of prominence, most women artists up until the 20th century received little recognition and were constricted in both their access to formal training and their subject matter. Take, for example, this quote from Marie-Elisabeth Boulanger Cave, a 19th century painter: “Woman must confine herself to those subjects which are allied to her sphere… children, animals, fruit, flowers, etc.” Nudes were out, as were large canvasses and abstract images. Even Georgia O’Keeffe, enjoying the relative freedoms of the early 20th century, observed the following: “One day seven years ago I found myself saying to myself–I can’t live where I want to–I can’t go where I want to go–I can’t do what I want to–I can’t even say what I want to–...I decided I was a very stupid fool not to at least paint as I wanted to. “

Unfortunately the stories of many artists of color follow a similar trajectory: difficulty obtaining education in the arts, underrepresentation in major collections and exhibits, and when they are shown, primarily being shown in separatist collections of African American art, Latin American art, Asian art, etc. See this article for an excellent discussion of exclusionary practices in the visual arts. The same is true in other media such as poetry and prose; see for example this 2007 report entitled Free Verse which found that less than 1% of published poets were Black or Asian.

What will it take for women, people of color, uneducated artists and other under-represented groups to be fully recognized and given equal opportunity by curators of major museums and exhibits, publicists, and other gatekeepers to the art world? Meanwhile, young people, aspiring artists and adults who are not members of dominant (white, male, owning class) groups will not see their experiences and artistic visions fully reflected in the major collections of art around the world. Although the revisionist approach of a “gallery of women in the arts,” “gallery of African-American art,” etc. is better than nothing, as is true in other areas of oppression separate is still not equal.

Struggles for social justice depicted in art. On another day, in another gallery - the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery - an exhibit entitled “The Struggle for Justice” blew me away. This permanent collection is filled with images (including paintings, photographs, and sculpture) depicting the struggle for social justice for many marginalized groups, focusing in particular on efforts to overcome racism, sexism, homophobia, and ableism. Some of the images were familiar, even iconic - a contemplative Martin Luther King, Jr., for example, and a portrait of feminist and NOW founder Betty Freidan - while others depicted their message with a new vision, such as the beautiful painting of Eunice Shriver, founder of the Special Olympics, with five special Olympians, all on a beach and gazing together toward the horizon. The image of Rosa Parks carved in wood (pictured at the top of this article) depicts her courageous and historic act of civil disobedience with power and substance. You can view the entire exhibit here, and this wonderful website also contains lesson plan suggestions for utilizing the exhibit as a teaching tool. Although not named as such, the gallery of Pulitzer Prize winning photographs at the Newseum was another place where social justice struggles were vividly depicted. Hundreds of historic moments captured on film in this collection include the Kent State massacre, a confrontation between Jewish settlers and Israeli security forces, and the collapse of the Berlin Wall.

Art as activism. So, back to the National Museum for Women in the Arts. Have you ever heard of the Guerilla Girls? These artists, performers and activists call attention to social inequities in the arts, especially racism and sexism, through posters, buttons, and public protests conducted while wearing gorilla masks. They deliver their message with disarming humor but also pointed anger and satire. Take, for example, this t-shirt entitled “The Advantages of Being a Woman Artist” which lists the following “advantages” (these are just excerpts - it’s a long list):

• Working without the pressure of success
• Not having to be in shows with men
• Having an escape from the art world in your 4 free-lance jobs
• Knowing your career might pick up after you’re eighty
• Being reassured that whatever kind of art you make it will be labeled feminine
• Having the opportunity to choose between career and motherhood
• Not having to undergo the embarrassment of being called a genius

Or this poster commentary on racist and sexist exclusion in the art world, which is entitled “3 white women, 1 woman of color and no men of color - out of 71 artists?” Directed to chief curator Margit Rowell of the Museum of Modern Art, it reads,

“Dear Margit,

We’re thrilled that you have managed to redefine the still life to exclude women and artists of color from the practice. Guerilla Girls thinks you should change the show’s title from ‘Objects of desire: The modern still life’ to ‘The objects of MOMA’s desire are still white males.’ Lotso luck, Guerilla Girls.”

Viewing their work in this gallery made me want to laugh (I did, out loud, several times), cry, and got me really, really mad, all at the same time. The list of actions they have taken in their 25 years of existence is incredible. Here is their website, in case you want to learn more.

There is so much to say about art and social justice, and I am just touching on these rich and complex issues. An excellent book delving into this topic is Art and politics now: Cultural activism in a time of crisis by art critic (and Seattle resident!) Susan Noyes Platt and available for purchase on her website. The book covers topics including racism, immigration reform, environmental crises, and opposition to war and examines the various ways that individual artists, collectives, curators and exhibitions participate in social commentary and political activism. For now I will just say that I was moved by my brief tour of social justice in the arts while in Washington, DC - saddened and angered by the deep inequities persisting in the art world, but also struck by the power of art to illuminate stories and issues of social justice. Many have written about the importance of engaging affect when doing work on oppression and privilege; art has the power bypass rationalization and higher cognitive functioning to deliver a deeply affective experience and show us the truth.

Poverty kills, but racism is the weapon

2011-08-03T16:40:00.000-07:00

- by Stacey Prince

I am on a plane headed to the annual convention of the American Psychological Association, dubbed by fellow psychologist Laura Brown (who is also on my flight) “summer camp for psychologists”. A gathering of over 10,000 psychologists with diverse interests and careers from around the world, the event is usually stimulating and exciting, a shot in the arm to keep doing clinical work and advocacy, a chance to hear new viewpoints, learn new interventions, and socialize with friends and colleagues. This year the convention is being held in Washington, DC, which normally would also cause great excitement for me; I love the city’s history, museums, monuments, and buzzing sense of political life going on all around. But right now, like many Americans, I feel a huge sense of conflict, disappointment, and wariness about the workings of our government. The debt ceiling has just (literally, in the last 24 hours) been lifted, but the sigh of relief that accompanies this is small, offset by worries about the still impending possible cuts to basic lifelines such as supplemental Social Security income and Medicare, as well as by witnessing the bitter, polarized partisan debate that led to this unsatisfactory and temporary resolution to the budget crisis. Going to APA in Washington, DC brings together in one place, in one weekend, three things I am passionate about and deeply committed to: psychology, social justice, and political activism. Yet this year, instead of excitement, I feel wary, weary, angry and, to bring a psychological term to bear, some learned helplessness about our country, where we’ve been and where we are going. Here are some of the pieces that go into that unsettling mix.

1) The gap between the super rich and the poor and middle class is more extreme than it’s been in almost a century. The richest 1% of Americans earn nearly 25% of the country’s income and control a whopping 40% of its wealth. Meanwhile, with unemployment at 9% for the population overall the partisan budget debate has threatened to cut some of the most basic safety net programs that help keep the nation’s most vulnerable, including the poor, the elderly, people with disabilities and the unemployed, afloat. Although some of those programs were spared during this go-around, the threat of draconian cuts still looms ahead during the November “super committee” negotiations. Was this just a postponement of the inevitable?

2) The resource gap is even more pronounced for people of color, and cuts that have taken place and may take place in the future also disproportionately impact people of color. In contrast to the national unemployment rate of 9 percent, joblessness for Black Americans stands at over 16 percent. Earlier this week, a New York Times article reported that in 2009, the median wealth of whites was 20 times that of black households and 18 times that of Hispanic households, differences that represents the largest racial wealth disparities in the 25 years that the Census bureau has been collecting the data.”

3) Once an individual becomes unemployed, it is more difficult than ever to get rehired. For example, this article describes an investigation into systematic discrimination against unemployed job seekers that was called for by members of Congress and conducted by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). The message “the unemployed need not apply” is at times explicitly stated on job announcements, and even when it’s not, many job seekers report verbal rejection after a recruiter or employer earns they are currently unemployed.

4) Employment barriers for people of color who are jobless are even higher. Black and Latino workers are typically the first fired in an economic downturn. White high school dropouts are twice as likely to find work as similarly uneducated black men, and even college-educated black Americans are far more likely to be unemployed than their white peers. Also, since African-Americans, older workers (especially women), and disabled workers have higher rates of unemployment during this downturn, discriminating against unemployed people likely hits these groups particularly hard. So much so, in fact, that the same EEOC panel that is investigating discrimination against the unemployed has also been tasked with investigating whether this discrimination is illegal because it disproportionately targets people of color and other groups that are specifically protected by antidiscrimination laws.

5) A report by UBS economist Paul Donovan indicates that there is a strong correlation between social inclusion, healthy competitiveness and economic development. On the flip side, his report also indicates that a prejudicial society is more likely to have difficulty recovering from economic hardship than one that is non-discriminatory and equally empowering to all of its citizens. He argued that "A prejudicial society is likely to deny its labor, its workforce, the potential to develop – access to education, access to jobs" and that “prejudice, in whatever form – including racism, sexism, homophobia, religious intolerance – irrationally destroys the value of human capital." What would happen, he asks, if someone whose mind holds the answer to one of the biggest problems facing the human race, such as climate change, energy efficiency or food productivity, was denied the ability to develop due to his or her ethnicity, religion, or sexual orientation? This is just one example of the many, many ways in which prejudice hinders the enhancement of human capital. Of course there are daily, less dramatic examples in the lives of people who are denied equal access to education, wealth accruement, housing, employment, and other resources required to survive and thrive.

6) That distinction between surviving and thriving is an important one. What we are talking about here is not just the inability to achieve a comfortable, middle class existence, but about people in disenfranchised groups dying, whether by ill health or suicide, at disproportionately higher rates, and as a result of poverty and joblessness. Here are two powerful articles, the first on the relationship between poverty and other social conditions and US health related deaths, and the second linking poverty to suicides. The first study found that poverty, low levels of education, poor social support, health insurance status, experiencing racism and discrimination, and other social factors account for about as many deaths in the US as heart attacks, strokes, and lung cancer combined. The investigators provide estimated number of annual deaths attributable to each social cause, but note that these numbers were likely an underestimation as they did not account for the compounding effects of numerous factors (low education plus racism plus low social support, for example). The second study indicates that suicide rates increase during times of economic hardship, with several likely mediating variables including unemployment, personal financial stress, and previous suicide risk. This relationship is true not just in the US, but also has been observed in other countries including Greece, England and Japan, as well as in Europe, but I do not know whether the underlying racial disparities that contribute to unemployment and suicide risk are similar in those countries.

7) Despite all of the evidence regarding systemic oppression at every level including education, employment, healthcare, wealth accrual, the criminal justice system, etc. etc., the myth of meritocracy is still being touted by some. For example, Oklahoma state representative Sally Kern recently stated that “it's character that ought to count, not whether you're white or black... it should be your willingness to say, 'I'm going to become everything I can become’.” Kern was blithely promoting the myth of meritocracy, or its flip side, the “culture of poverty”. This argument, often used by conservative politicians to justify cuts to social program spending such as food stamps, maintains that poverty in communities of color is due not to systemic oppression or economic factors, but to a deeply rooted intrapersonal flaw that holds them back. They are simply not working hard enough, the myth goes, and/or are too dependent on governmental assistance to be motivated to succeed. This article soundly debunks the myth, yet it prevails in both media and government discussions, including in the recent pernicious budget debate.

8) Meanwhile, as the poor (and in particular poor people of color) continue to get poorer, the rich keep getting richer. Top executive salaries soared in the last two years (article), a 23% gain since 2009, while the average American’s wages went up just 0.5 percent from 2010 to 2011 (which, after correcting for inflation, means that average American is actually earning less than the previous year). Just to make this picture a little bigger (and worse), this article indicates that, unlike previous times in history, at this juncture economic recovery is not adding up to job growth. So, while CEO’s and some companies are starting to show signs of recovery, job growth- and hence financial health for the majority of Americans - is not following suit.

What is one to do with all of this depressing news? In particular, as a psychologist, I am wondering what I can do about it? Perhaps you are wondering the same thing. I have just a few ideas, and they feel small in the face of the overwhelming difficulties our country is facing. When working with clients, it is crucial for us to try to assist them in making accurate attributions about experiences they may be having. People who are unemployed struggle with feelings of worthlessness, inadequacy, difficulty fulfilling roles (as father, mother, provider) as well as the stress associated with financial hardship. Help broaden their lens of analysis to look at the bigger picture, including how ethnicity and other social group memberships play into disparities in education, employment, and wealth accrual. Whether working with people of color or white individuals, articles on slow job growth, unemployment rates, and discrimination against the jobless can be helpful. This is not to make clients feel hopeless; quite the contrary, this broader ecological perspective can help them feel hopeful that this situation they find themselves in is not their fault. If we simply tell people to try harder, we are promoting the myth of meritocracy ourselves. Give at least some of your time to pro bono or low fee services. Join a group or listserv to stay informed (the Psychologists for Social Responsibility Poverty and Inequality Project is one such group). If you are an educator, help find ways your department can make higher education more accessible and affordable to more students; also help your students become aware and involved in community issues such as poverty, homelessness and oppression. If you have other ideas, I welcome your comments here, and if I am inspired by other ideas as I attend the APA convention in our nation’s capitol this weekend, I too will post them.

Coming Out to Students: Risk and Liberation

2011-07-25T11:15:00.001-07:00

- by Deborah Schwartz

This chapter explores the liberatory power of coming out, but also its risks. It may be of most interest to therapists and educators, as we grapple with decisions about self-disclosure in general, and regarding social group memberships that are associated with privilege and oppression in particular. Although the chapter focuses on disclosure of sexual orientation, the concepts it explores are equally applicable across a variety of memberships, particularly those that may not be immediately visible to others such as hidden disabilities, religion, class, etc. Also, while the coming out dilemma can feel especially tricky in hierarchical power relationships (therapist with client, teacher with students, etc.) this piece may also appeal to anyone who is faced with the choice to disclose or not.

The chapter was authored by a dear high school friend of mine. Interestingly, we did not disclose our sexual orientations to one another until years after high school - me because I was not out to myself yet, and Deborah because she was at the beginning of her identity development as a lesbian and was not out to her peers. Our reconnection in adulthood, including our connection as queer identified Jewish women, has been a blessing. This chapter will appear in the book "Our Stories Ourselves: the Embodyment of Women's Literacy" which will be available for purchase at www.infoagepub.com. It is preprinted here with permission.

THEN

When I taught adult basic education at the Archdale Family Literacy Project in Roslindale, Massachusetts, I kept a journal. More precisely, we—the ten women students and myself— all kept journals. Our medium was stacks and stacks of green steno-pads. In them, we tried to tell the truth about our lives, though the students started noticing gaps in my story. They challenged me not to hide myself from them. Following are several edited entries from my own journal, which tell the story of coming out to my students. Most are from my experience with this class, but I also included two entries from two other classes I taught concurrently.

March 3

They are writing frantically in their journals. S writes about driving the rats out of her apartment. C writes about playing her music as loudly as she likes. L writes about her grandmother— about living with her in the mountains and drinking her coffee so black that it stings her eyes before she swallows.

When J reads, she interrupts herself to tell us that she’s getting evicted because her oldest son Tom came home with some guy named Eddie who lit a joint in the hall then walked into her apartment with the lit joint and now the housing authority has the right to evict them.

C responds, “Even in this lousy project, you still have some rights.” She is on her feet: “Do you know how often they’ve threatened to evict me? Just for playing my music after church on Sunday afternoon?”

C is smart and community-minded. She has set up this protocol of letting the neighbors know when she’s going to be playing loud music. Half the time, they say it’s fine and half of those times she invites them over because “it’s no fun to dance alone,” and the other half of the time, she shares chicken with them and then they change their minds, and half of the time they end up watching TV together. “All those halves don’t add up,” B notices.

“They add up,” responds C. “Believe me, they add up.” Everyone laughs. The classroom is a world of words and stories and noise and quiet while we’re writing.

We have authority over our lives for this brief time. The crocus doesn’t just come up in the spring, but has the purple-colored chutzpah to bloom through the hard, cold earth. These women are like that. They give me bravery, but what do I give them? Room, that’s all.

April 23

“Read what you wrote, Deborah. You always make us read what we wrote,” J notices that I skip passages when it’s my turn to read. I remind her that its ok to skip passages, or to not even read at all.

“But Deborah, you never tell us anything about your life, or at least anything good,” which I know is a code word for anything interesting.

“Well nothing all that interesting happens in my life,” I counter.

“Are you kidding?” replies C. “You come in here some mornings and you look like a train hit you. You and your double latte! Then some days you come in looking like a shining star. You have a life too, just cause you’re a teacher doesn’t mean you can hide behind that. Jesus, you know what color each of our bedroom walls is painted. We don’t know anything about you. Nothing that counts anyway. You take a risk, Missy, and read!” That’s what C says.

To read entire post, click here.

A New Idea for the Gaza Flotilla

2011-07-20T10:17:00.001-07:00

- by Yvette Nahmia-Messinas

I met poet, peace worker, Reiki master and Israeli resident Yvette Nahmia-Messinas at a conference a couple of years ago, and was inspired by her creative approaches to peace building in the Middle East. She authored the collection of poems entitled “They All Sound Like Love Songs, Women Healing Israeli-Palestinian Relations" and has contributed to this blog several times before. Last week activists from around the world set out on a flotilla in an attempt to break the blockade of the Gaza strip and deliver humanitarian supplies. Two boats were turned back. Last year similar confrontations between activist flotillas and the military in the Gaza sea resulted in violence and fatalities. In this article, Yvette describes her idea of what an affective flotilla would look like. This piece was originally published on www.peacexpeace.org, and is reposted with permission.

In the best scenario, the flotillas could serve as a place to let go of the old paradigm of the strong wins; of winners and losers. In that scenario, the flotillas could launch a new way of doing things, for internationals, Palestinians and Israelis. Ideally, I would like to see the flotillas as seminar spaces in the middle of the sea, where Israelis-Palestinians and internationals could negotiate their fate until they formed a consensus. In that scenario the flotillas would not reach Gaza unless all involved Israelis, Palestinians and internationals reached an agreement.

I am inspired to suggest this model after a day I spent in Beit Jala’s Everest hotel as a participant in a process-oriented psychology seminar co-led by Gary Reiss and Vassiliki Katrivanou. At the seminar of 20 participants, Gary and Vassiliki taught me that when you bring up your discomfort and honestly express and share your feelings, and allow for others to do the same, you can eventually reach understanding and agreement. The process takes time, but is indeed worth the effort.

In this ideal scenario, I would have many facilitators work in parallel with all three groups, the passengers on the boats, the Israelis in charge of controlling the entrance of the flotillas, and the Palestinians in Gaza.

I would keep the flotillas at sea, and have Israelis and Palestinians meet together in the flotillas, along with the internationals, in a safe space where they could each express their pain, anguish, fears, and whatever comes up for them. At some point when everyone’s concern would be addressed the group would agree on the next step. And step by step they would reach a solution agreed by all.

In the course of this process, people involved would realize the humanity of all, would come to understand each other’s fears and pains, would cry and tremble and sweat and blush, and eventually understand each other’s positions in a tangible manner. In the end all would agree on some basic values, or on a policy that all could live with, and come up with creative ideas as to which boats can enter Gaza, or what the precondition is for them to enter and so on.

The point I am making is that the issue is currently dealt with by politicians, army officers, activists, and citizens who despite their good intentions are not managing to find a solution based on consensus. To my mind, we need to call in experts in group process work, in group dynamics, in conflict resolution, in healing: those who already have experience in solving conflicts in organizations and communities. These people exist; they are out there doing amazing work from which we could all benefit.

I call on politicians, activists, and army officers to recognize their limitations and call forth help from the experts in the field. I am sure dozens of them are craving to put their knowledge into practice and contribute their understanding and experience to help reach consensus by reaching out to all involved parties. Each voice, they tell us, counts, and this is something that most of us have forgotten.

Timshel

2011-07-13T14:08:00.000-07:00

- By Teri Mayo

In November of 2011 my partner Teri Mayo and I founded an organization called Beyond the Bridge, whose vision is to bring awareness to and reduce the risk of suicide among LGBTQ youth. In January 2011 we joined with the Pride Foundation to create an area of interest fund, to support local organizations who do critical work with LGBTQ youth, focusing in particular on reducing bullying in schools, increasing family acceptance, and building more affirmative faith communities. On June 25, 2011 we held our first house party, and it was a day filled with connection, somber remembrance of lives lost, and inspired visioning of the future. Teri gave this beautiful speech which I wanted to share here, because it speaks to so many of the issues that are of concern to TJP readers, including allyship, resisting oppression, and activism. She focuses on the theme of choice, and the many ways that plays out in people’s lives: for example, the choice to bully (or not), the choice to ally with someone who is being bullied (or be a passive bystander), and the choice to take action via community engagement, activism, and advocacy (or not). I hope you enjoy it.

There is a beautiful song out now by the popular group Mumford and Sons called "Timshel." I've liked the song since I first heard it but it struck me that the meaning of that word was a perfect synthesis of all that we are doing here with Beyond The Bridge- both today at this gathering and in the larger sense with our cause.

Timshel is a Hebrew word, loosely translated as "Thou Mayest." There are many ways to interpret and discuss this word but here is the very abbreviated version. It is from Genesis in the Old Testament and refers to God's granting man knowledge and choice (as opposed to living a pre-ordained life). We were given the choice in that moment but with that gift of knowledge comes responsibility: the individual responsibility to do the right thing. Many describe that moment as the invention of conscience.
It seemed appropriate here because choice - the right choice - is what we are hoping to affect with Beyond The Bridge, in small and large ways. Including the choice for us as individuals in this moment at this party.

With Beyond The Bridge we hope that with by funding various, specific programs we will be able to give more knowledge to those who need it. And in doing so, that we can affect choices made by individuals, teachers, schools, congregations, and communities at large. With the addition of support and a newfound sense of community, perhaps people will make a different choice. Timshel. Perhaps they make the choice not to bully. Perhaps they make the choice to stand up for a classmate who is getting harassed despite the risks to themselves. Maybe a teacher intervenes instead of letting covert homophobia stand or comments go unchecked. A pastor decides to take a stand in favor of love and against institutionalized marginalization. Maybe, with the right education and with a new understanding of options previously unknown to them, an LGBTQ youth makes the decision to live. These are choices. And like the line in the song says, these are what make men (and women) great.

It may be a cliché to say this but it’s true: if what we do protects or affects one queer kid, then we have succeeded. My sense is that we will largely never know the impact that our effort has. But we must still make the choice to try and affect change. Too many lives are lost or harmed if we do nothing.

Which brings me to this moment. Our choice. Many of you have already given to this cause and we cannot thank you enough. But here is a moment to do more. If you understand, relate, are drawn to what we have talked about here, then make the choice that resonates with your conscience and contribute again. Whatever you are able to give makes a difference. If you have not donated, this is your opportunity to help us along on this long and difficult path.

This journey, sadly, will likely not end in our lifetime, but we can make the choice to do everything we can to help. Today is just a step on the journey but it is our moment. If I could say one thing to all of the kids out there struggling with acceptance, who are being bullied and who are scared, I will reference the song one more time and say: "You are not alone in this."

To find out more about Beyond the Bridge please visit our website, www.beyond-the-bridge.org.

Whose Independence?

2011-07-04T07:59:00.001-07:00

- by Stacey Prince

OK, I like the 4th of July as much as the next person - especially when Seattle breaks its multi-year streak of crummy weather and is actually sunny and warm for the holiday. Cook-outs, fireworks, a day off from work... what's not to like? But my relationship to the meaning and history of the day is much more ambivalent. It's difficult to wholeheartedly celebrate freedom and independence when so many in this country are neither. Here are just a few examples:

Immigration. It is believed that there are about 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States. They deal with daily barriers to independence and security including language and cultural barriers, anti-immigrant hostility, being denied employment and housing, as well as pervasive fear of being discovered, detained and/or deported. Journalist Jose Antonio Vargas recently disclosed his undocumented status in a powerful story in the New York Times and is trying to bring increased attention and national debate to address our country's broken immigration system.

Transgender Rights. There are daily advances in the rights of lesbian, gay, and bisexual individuals. It may feel like one step forward, one step back much of the time, and we still have a long, long way to go, but overall the trajectory is toward improved protections, freedom and equality. The civil rights struggle for transgender individuals however flags behind by about 2 to 3 decades. Transgender individuals are still some of the least protected and most discriminated against people in this country. They are regularly let go from jobs, evicted from housing, and denied medical treatment, as well as facing transphobia and violence, with little legal recourse. This article summarizes the ongoing struggle for transgender rights.

Racism in our country is still the most divisive of all the isms, with pervasive, systemic discrimination experienced by people of color in virtually every facet of life including employment, education, access to health and mental health care, financial security, and the criminal justice system. Further, there are not only stark between-groups but also within-groups differences in racially biased discrimination. For example, this recent study compared sentences and length served for over 12,000 light skinned versus dark skinned black women imprisoned in North Carolina between 1995 and 2009. The authors controlled for factors such as prior record, date of conviction, prison misconduct, and thinness, as well as whether the woman was convicted of homicide or robbery since these crimes usually carry longer sentences. Results indicated that women deemed to have light skin were sentenced to approximately 12% less time behind bars than their darker skinned counterparts, and that having light skin reduced actual time served by approximately 11%. The authors concluded that it is not sufficient to understand racial discrimination just in terms of relative advantages of whites versus to non-whites. Based on this study, characteristics associated with whiteness among Blacks also appear to have a significant impact on important life outcomes. These and other findings indicate that this subtle form of racism known as colorism (discrimination experienced within groups of color based on lightness or darkness of skin) is also a serious problem in our country.

Native Americans. European colonization of North America forever changed the lives, well-being, and cultures of the many indigenous peoples who lived here for thousands of years, long before the settlers who would later declare independence from Britain every arrived. The Native people whose land was taken and culture silenced by colonial settlers continue to experience disproportionately high rates of social, economic, and health inequities. The country's 2.1 million Native Americans have the highest rates of poverty, unemployment, and illness of any ethnic group. Interestingly, many Native American individuals and tribes have a complex and conflictual relationship with this holiday. Some tribes have decided to stop observing the holiday altogether, in recognition of the fact that so many tribal people were killed and villages destroyed as they were "in the way" of the new country that was being celebrated on this day. On many reservations it was one of the few holidays chosen by the government (but not meaningful to the tribe) when tribal people were allowed to perform traditional dances and drumming. This made it appear that Native Americans were celebrating Independence Day, when in fact they were not. Over time, however, some tribes have reclaimed the day and it has become one of cultural celebration (rather than a celebration of "independence" and patriotism) for many. This article explores the complex relationship to the holiday for some tribal reservation residents.

Economic Injustice. Where is the security and prosperity that were supposed to underlie our freedom and were spelled out in the Declaration of Independence, the document whose writing we commemorate on July 4th? It seems it has never been more true than now that as the rich get richer, the poor get poorer. Thirty-nine million people live in poverty in the United States, and as this article indicates, financial growth and job growth are no longer tied. What this means is that while corporate profits continue to accrue, more and more Americans are jobless, and employment lags behind growth during both economic boons and downturns. As the article so succinctly points out, given that those who benefit from corporate growth represent a tiny proportion of the population, "it's not economic growth most Americans are looking for -- it's jobs."

So, here we are celebrating Independence Day. Several recent newspaper articles including this one indicate that patriotism is at a new high this year, with some speculating that this might be related to the capture and death of Osama Bin Laden. Yet with almost 13% of our country's residents overall and 25% of the Native American population living in poverty, 11 million undocumented immigrants, nearly half of our population non-white and experiencing personal and systemic racism, mass incarceration of Black youth and adults, 8 million identifying openly as gay or lesbian, and 700,000 as transgender, whose life, liberty and pursuit of happiness are we celebrating anyway?

Friends in Internet Places

2011-06-19T08:51:00.001-07:00

- by Stacey Prince

You know when you are doing something different or new, or you're a little uncertain of your direction, how validating it can be to learn that there are other people out there who have similar ideas? Thanks to the world wide web, this has happened to me recently in a multitude of ways, connecting me to individuals and organizations whose work mirrors and bolsters my own and gives me the encouragement to continue. I wanted to highlight some of those connections here:

1) Heather Greene, Justice Centered Social Work. Heather is an MSW in Portland, Oregon, who is committed to anti-oppressive, social justice oriented social work practice. Her website outlines her intentions and philosophy of justice centered practice and supervision, and I especially appreciate her voicing of the struggle to do this work in the context of institutions and systems that can and often do perpetuate systemic oppression. Her blog, the Social Work Activist Reader, was recently begun and is intended to be a forum for exploring practice through a justice lens. She also will soon launch an online zine with a similar focus. We have begun to correspond and her passions, vision and interests overlap considerably with mine for TJP. I hope the future will bring opportunities for us to connect not just electronically but face to face!

2) Manivong Ratts, Washington Counselors for Social Justice. I have been hearing about Vong for several months from mutual friends and colleagues, who have told me we should get together to discuss our two organizations and their overlap. He has been active in the national organization Counselors for Social Justice, and is currently President of the Washington chapter. In one of those weird, small world things that make you go hmm, it turns out he works right across the street from me, as program director of the school counseling department at Seattle University! So far we are internet friends only, but we are working on a get-together soon. From their website, WCSJ is "a community of counselors, counselor educators, graduate students, and school and community leaders who seek equity and an end to oppression and injustice affecting clients, students, counselors, families, communities, schools, workplaces, governments, and other social and institutional systems." Strategies include implementing social actions, disseminating scholarship on the impact of socioeconomic inequities, maintaining an active online and in person support network, and providing social justice focused professional development activities. Sound familiar? I was so inspired to learn of this parallel organization whose commitment, vision and strategies sound so much like TJP's. I am also excited about the possibilities for allyship and connection with Heather, Vong, and other practitioners in the Northwest who share a commitment to incorporating social justice, anti-oppression, and liberatory strategies into our work, possibly at a future TJP retreat.

Venturing now both beyond the Pacific Northwest and outside the world of mental health:

3) Josh Freeman, Medicine and Social Justice. Dr. Freeman is chair of the department of family medicine at University of Kansas Medical Center. I really like this guy's blog! He writes on topics such as the following: healthcare reform, insurance companies profiting while patient care quality decreases, perceptions and realities of economic inequity, professional disincentives to providing care to underserved populations, and financial conflicts of interest impacting physicians' choice of treatment approach and the veracity of research findings. While not speaking to mental health practice directly, so many of these issues are prevalent in the mental health professions that I think it is a great read for those of us interested in the intersections of social justice and mental health.

And finally, here is a way that the internet has made the world seem REALLY small and has connected me with someone whose work is so similar, and yet so very different...

4) A few months back I received an email from a Pastor named Martin Nzabanita. Martin is the leader of a ministry named Beyond the Bridge that serves countries in central Africa. His congregation has both religious and social foci: in addition to an active Christian ministry he works with street children, orphans, the homeless and impoverished, prostitutes, victims of rape, and individuals with substance abuse in Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya, and the DRC, and trains other pastors to do the same. He found me because I also run an organization called Beyond the Bridge (www.beyond-the-bridge.org), whose focus is to raise funds to support organizations that work with LGBTQ youth to reduce suicide risk, prevent bullying, and increase acceptance in schools, families, and faith communities. A friend in the US was helping Martin set up a web page for his ministry, and they were both surprised to find another group with the same name. Martin emailed and asked me about my "ministry," and when I explained to him that in fact we were not a ministry but a community organization with a focus on LGBTQ youth, frankly I expected rejection. Instead, he was warm and accepting, and what has transpired since has been a remarkable, fascinating dialogue that has built bridges in ways that I did not think possible: across vast differences in philosophy and approach and religious belief, across huge cultural differences, and of course across the many miles and continents between Seattle and central Africa. As Martin describes it, he works with people who have been the victims of hatred, exclusion, tribalism, ignorance, and the mismanagement of African institutions. He describes himself as not being "in the prison of religious barriers," and in fact I have found his responses to my inquiries about the challenges faced by gay and lesbian people in central Africa to be unconstrained by the usual homophobic, rejecting rhetoric that so many of us have experienced or been harmed by when trying to interact with fundamentalist Christians. I believe this dialogue has been healing and growth producing for both of us: I am learning that my kneejerk reaction to evangelical Christians is sometimes unfounded. In turn, I am sharing with Martin about the concerns and needs of LGBTQ individuals, the human rights violations that take place in many countries in Africa and around the globe, and the need to address these social inequities not just with prayer, but also with public education and policy change.

Community is one antidote to feeling isolated and lost, and one of my primary goals in forming TJP was to build local community; now I am also grateful to the internet and a good dose of kismet that is bringing me together with others in the global community who are doing similar work.

Anamnesis

2011-06-12T16:38:00.000-07:00

- by Stacey Prince

I learned this beautiful word today while reading the book Cutting for Stone (which, by the way, is a great read so far). In addition to having a lovely sound, like a sea creature or a generative biological process of some kind, anamnesis (from the Greek word for “remembrance”) has the following three interesting and varied definitions:

• The remembering of things from a supposed previous existence,
• A patient’s account of a medical history, and
• The part of the Eucharist in which the Passion, Resurrection, and Ascension of Christ are recalled.

Wow! A recollection, a patient’s self-reported medical history, and a Catholic sacrament all in one! What fascinating word. What it got me thinking about, though, was particularly the middle definition, “a patient’s account of a medical history”. Think about how important that is to all of us who are healers and providers of health care. Whether you are a massage therapist, an internal medicine specialist, or a psychotherapist, careful collecting of the patient’s medical history is critical both to accurate diagnosis and effective treatment planning. In Cutting for Stone the physician narrating the story recalls the words of her professor: “Milk the history! Exactly when and exactly how did it start? Onset is everything! In the anamnesis is the diagnosis!”

So, in the anamnesis is the diagnosis. Yet now think about how incredibly culture-bound this taking of the patient’s history is. Whether you are patient or caregiver, what you look for in tracing the origins and history of your pain, your symptoms, your distress is bound by what you have been taught to look for, what likely etiologies and processes and mechanisms your cultural context has provided you with. In your search for an explanation, you include some pieces of information and exclude others based on these cultural boundaries. A great example of this is the book The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, in which a young Hmong woman born in the US shortly after her family’s immigration is thought to have epilepsy and to need medication or surgery by her Western physicians, while members of her family believe she is possessed by spirits and needs shamanistic intervention and sacrifices. Told with compassion and balance, the author depicts the struggle to define her illness which leads to disastrous consequences as she is denied the benefit of both perspectives.

Now, think about how social justice and inequities come into play. Who defines the cultural boundaries, who gets to determine what is normal, what is pathological, what causes distress? Primarily those who hold privilege and are members of dominant groups. Those who hold this fearsome power differ by culture, of course, but in Western culture they are primarily highly educated with advanced degrees, often male, often White, and almost always owning class. While members of an individual’s community may have their own set of explanations for illness or distress, if they are not in power their explanations of their own or their family member’s illness may not prevail and will have little bearing on diagnosis and treatment of the individual in question.

So, here is a place where social justice and healing come together in ways that have profound and lasting impacts for individuals. Look at how the course of a person’s life can be altered by the ways that their medical histories are defined by those in power. A recent series on CNN explored reparative or conversion therapy, efforts (usually through aversive behavioral means) to change an individual’s sexual orientation from gay or lesbian to heterosexual. In “The Sissy Boy Experiment,” Anderson Cooper explores the history of such efforts to change sexual orientation. He focuses on the tragic story of one individual treated with conversion therapy as a youth by George Rekers, one of the leading proponents of conversion therapy. Initially deemed a “success” by Rekers, this young man by all reports led a terribly unhappy life and then committed suicide at age 38. His family members firmly believe that conversion therapy, which included both verbal and physical punishment for feminine behavior, was to blame.

Imagine such a patient’s anamnesis. He might tell you that he is unhappy and depressed because he is gay. This is what he has been told – by his church, the media, his family, and his doctor. In this cultural context he likely would be unable to recognize that there is a confounding variable, homophobia (and its internalized version), that might better explain both his own low self-esteem, feelings of unworthiness and depressive symptoms and other peoples’ opinions about him. Seeking treatment, he might then feel hopeless and suicidal because the treatment failed to change him. Ultimately, this internalizing, self-blaming anamnesis leads him to see no alternative but to take his life. How many young men and women have similar stories?

How could this narrative be different? Certainly the patient’s own anamnesis would need to be different. I see this process often in therapy, as my clients who struggle with substance abuse, social anxiety, and feelings of worthlessness begin to relate their symptoms to rejection by family or church, harassment, and constantly feeling the need to hide their identity and their relationships. A light bulb goes off, and suddenly there is a chance for hope, where before there was despair.

But even more than that, the cultural definition of homosexuality as an illness, a problem, and a deviation from the norm would need to change. Because even if a client’s anamnesis is transformed – even if he is able to say to his treatment providers, hey, I’m absolutely fine with being gay, it’s other people’s homophobia that’s causing my distress, that won’t be enough if his providers have a different story. Unfortunately, some practitioners continue to use conversion therapy despite the preponderance of evidence indicating that such treatment has little lasting effect on sexual orientation and can cause depression, anxiety, and suicidality, and despite the fact that numerous professional organizations including the American Psychological Association have deemed it unethical and harmful. Even among those practitioners who do not practice this abusive and overtly heterosexist form of therapy, biases and microaggressions based on sexual orientation still take place all too often (see for example my recent blog article reviewing research on this topic). Problem is, these same institutions of power that are now deeming conversion therapy and sexual orientation microaggressions unethical only stopped defining homosexuality as a mental illness a short 38 years ago.

Now a new but painfully familiar battle is being fought over the definition of acceptable gender identities. In our strict Western binary in which only “male” and “female” are acceptable categories, individuals who define themselves as both, or neither, or whose internal gender experience does not match their biological sex and who decide to transition, are still deemed by many to be deviant. They often cannot even receive treatment without receiving a diagnosis of “Gender Identity Disorder” (previous TJP blog article Transcending Diagnoses provides more information about the struggle to change this diagnosis and its criteria in the next version of the DSM; see also this recent article from The Bilerico Project in which the proposed DSM-V diagnosis “Gender Dysphoria” is discussed.) Yet how culture bound this is! This map shows the many places around the globe where gender is not constricted by the binary, where genders other than male and female are honored and not pathologized. This interactive map is fascinating and full of information; I hope you’ll take a look. Yet these individuals and cultures are generally not at the table when the folks in charge determine Western definitions of “normal,” so transgender individuals in our country are still harassed, discriminated against, and denied crucial medical and social services. The third segment of “The Sissy Boy Experiment” draws a clear parallel between conversion therapy and efforts to change gender identity in children who exhibit cross-gender behaviors.

While I have been focusing on sexual orientation and gender identity, an individual’s anamnesis is similarly impacted, interpreted and distorted when we look at ethnicity. What is defined as normal is largely defined by White, middle class, Western, Eurocentric men. So, for example, being emotionally expressive, relationally focused, and angry are all deemed unhealthy, while being logical, autonomous, calm and detached are seen as normative. It infuriated me when on a recent episode of “So You Think You Can Dance” a Black krumper who was clearly at the top of his game but expressed a lot of anger (both in his words and in his dance) was sent home, while another Black break dancer who in my humble opinion was no more talented or proficient in his style was sent through to the next round of competition. The latter young man was smiling, humble, a little obsequious, and deemed “adorable” by the judges, while the former was reprimanded for his arrogance and “frustration”. Not only was this a great example of the ways that personal discrimination can lead to systematic access to or denial of resources, since being on this show and advancing to later stages of the competition can lead to jobs and opportunities, but it also seemed to indicate a lack of understanding (or denial?) by the judges regarding the style of dance, krumping, demonstrated with great proficiency by the first dancer. Krumping IS about anger – at injustice, at racism, at systemic oppression. It’s a street dance giving the dancer a way to express anger, rage and frustration in a non-violent way. So to critique a krumper for being angry is, well, sort of missing the point. Also notable on this particular evening was the fact that the judging panel that night was all white; I wished there was one person of color, or one white ally, to argue with the head judge (a white, British, middle aged male executive producer) in favor of keeping the krumper for another round.

So in the end, I guess I agree with the quote from Cutting for Stone, but only with a big IF. “In the anamnesis is the diagnosis” - but only IF both the teller and listener are not bound by culturally prescribed definitions of health. Otherwise, the definitions of the dominant paradigm will prevail.

The Ben Cohen tour: Mixed messages from a straight ally

2011-06-02T10:21:00.001-07:00

- by Stacey Prince

International Rugby star Ben Cohen recently announced his retirement, and is now becoming well-known for an entirely different reason: he has dedicated himself to eradicating homophobia and bullying in sports, and has started a foundation (The Ben Cohen StandUp Foundation) dedicated to this cause. As the first straight athlete to do so, he is garnering lots of press and admiration; see for example this recent article in the New York Times in which he is profiled along with US wrestler Hudson Taylor who has devoted himself to the same issue. On Friday, May 27 Ben came to UW as part of his Foundation’s inaugural tour, and appeared at a Town Hall meeting at the University of Washington. On the panel with him were UW Center for Leadership in Athletics Professor Jennifer Hoffman, Associate Athletic Director Shannon Kelly, and David Kopay, who came out in the 1970’s shortly after retiring from the NFL, becoming the first professional male athlete in the Big 3 (football, baseball and basketball) to do so. The event was moderated by the amazing Jennifer Self, coordinator of UW's Q Center (a center for support, resources, advocacy and mentoring for LGBTQ students), who added a feminist, queer and anti-oppressive analysis as well as good humor to the event.

I was excited to attend, as I have a strong focus in my own work on reducing homophobia in general, and bullying in particular. But as the conversation unfolded, I found myself becoming uncomfortable with some of the messages that were being conveyed, and also maybe more importantly, with what wasn’t being said. I thought it might be helpful to try and unpack some of my reactions here.

First, I of course thought that it was fantastic that this conversation about homophobia in sports (and in general) was happening, and that it was happening in this particular setting, a large, mainstream state university with prominent sports teams and programs. Many on the panel (particularly former NFL star David Kopay, for whom the progress is likely especially salient since he came out some 30 years ago) commented on how much progress has been made toward acceptance of LGBTQ individuals. The sensation I had was one that I often have at such events: marveling at how far we’ve come, but also how far we haven’t. For example, the fact that people locally and globally are so excited about Ben Cohen’s foundation is because he is unique: the first straight male athlete to take a stand to end homophobia in sports. The fact that it’s 2011 and he is the first shows how far we haven’t come, and makes me sad.

Further, he is often admired for taking a stand on this particular issue, which is not a "straight person’s issue," and asked why he does so. Why would a successful, popular straight athlete decide to work on homophobia? This makes him a hero. This, too, makes me sad – because homophobia is a straight person’s issue in the same way that racism is a white person’s issue – it’s just that we see the marginalized group members (gay men and lesbians, people of color) fighting for their own issues so much more often. The fact that he is such a dedicated heterosexual ally is something to be celebrated, certainly; the fact that it is so unusual that he is revered as a hero is sad.

The next area I was concerned about was his message to kids. I know he wants to be a role model for students in high school and college, but he is in a very different boat than most. As a highly successful, widely respected world class athlete, he has little to lose by taking this stand. As he says in the NYT article, “I can say something and it can be so little to me, but it can be so powerful for tens of thousands of people." But what about high school kids? At a time when peer pressure is at its height, and gender conforming behaviors are valued, a straight kid who allies himself with a gay peer runs the risk of being bullied himself. Part of what makes me cry nearly every week when watching the TV show Glee is how touching it is to see those straight kids stand up for their gay friend Kurt – yet this is a fantasy world which does not approach reality for many, many gay high school students. I think it’s fantastic that some kids will see Ben Cohen’s website or hear him talk and will be inspired to take a stand against homophobia, but we need so much more than this – for example, comprehensive anti-bullying programs in schools, real sanctions for when bullying does occur, and parents supporting their kids’ acceptance of gay peers – before kids are going to stop torturing other kids and driving them to depression, isolation and suicide.

Another part of Ben’s message I felt uncomfortable with was a refrain that he repeated often in different forms that went something like this: “when so-and-so came out it was so not a big deal, because he is such a stellar athlete”. This sounded to me a lot like what some of my therapy clients who are men and women of color call the “black tax” – the idea that, in order to be accepted, they have to work extra hard, perform extra well, and be super successful. Ben’s message that stellar athletes will be accepted rang of the “gay tax,” and also suggested that what was happening in these cases was more of an overlooking of the person’s sexual orientation, due to their athletic prowess, rather than true acceptance. A comment from an audience member that the gay rights movement just needed some top athletes to “come out and act normal” didn’t help matters. The conclusion seemed to be if you come out but you're really good at what you do, and you act straight and don't make any waves, it will all be fine. Is this what we want our LGBTQ high school and college students, and their heterosexual classmates, to hear?

An area that was touched on but not plumbed as much as I would have liked had to do with the intersections of homophobia, sexism, and racism in sports. For example, several folks commented casually on the fact that homophobia seems less of a problem on women’s teams than men’s. Yet a deeper analysis of this discrepancy was only hinted at by Jennifer Hoffman, the Center for Leadership in Ahtletics assistant professor. No-one mentioned the underlying sexism inherent in this phenomenon – the fact that gender transgressions are much more of a problem for men than for women, whether we look at kids or adults, athletes or non-athletes - because men acting feminine is far more threatening to the status quo and therefore must be corrected and brought back in line (usually by other men) than women acting masculine.

Despite the fact that being gay is a much bigger deal in men’s sports than women’s, homophobia is still a factor in women’s sports, too, often running hand in hand with sexism. For example, the panelists did comment on the unfortunate fact that female athletes are often made to pretty themselves up for promotional photos and non-athletic professional appearances. Similarly, the panelists chuckled over the fact that one recent women’s softball team was admired and commented on for being great athletes and good looking to boot (as if that was an exception). The assumptions about gender identity, gender expression, sexism, homophobia and transphobia inherent in these issues was a topic that would have been interesting to explore, but was maybe a bit beyond the scope and intention of this event.

Perhaps some of my problem and my criticalness came from being a member of the disenfranchised group being discussed. After all, I wasn’t really Cohen’s target demographic: his comments seemed largely directed at other heterosexuals. Yet as is often the case at these events, the room appeared to be more than half filled with gay folks (I am basing this primarily on observing same-sex couples who were clearly together, people identifying themselves when asking questions, etc.) including myself. I was reminded of a training I did recently focusing on white privilege, after which several people of color who had attended came up to me to tell me that they had heard most of what I’d presented before, and that workshops such as the one I had just led left them with little by way of tools or strategies to cope with privilege and oppression themselves. This was humbling feedback for me to receive, and on Friday as I sat listening to Ben Cohen I understood it at a more visceral level.

I hope you will excuse me if I sound critical – as I said, I am thrilled that there are Ben Cohens out there, that UW decided to host this event and Microsoft to fund it. Even if it is somewhat limited, what he is saying is so important. If his work gives one athlete, one kid, or one parent the strength to stand up to homophobia, that would be great. I just hope that some day we won’t have to get so excited about a heterosexual ally (or any dominant group member) working towards equality.

The dangers of pseudoscience

2011-05-25T20:31:00.000-07:00

- by Stacey Prince

Last week Psychology Today published an article claiming that Black women are less attractive than women of other ethnic groups. The author, Satoshi Kanazawa, has a history of disseminating racist and sexist conclusions based on weak pseudoscience. After a widespread public outcry, Psychology Today removed the article from their website. However, the damage had already been done, and many readers may not have been aware of the on-line retraction. By publishing Kanazawa’s article in the first place the magazine gave validation to a racially biased finding and its underlying message that Black women are less valued than women of other ethnicities. It’s shameful that Psychology Today gave a platform to this author, who has a history of promoting other equally biased and discriminatory beliefs (click here for a summary). It’s also shameful that this widely read magazine, which puts psychological findings in an accessible, non-academic format and is read by millions, chose to reference conclusions that are so scientifically flawed. In addition to the fact that “Black” is not a definitive category in the first place and that he did not consider the confounding effect of social bias, Kanazawa's conclusions were drawn from another, separate study on adolescent health and behavior that did not even purport to measure the construct he was trying to draw conclusions about. You can read a thorough critique of his findings here.

The problem is, many people reading Psychology Today will not necessarily have the critical analytic skills to understand that Kanazawa’s conclusions are unfounded, and will take them at face value. Those of us who went to graduate school or took undergrad scientific methodology classes have some valuable skills for evaluating research findings, whether they appear in trade or academic venues. For example, we know that correlation does not imply causation, that selecting an appropriate, representative sample is key, and that tiny statistical findings, even when they have significant ‘p values,’ do not necessarily translate to concrete real-world differences. Even if you haven’t had formal training in evaluating research findings, there are some basic things to look for that are “red flags” warning of pseudoscience. This recent article highlights a few such red flags, including being wary of studies that purport to generalize findings from a small and/or non-representative group of participants to everyone, those that try to quantify something that is highly subjective, personal and culture-bound (such as physical attractiveness), and those that don’t reference any conflicting data or possible limitations to their findings.

Unfortunately there is a long history in Psychology (as well as other sciences) of pseudoscience being used to support inaccurate and harmful racist, sexist and homophobic conclusions. For example, the claim that Black people are less intelligent than individuals of other ethnicities based on IQ testing has been roundly debunked, due to the extremely contextual nature of the skills that are actually assessed by such tests, skills that are largely impacted by social and cultural factors including affluence, access to quality education, and nutrition. Despite this, supposed differences in IQ based on race (which itself is a socially constructed concept) have been used to justify slavery and eugenics. Such pseudoscientific findings also uphold the myth of meritocracy - the belief that life presents a level playing field to individuals of all social groups and that everyone can get ahead if they just work hard enough, thereby blaming the individual when success is not forthcoming and ignoring systemic inequities. You can find a very useful summary of scientific racism here. Similarly, conversion therapy (efforts to change an individual's sexual orientation from gay or lesbian to heterosexual) is promoted, often with conservative religious motivations, based on faulty and flawed studies, despite the fact that it has been shown to have significant negative mental health effects for many clients (click here for an excellent review).

Of course, it is also true that empirical evidence can be incredibly useful in advancing social justice – take, for example, the use of data on children of gay and lesbian parents in testimony and amicus briefs to support legislation legalizing adoption by same-sex couples. On the other hand, it can be harmful. The dissemination of findings like Kanazawa's, for example, has the potential to encourage poor self-esteem, eating disorders, and internalized oppression in Black girls and women, let alone biased treatment by others. It was irresponsible of Kanazawa to write the article in the first place, but it was even more irresponsible of Psychology Today to publish it. So, the take home message for readers and consumers of research is this: don’t believe everything you read, and try to develop and utilize critical thinking skills when digesting research findings, whether in mainstream media or professional journals. If you are a therapist and your client brings up research such as this, you can be of great assistance by helping them to analyze the validity of the findings. If you are a mentor or research supervisor, you can help your students understand the social context in which knowledge is accumulated, uncover researchers' underlying assumptions, and when necessary be able to challenge conclusions that are held up as "knowledge" by the powers that be in their community.

Saturday, May 28, 2011

Here's an interesting update: In a landmark case in the UK, a psychologist has been found guilty of malpractice and her license suspended for "treating" a gay man for homosexuality. While this was only an internal sanction of a licensing body rather than a legal ruling, it is still a huge step. In this case the real science regarding conversion therapy - including the fact that it is harmful to more than half the clients treated, causing depression and suicidality, and lack of sound scientific evidence that sexual orientation can be changed - overcame the pseudoscience offered by proponents of conversion therapy, often to veil their underlying religious and values-based motivations.

Here's another update: Psychology today has published an apology on their website, and say they are taking measures to ensure that something like this does not occur again. I would love for them to publish or discuss those measures as I think it would be helpful to all of their readers to understand how to watch out for inappropriate and offensive misuse of science in the media.

Reel Grrls, Real Justice

2011-05-20T13:09:00.001-07:00

- by Stacey Prince

OK, so perhaps by now you've heard the story: small non-profit Reel Grrls in Seattle provides media production workshops to young women from diverse communities. Not only do the young women learn skills in areas such as cinematography, animation, and script writing, but they also gain invaluable support and friendship from female mentors at a time of life that can be vulnerable and difficult to say the least. Plus, they make amazing films!!! Here are two examples that are particularly relevant to TJP readership. "Disorder" enters the the imaginative inner world of a young student struggling with a learning disability, and the mockumentary "Coming Out..." takes a humorous look at homophobia.

Reel Grrls is supported by grants and recently media giant Comcast pledged $18,000 to support their summer 2011 programming. A couple of days ago Reel Grrls tweeted about Comcast's recent hiring of FCC Commisssioner Meredith Attwell Baker. Immediately a Comcast executive shot off an email stating that they were going to yank the funding because Reel Grrls was creating a "negative digital footprint" about Comcast (here's the Washington Post story). After a whole bunch of media attention, Comcast retracted its retraction of funding and apologized, but the latest news this afternoon is that Reel Grrls has decided not to accept the money - a very classy and principled decision, in my opinion. Here is a quote from the organization's Executive Director, Malory Graham: Given the serious questions Comcast’s initial decision to take punitive measures on our organization raised about the ability of corporations to stifle public discussion, we have decided to redesign our summer camp to focus on developing films about free press issues.

Wow. Seriously, Comcast? Isn't Reel Grrls doing and modeling exactly what we want young women (and young men, and adults for that matter) to do? Think for themselves, think critically, be able to evaluate the news and cultural context around them and be empowered to do something about injustice (including criticizing it)? If you want to show your support, stand up against censorship and help Reel Grrls keep their programming going, please visit their website.

Thursday, May 26, 2011

Here's an update: Reel Grrls raised $22,000 from over 600 individuals' donations, as well as national recognition for their principled decision to, at least for now, politely decline Comcast's funding. They will be able to move forward with their summer programming, with a focus on free speech issues. Unbelievable - what a great example of community response to show support and help this small non-profit stand up to censorship!

Psychology: Exile or Liberation?

2011-05-15T10:47:00.000-07:00

May is "Mental Health Month" and the American Psychological Association's Public Education Campaign is organizing a "Mental Health Month Blog Party" to educate the public about mental health issues. The badge at the top of this article indicates that I’m participating. Although much of what we have posted here has been about, or at least related to, mental health, I hesitated to participate in this APA event because of what this connection to APA might signify to our readers. One of the tensions we have held within TJP leadership is whether Psychology as it is practiced in traditional, academic institutions (such as graduate programs and APA) is an appropriate or effective place to locate work toward liberation, or instead whether it maintains the oppressive structures and hierarchies that we are trying to resist and revise. I ended up deciding to participate strategically and with intentionality, with the goal of exploring the complexity and multiplicity of "psychologies," rather than taking an either/or perspective. Often I have been in situations where there is an adversarial discussion between those coming from a place of community activism and organizing, versus those coming from more mainstream or institutional settings. The assumptions about one another can lead to not finding common ground, when maybe in fact it's actually there. So, I am going to continue holding the dialectic here that TJP has struggled with all along, reviewing some of the major criticisms and limitations of traditional psychology, but also highlighting some of the liberatory work that's being done by individuals and organizations in psychology. This can only be a brief review, but I hope it will stimulate some thought and discussion.

Many critiques have been leveled regarding the ways that mainstream psychology maintains oppressive structures. To highlight just a few:

- Mainstream psychology upholds the values of the dominant (white, male, heterosexual, middle class, Christian) culture. One example of this is that psychology upholds autonomy and individuation as more mature levels of emotional functioning than interdependence, despite the fact that many women, some non-white ethnic groups and non-Christian religions, and many non-Western cultures place a high value on interdependence, community, and relatedness. As long as individuals with relational values and worldviews are compared to those white, male, Eurocentric “norms” of behavior and emotional functioning, they will be viewed as less mature and less evolved.

- Behaviors that are resistant or rebellious toward dominant group members are often labeled as deviant. Examples include children getting angry with adults, People of Color who point out discrimination being diagnosed as paranoid, and women who express too much anger being labeled as unfeminine. This focus on the individual ignores the power dynamics at play in each situation and pathologizes what might be viewed as normative behavior if the lens were widened to view the behavior in context (for the above examples, context might be an abusive parent, racially based discrimination, and sexism in the workplace). This also applies to more global identities or sets of behaviors, such as being gay, lesbian or transgender, all of which have at one time or another been institutionally codified as pathological in the highly utilized and internationally referenced Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM).

- Prevailing treatment approaches, including cognitive-behavioral, psychodynamic, and humanistic, have all been intrapsychically (or, at most, relationally) focused, and have tended to myopically ignore community, cultural, and systemic factors, including power and oppression, that might be playing a large role in the individual’s functioning.

- For many members of marginalized groups (including LGBT individuals, POC's, and immigrants) acculturation is emphasized over maintenance of one's culture - despite empirical evidence strongly suggesting that people who both maintain aspects of their origin culture and acquire some aspects of the dominant culture have the best mental health outcomes. In fact, in many cases forcing individuals to detach from their culture is legal and institutionalized (e.g., Spanish speaking children being forced to speak English in school, most businesses and schools only honoring Christian calendar holidays, etc.) although the latter actions may not be perpetretated directly by psychology or psychologists.

- The science of psychology has largely been conducted by members of dominant groups, who hold a great deal of privilege including whiteness, higher education, and financial security. Further, research has often been conducted on skewed samples who are themselves often members of those same dominant groups - yet conclusions from those studies are sometimes generalized to members of marginalized groups.

- Not only is obtaining graduate education in psychology costly, but obtaining psychological services, especially in a private practice setting, is highly costly as well, often prohibitively so - especially for those who are unemployed and/or uninsured. Further, the assessment and intervention strategies offered by psychologists have not always been evaluated for efficacy with marginalized group members .

- For all of the above reasons and more, mainstream psychology (and psychiatry) has been indicted by many as upholding the status quo and maintaining, rather than dismantling, systemic oppression.

On the other hand...

- Multicultural psychology has strived not for universal, absolute norms of behavior, but instead for culturally relevant ones. More recent iterations have also added a critical understanding of power and oppression to the analysis of the role of culture.

- Many in counseling psychology are exploring effective ways to infuse social justice and anti-oppression work into graduate level training, including curricula, clinical supervision, research, and practicum experiences.

- A growing body of research on racial oppression (and more recently on homophobia/heterosexism) has documented the deleterious effects of bias and discrimination (both personal and systemic) on individual well-being, social functioning, health, and mental health.

- APA recently added advocacy skills as the 13th basic competency required for entry into the practice of psychology, thereby lending validation to this important set of skills which are defined as “actions targeting the impact of social, political, economic or cultural factors to promote change at the individual, institutional, and/or systems level” and include promoting client empowerment, as well as professional involvement in promoting change at the level of institutions, community or society.

- Several organizations associated with APA, including Psychologists for Social Responsibility (PsyR) and Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI) have tasked themselves with addressing some of the largest and most difficult social issues of our time, including poverty, racial discrimination, genocide, torture, human and civil rights violations, and global conflict resolution.

- Researchers are increasingly relying on qualitative, community based, and participatory action research methods to increase understanding of culture and oppression and to put the purpose and uses of research more in the hands of its participants

- Liberation psychology, originating in Latin America with the work of Martin-Baro and others, has begun to have a foothold in North America. For example, a clinical psychology graduate program (Pacifica University) has a strong liberation psychology foundation, and two of its faculty (Watkins and Shulman) have recently authored an excellent book on the topic. Promoting analysis of the social inequities confronting individuals and empowering them to address those inequities, liberation psychology simultaneously provides an alternative viewpoint to mainstream psychology while still drawing on it.

So what do we do? How do we reconcile this dialectic of strong critiques leveled against mainstream psychology as oppressive, alongside the reformative and transformative work that is being done by many in the field? I would like to end with this quote by Albert Camus: “We all carry within us our places of exile, our crimes, and our ravages. But our task is not to unleash them on the world; it is to fight them in ourselves and in others.” Many people have been exiled by psychology, it’s true – but many others are working to reduce oppression, address the huge social challenges of our time, and work toward liberation. If I have challenged readers to think about the viewpoint that is less comfortable or familiar to them , then I will feel this posting has been successful. I welcome your comments!

TJP Version 2.0

2011-05-13T10:19:00.000-07:00

- by Stacey Prince

Leadership council has recently undergone a major transition, and I wanted to share with you about that transition, what we have learned in the past year, and where TJP is going from here. Please click here to read about the changes and plans for the future. I welcome your feedback, questions, and comments!

They may be micro but their impact isn’t: Sexual orientation microaggressions in psychotherapy

2011-05-08T13:20:00.001-07:00

- by Stacey Prince

I recently read an excellent article in the Journal of Counseling Psychology, entitled Sexual orientation microaggressions: The experience of lesbian, gay, bisexual and queer clients in psychotherapy. I will briefly describe it here but I hope this will entice some of you to read the article in its entirety; it’s a great read for psychotherapists, healthcare providers, case managers and anyone working with LGBQ clients.

The article begins with the assertion that, while general affirmation and acceptance of LGBQ individuals has increased, psychotherapy clients still all too frequently report experiences of discrimination and hostility in the therapy setting. Overt forms of discrimination such as the practice of conversion or reparative therapy have declined, but more subtle forms of heterosexism seem to persist. This parallels findings in the area of racial oppression, which have shown that while overt racism has decreased, more subtle and insidious forms of modern racism are still prevalent. Led by psychologist Derald Sue and colleagues, this substantial body of research documented the prevalence of racial “microaggressions,” the term used to describe these more subtle injustices of modern racism.

Microaggressions are described as communications of prejudice and discrimination, expressed through seemingly meaningless or even well-intentioned tactics but that actually deliver a hidden message of hostility, denigration, or invalidation. Examples include a white person stating to a person of color “you are so well-spoken” (indicating that their intelligence and articulateness is surprising or an exception), asking an Asian American individual “where are you from?” (assuming foreignness), or stating that he or she is “color blind” (denying the realities of personal and systemic oppression). Microaggressions differ from overt racism in multiple ways, including the fact that they are contextual, more difficult to identify, and that while there may be legal recourse for someone who experiences overt racially based discrimination, it is much more difficult if not impossible to document and take action against microaggressions.

The article I am describing today attempted to expand the microaggression literature to microaggressions that are based on sexual orientation rather than ethnicity. Further, it explored the negative impact of sexual orientation based microaggressions on the psychotherapy process. Psychotherapists are not immune to heterosexism and homophobia, having been indoctrinated in the same societal stigmatization of LGBQ individuals as everyone else, and therefore may unintentionally perpetuate negative bias toward their LGBQ clients. Although previous research has explored homophobia and heterosexism in psychotherapy, this study was, I believe, the first to try to identify and describe microaggressions based on sexual orientation. It utilized focus groups to explore the experiences of 16 self-identified LGBQ individuals in psychotherapy. Using a series of questions informed by the literature on racial microaggressions and previous work on heterosexism in psychotherapy, investigators identified themes, channels, and impact of sexual orientation microaggressions as they had occurred in participants' therapy experiences.

Several themes representing different types of sexual orientation microaggression emerged from the analysis of participant responses. These included assuming that sexual orientation was the cause of all of the client's presenting issues, even when the client was seeking help for unrelated problems; avoiding discussion of sexual orientation (such as avoiding use of gendered pronouns when referring to partners), avoiding discussion of the negative impact of rejection and internalized heterosexism, overidentifying with LGBQ clients, making stereotypical assumptions about LGBQ clients, expressing heteronormative bias, assuming that LGBQ clients need continued treatment even when clients felt ready to terminate; and suggesting that LGBQ clients should expect conflict and discrimination due to their sexual orientation.

The study also investigated channels of communication on which sexual orientation microaggressions were expressed in the therapy setting. Paralleling the research on racial microaggressions, results indicated that sexual orientation microaggressions occurred on multiple channels, including verbal (direct and indirect comments), behavioral (e.g., body language, silence, demeanor), and environmental (e.g., waiting room literature only relevant to heterosexual individuals and couples).

What was the impact of these sexual orientation microaggressions on the therapeutic process? Findings again paralleled research on racial microaggressions in psychotherapy, revealing that clients had a range of affective responses such as feeling uncomfortable, confused, rejected, invalidated, and angry. They were less likely to disclose issues related to sexual orientation out of a fear of being viewed as abnormal. They reported feeling more doubtful about their therapists' competence and the effectiveness of therapy, and were more likely to terminate therapy prematurely.

The authors ended with some recommendations for addressing sexual orientation microaggressions. These included responding in a nondefensive and transparent way if a client raises concerns, processing the impact of microaggressions on the client rather than focusing on therapist intentions (which may have been positive or neutral), and admitting heterosexism to oneself (thereby increasing self-compassion and openness to feedback) rather than maintaining that one is bias-free. They also described limitations of the study, including the somewhat skewed sample (predominantly white, highly educated) as well as all of the fallacies that are associated with retrospective self-report. Another important limitation not mentioned was that neither transgender individuals were not included in the sample; this is an important area for future investigation and my guess is that transgender clients in psychotherapy may experience many microaggressions similar to those described here, as well as perhaps some additional themes surrounding gender expression and transitioning.

In conclusion, even well intentioned psychologists who aspire to provide culturally competent services to marginalized populations are indoctrinated in racist, heterosexist, classist, and otherwise oppressive belief systems. Further, such views may be outside of one's immediate awareness, inhibiting the ability to recognize and redress microaggressions. The power imbalance inherent in the therapist-client relationship, internalized oppression, clients granting and therapists claiming "expert" status, and a host of other variables curtail clients' ability to recognize and call out such experiences when they do occur. The onus is therefore on practitioners to learn about, self-identify, and rectify incidents of microaggression as they occur in treatment. If therapy is going to be liberatory it at the very least has to be non-oppressive, and understanding and owning one's own microaggressions is an important step in practicing ethical, competent, empowering psychotherapy with members of marginalized groups.

Connecting the personal with the cultural using autoethnography

2011-04-10T13:26:00.001-07:00

- By Stacey Prince

In TJP we have begun to outline a potential model of psychotherapy that would effectively facilitate our clients’ exploration of issues of culture, race, oppression related trauma (both personal and historic), therapeutic relationship across differences, etc. Some elements of this potential model have been touched on in previous articles, including: facilitating clients’ examination of privilege and oppression, exploring multiple identities and intersections, exploring therapist-client differences and similarities in social group memberships, helping clients to challenge oppressive societal norms, developing skills for both dominant and marginalized group members, exploring links between the client’s current feelings and relevant sociopolitical events, incorporating social and cultural conditions into both problem definition and solution generation, when appropriate encouraging client engagement in activism and advocacy, attending to and minimizing the therapist-client power differential, and fostering a collaborative, strength based relationship,. These ideas and strategies are nothing new, but rather a bringing together of a range of strategies suggested by others with a strong basis in multicultural, feminist, and liberation psychology traditions.

Today I would like to suggest another addition to this growing model, and that is the use of autoethnography in psychotherapy. Autoethnography is defined in Wikipedia as “a form of autobiographical personal narrative that explores the writer's experience of life. The term was originally defined as ‘insider ethnography.’ It differs fundamentally from ethnography--a qualitative research method in which a researcher uses participant observation and interviews in order to gain a deeper understanding of a group's culture—in that autoethnography focuses on the writer's subjective experience rather than the beliefs and practices of others.” Due to its highly personal and subjective nature, autoethnography is thought to be beneficial for looking at issues often overlooked in culture, such as racism, sexuality, child abuse, life experiences within particular subcultures, etc. Autoethnographic accounts are not meant to be factually accurate; in fact, their very subjectivity is their strength. Says one proponent, “When talking about their lives, people lie sometimes, forget a lot, exaggerate, become confused, and get things wrong. Yet they are revealing truths. These truths don’t reveal the past ‘as it actually was,’ aspiring to a standard of objectivity. They give us instead the truths of our experiences” (Devault, Personal Writings in Social Research).

Recently I came across an article on www.psychotherapynet.com entitled Transforming the wounds of racism: An autoethnographic exploration and implications for psychotherapy. In the article Saira Bains, a psychologist and psychotherapist in London, England, describes her use of autoethnography, which she defines as “the study of awareness of the self (auto) within culture (ethnic)… a way to connect the personal with the cultural.” She starts out using autoethnography for her dissertation, exploring oppression trauma in her own family in what ends up being a compelling personal and well as professional journey. She tells the story of her family’s ethnic roots in Pakistan and India, whose parents immigrated to England in the 1950’s. As a young child she was a keen observer of her parents and extended family, but notes that racism was “unheard and unspoken… bound in the wrappings of humiliation and silence.” While observing experiences that she felt were related to racism – for example, the insidious diminishment of her father who, though receiving a legal degree in India, never rose above his status as a dish washer, porter, or lift attendant in England—these events were never discussed, over time creating a distance and disconnection between the author and her father that they were not able to heal before his death. Bairns does not say directly that her interest in autoethnography stemmed from a personal desire to understand her family’s history of transgenerational oppression, but it is implied in her narrative.

"I wanted to understand: What is the essence of racist trauma and how does it impinge upon the relational and intersubjective experience of living? How does one negotiate and process this hatred, denigration and the power of such oppressions? I wanted to become a therapist who was not bound up in the rigidity of her boundaries, so that I could begin to stretch and push the boundaries of otherness and sameness. As a psychotherapist, I wondered how racism is explored or avoided in psychotherapeutic work. I saw that racism can often enter psychotherapy in a disguised form as it is difficult to express due to the fearful and defended nature of racism. This results in racist trauma being overlooked and minimised, which can be oppressive and silencing in itself."

Thus in graduate school, her personal interest in understanding her family’s history became professional (or vice versa), and she undertook an extensive autoethnographic study in an effort to “find the words for trauma that sits beyond language to describe what cannot be spoken.” Her research focused in particular on the life experiences of her uncle, who as a young man had moved yet again from England to Canada, and whose narrative she explored through traveling to see him, interviewing him, emails and phone calls. This process is compelling to read about not only because the researcher/author is so deeply impacted by the actual reunion with her uncle, who had been a source of warmth and connection for her as a child, but also because many of her assumptions about his experience were challenged in the process. For example, while he relates numerous stories to her regarding both insidious and covert, violent racism experienced while he was a young man in England, he denies her query that racism was the reason he left. Instead, he talks of “getting a fresh start” and “recreating himself” in Canada. His niece honors and respects this narrative and does not want to contribute further to the diminishment and loss of self he had experienced, yet feels disappointed that she is not able to connect with him more deeply around the intergenerational racial trauma she had witnessed and their family had experienced. In the end, though, she says,

“What was healing was making sense of theses previously unspoken trauma experiences that we were no longer compelled to exclude, a behaviour that was normalised within the family. These narratives brought validation and the possibility of new attachments.”

In the last section of the article Bains explores implications of this work for psychotherapy. She asks, “Can clinical practice and research be enhanced by deepening and amplifying silent narratives using autoethnography? Can we challenge traditional representations of the ‘raced subject’ and the stuckness we face in working with areas of heightened sensitivity such as racism?” She suggests two ways this could happen: using autoethnography to guide clients in exploring their own cultural background including oppression trauma, and as therapists exploring our own background so that we may engage in conversations about racist trauma with less avoidance and ambivalence. While not offering a lot of nuts and bolts suggestions for how to actually implement or integrate autoethnography into psychotherapy, the article instead hints in a compelling way at the potential for this approach to delve into deeply personal material and to increase the level of understanding between therapist and client, as well as within ourselves, about the impact of culture and oppression.

Middle East’s Paradigm Shift: Rape is No More Accepted Here

2011-04-02T07:34:00.001-07:00

By Yvette Nahmia-Messinas, co-founder of ECOWEEK and author of They All Sound Like Love Songs: Women Healing Israeli-Palestinian Relations

I had the pleasure of meeting Yvette Nahmia-Messinas at the Association for Women in Psychology convention in 2010, where she presented poems from her published collection “They all sound like love songs: Women healing Israeli-Palestinian relations”. I wrote about our meeting in an earlier blog post (“Midwives of Peace," 2/21/10), and after that we became “Facebook friends,” keeping up on each other’s work. With all of the recent events unfolding in the Middle East, I asked Yvette to share her thoughts with us about the potential for peace there - as a woman, a feminist, and a Jewish Israeli resident. Here is what she wrote.

Former President of Israel, Moshe Katsav was sentenced to 7 years by the Tel Aviv District Court yesterday for two counts of rape and other sexual offenses against women employees. Once at the top of Israeli society, enjoying public acclaim and attention Katsav is to enter prison in May. A similar downfall is awaiting many Middle East rulers who reign by might and the force of arms “raping” their societies of the freedom to choose their governing body. What Katsav did on an individual level, forcing his body on his victims, is perpetrated by fellow male monarchs, despots, kings and rulers of the region who force themselves and their rule over their people by might and arms.

Middle East is boiling. Egypt, Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia are facing inner turmoil, and upheaval. The old resists its collapse while the new balance of power is slowly emerging. The old paradigm of the “strongest wins” is dying out, while the new paradigm of “let us cooperate to bring forth a massive change” is on its way in. In Egypt, young men and women came together, united in their will for a dignified society where their voice and choice would matter. Their determination, perseverance, and unity in combination with their peaceful way of overturning their ruler resonated with other young, liberal Middle Easterners. The spirit of brotherhood, and social cohesion based on shared values witnessed at Tahrir square is emerging once again sweeping the region with a refreshing, liberating sensation: “change is possible,” “let us bring it about.”

Through the rape verdict allotted to its former President, Israel is saying “enough is enough” to the old system of abusing power. The same abhorrence, abomination and repugnance caused by the abuse of power are felt by women and men throughout the Middle East. The common aspiration of young Middle Easterners, from Jerusalem, Cairo, Amman, Damascus, Beirut, Baghdad, Kuwait, Tehran and Abu Dhabi is to create societies governed not by might but by merit; Societies where women will count and have a voice, where women will be heard and respected. Societies where women will be free to marry the person they choose, get an education, pursue a career, own property, and get divorced upon their will. Women are united in their will to belong only to themselves, to have the freedom to move, dress, work, divorce, study, marry and choose the life they want for themselves.

Women collectively say we are no-one’s property. And men and women assert we are no ruler’s, king’s, dictator’s property. We have basic human rights to freedom, to choice, to democracy. Young men and women in the Middle East are coming together united by shared values. One’s religion and ethnic affiliation are now secondary. Our shared values, honoring human rights and human dignity unite us.

Women and men of the Middle East condemn the rape of our bodies, the rape of our dignity and freedoms. We join hands in taking the violent perpetrators down and work towards co-creating the paradigm shift in the Middle East we love.

Thoughts on Culturally Relevant Coping following the Disaster in Japan

2011-03-27T08:10:00.001-07:00

- by Agnes Kwong

When the Tsunami struck Japan on March 11, 2001 and the devastation unfolded before the world’s eyes, my heart ached for the people of Japan. Almost immediately after the Tsunami, the nuclear crisis hit and reactions to the initial traumatic event were interrupted by a state of emergency and a long period of uncertainty and fear. The death toll in Japan is now over 10,100 and there are still over 17,000 people missing. Over 250,000 people have lost everything and are currently living in government-run shelters.

I have been thinking a lot about the mental health needs of the Japanese people and ways in which the western ways of addressing and working with trauma fall short for people in Japan, who are more collectivistic. In the U.S., verbal processing and addressing problems directly are valued. Certainly, as a psychologist trained in the U.S., I rely heavily on “talking” as a primary form of healing. However, people from collectivistic cultures, such as in Japan, tend to rely on different coping strategies. For example, sharing in the experience with family and others, seeking comfort from someone who had a shared experience (i.e., relational universality), seeking comfort from those who are a part of their same ethnic group, and sometimes, keeping problems to oneself to not burden others (i.e., forbearance) are all valued and important ways of moving through difficult experiences. Given these coping strategies, watching the news and connecting to the events of what is happening in Japan may be curative in a way that it may not be for more individualistic people in the U.S. Similarly, for some Japanese individuals, simply spending time with friends going through similar grief or trauma reactions can be as healing as talking directly about one’s feelings.

Attached is an article that describes some of the key differences between collectivistic and individualistic cultures and primary ways in which collectivistic individuals cope. This qualitative research study was conducted after 9/11, when different patterns of coping amongst different ethnic/cultural groups were emerging. As we think about the ways we see trauma and healing whether in our professional or personal lives, it is important to consider the cultural worldview from which we are operating, especially since we may begin to see more collectivistically oriented Japanese clients in our practice or have collectivistic friends or family who are coping with the aftermath of the traumatic events that occurred in Japan.

Steve Gilligan Teaches about the Hero’s Journey, Creative Consciousness and Connection in the Therapy Process

2011-03-21T08:06:00.000-07:00

By Liz Goodwin

NO ROOM FOR FORM
- Rumi

On the night when you cross the street
From your shop and your house
To the cemetery

You'll hear me hailing you from inside
The open grave, and you'll realize
How we've always been together.

I am the clear consciousness-core
Of your being, the same in
Ecstasy as in self-hating fatigue.

That night, when you escape your fear of snakebite
And all irritations with the ants, you'll hear
My familiar voice, see the candle being lit,
Smell the incense, the surprise meal fixed
By the lover inside all your other lovers.

This heart tumult is my signal
to you igniting in the tomb.
So don't fuss with the shroud
And the graveyard dust.
Those get ripped open and washed away
In the music of our final meeting.

And don't look for me in human shape,
I am inside your looking. No room
For form with love this strong.

Beat the drum and let the poets speak.
This is the day of purification for those who
Are already mature and initiated into what love is.

No need to wait until we die!
There's more to want here than money
And being famous and bites of roasted meat.

Now, what shall we call this new sort of gazing house
That has opened in our town where people sit
Quietly and pour out their glancing
Like light, like answering?

Last weekend I attended Stephen Gilligan’s annual local supervision in Leavenworth. A group of us, mostly therapists, nestled into cabins on the Wenatchee River to learn and study with Gilligan. The model he teaches is rooted in the work of Milton Erickson, Buddhist philosophy and practice, archetypal Jungian elements, some psychoanalytic parts and pieces, and, at its foundation, somatic and subconscious intelligence. Once called Self Relations, I believe his model is now termed “Generative Psychotherapy.” Gilligan’s latest book is The Hero’s Journey and the Generative Self.

To read entire post, click here.

Ally is a Verb - Part III

2011-03-13T18:58:00.000-07:00

- by Stacey Prince

In previous blog articles (Ally is a Verb - Parts I and II) I explored what it means to be a member of a dominant or agent group and to be an ally to members of marginalized groups. For example, as a white person, how can I stand up to racist comments made by friends and colleagues? As an able bodied person, what can I do when I see that policies, events, or learning opportunities are not accessible to persons with disabilities? In this third installment, I would like to explore further the idea of allyship, including some research bearing on the topic, thoughts about adolescent bullying, and thoughts about adult allyship.

Leticia Nieto in her book Beyond inclusion, beyond empowerment conceptualizes allyship as the most skillful level in the development of agent group members. Specifically, she defines allyship as “awareness + action”. The “+ action” part of that equation is so important – it’s not enough to be aware of unearned privilege, marginalization, personal and systemic oppression – if one sees and is aware of these processes, but does nothing to challenge them, one is not truly being an ally, and instead is colluding with the systems of power that maintaintheir privilege.

This article could also be called “the power of bystanders,” because research has shown that bystanders have a tremendous potential to change the course of violent, aggressive, and discriminatory behavior. For example, in this article the behavior of third party witnesses to aggressive incidents was studied. Results clearly indicated that the behavior of the third party bystanders had a tremendous impact on the outcome (particularly, whether the incident escalated to violence or not). Further, this effect increased with larger groups of bystanders, and was most effective when there was a coordinated, collective response from multiple witnesses rather than isolated individual responses.

The fact that third parties in this study served to inhibit, rather than facilitate, aggression speaks volumes about allyship. First, it suggests that being an ally really can make a difference—even when only a single bystander intervened, there was some inhibitory effect on further aggression. Second, allies benefit from having their own allies (even strangers) who join in the effort to reduce aggression—the inhibitory effect was greater with larger third party group size. These principles have been harnessed into a fascinating program some of you may have heard about called The Green Dot. From their website:

The Green Dot strategy is a comprehensive approach to violence prevention that capitalizes on the power of peer and cultural influence across all levels of the socio-ecological model. Informed by social change theory, the model targets all community members as potential bystanders, and seeks to engage them, through awareness, education, and skills-practice, in proactive behaviors that establish intolerance of violence as the norm, as well as reactive interventions in high-risk situations – resulting in the ultimate reduction of violence.

Through training which includes personal awareness, knowledge, relational and skills components, Green Dot participants learn ways to actively and effectively speak out against power based violence. Trainees then spread the word, training others in their organizations, on campuses, etc. with a goal that this will result in a pervasive social movement toward non-violence as normative behavior. Hence the Green Dot image: you know how often red dots spreading across a map are used to illustrate the spread of something bad (cases of HIV, rapes, other acts of violence). The premise is that the spread of so many red dots has resulted in a culture of bystander inaction. Now imagine a green dot representing every incident of someone standing up, speaking up, taking action to prevent or call out power based violence and promote safety. The idea is that if enough of these individual actions take place, the red dots will be eclipsed by green dots and eventually power based violence will not be normative. For more information on this compelling program click here. This website also has ideas for green dot actions one can do every day.

So, thinking about green dots and bystander behavior got me thinking about bullying. There has been so much in the news lately, particularly around the issue of bullying of LGBTQ youth. Even though we are urged by the media not to conclude that bullying was causal, so often it does seem to be a part of the history of LGBTQ youth who attempt or complete suicide. A recent, fascinating segment of Dateline NBC focused on bystander behavior when witnessing bullying among adolescents. The results of their informal study mirrored much of what the research article cited earlier found: while peer pressure could influence some of the bystander kids to join in with the bullying, others were able to stand up to the bully (or tell an adult), and the effectiveness of bystander interventions increased with the number of bystanders participating. What the segment did not cover enough was the huge role parents must play in teaching their kids to intervene or not (let alone in condoning bullying behavior itself), and modeling effective allyship for their kids (versus modeling messages of intolerance towards kids who are different). As we think about effective interventions to reduce bullying based on social group membership (ethnicity, class, sexual orientation, gender identity/expression, etc.) it’s so important to remember that parents have to be involved in this effort; no school based anti-bullying curriculum is going to be effective if kids are getting the opposite message at home.

Finally, what does all of this say about how we can best be effective allies as adults? I really liked the article entitled Interrupting the cycle of oppression: The role of allies as agents of change, recently circulated by our friends at the Seattle Coalition of Anti-Racist Whites (CARW), in which Reverend Andrea Ayvazian explores her own personal experiences of allyship as a white women and suggests avenues of allyship for others. First, she gives a specific definition of allyship which I appreciated for its attention to the fact that allies benefit from the oppression they are standing up to, and that is one of the barriers to being an ally. She says,

An ally is a member of a dominant group in our society who works to dismantle any form of oppression from which she or he receives the benefit. Allied behavior means taking personal responsibility for the changes we know are needed in our society, and so often ignore or leave to others to deal with. Allied behavior is intentional, overt, consistent activity that challenges prevailing patterns of oppression, makes privileges that are so often invisible visible, and facilitates the empowerment of persons targeted by oppression.

She notes that members of dominant groups speaking to other members of that same group have an incredible potential for making change, and cites Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays as one well-known example. Like the research study described earlier, she notes the power of groups to dismantle oppressive systems and reduce violence. She also discusses the symbolic power inherent in allies eschewing some of the unearned privilege normally granted to them – for example, when a heterosexual couple chooses not to be legally married until same-sex couples are granted the same legal rights and social status.

When we stop colluding and speak out about the unearned privileges we enjoy as members of a dominant group -privileges we have been taught for so long to deny or ignore-we have the potential to undergo and inspire stunning transformation.

She finishes by noting that allyship is arduous work, requiring patience and perseverance, and that “allies need allies” in order to sustain our energy.

So, these are some of my continued thoughts on allyship in its various forms. I hope you will share your comments and thoughts here, and hope that TJP can be a place where we nurture and sustain one another on our journeys of allyship.

Are you there, Steve Scher? It's me, sexism.

2011-03-06T22:37:00.000-08:00

Response to KUOW’s Program Eating Disorders: Through the Looking Glass

- by Liz Goodwin

“Are you there God? It's me, Margaret. I just told my mother I want a bra. Please help me grow God. You know where. I want to be like everyone else.”
- Judy Blume

In recognition of National Eating Disorder Week, KUOW ran a program on February 28th titled Eating Disorders: Through the Looking Glass. Author Marya Hornbacher, student Emy Stewart, and clinical director Jeanne Wicomb joined Steve Scher in a conversation intending to address the plight of anorexia and bulimia, the impact of the diseases on family and health, underlying issues, and how culture affects the disorder.

The program did, in fact, explore these dimensions. Emy Stewart shared the social and family messages that contribute to her struggle. Jeanne Wicomb described what treatment can look like for people in recovery. Marya Hornbacher talked about how industrialized nations find higher percentages of the disorder. Stewart, Wicomb and Hornbacher shared the concept of a ‘recovery voice’ and an ‘eating disorder voice.’ The participants discussed how eating disorders can function as a strategy to manage anxiety. Social and environment factors like family pressure, images we are fed, and peer pressure, were all threaded through. As was the understanding that body control or lack there of, in the form of anorexia, overeating, and bulimia also function to hold back the tide of big emotions and, we might add here, trauma experiences that live lodged in the body. All of this, of course, is a lot to cover.

To read this entire post, click here.

Intersections

2011-02-27T10:08:00.000-08:00

- by Stacey Prince

Social scientists and the media often talk about oppression as if it fits into neat, divisible categories. People are described as either gay, or African American, or Muslim; they experience transphobia, or ableism, or sexism. We have been guilty of this on the TJP blog at times, too, talking about issues such as transphobia or racism as if they are separate from other aspects of identity and oppression. It's much more challenging to try and describe the complex realities of people's lives, but most of us are not just one thing - we are a multifaceted mix of identities, social group memberships, and areas of privilege and marginalization.

Individuals who are members of more than one marginalized group often experience a compounding of barriers and constraints. They may experience conflicts between the values held by members of their different target groups. They may also be more likely to experience horizontal oppression (oppression within target groups toward other group members) or pressure to align themselves with one identity over another.

In order to explore these issues, consider the intersection of being lesbian or gay with other marginalized identities. In the article Queering the New Year: We are (all) family, Ben de Guzman, a gay, Asian American Pacific Islander, explores the sometimes conflicting values between a mutual interdependence fostered among the many members of his large extended family on the one hand, and wanting to be out and assert his visibility as a gay man on the other hand. "When we come out, it's not just to parents and siblings," he says, "sometimes it's to an entire clan." He describes how homophobia and discrimination continue to divide many Asian American families and communities, and how working on increased acceptance in one's family can be a tightrope walk of asserting one's identity while honoring family and cultural responsibilities.

Consider next the challenges faced by LGBT individuals who are undocumented immigrants to the United States. In Undocumented gays aim to open closets, gay college student Jesus Barrios talks about the struggles he has faced since his family moved to the US from Mexico when he was 3. He describes the anxiety and pain of keeping one secret (his undocumented status) from nearly all of his friends, and another (being gay) from his family - the isolation this created, and the fear of disappointing the people he loves. As he opened the "double closet," he was fortunate enough to find sources of love and support, both within his family and institutionally (for example, with the help of a supportive high school guidance counselor he was able to go to college) but it's been a difficult journey.

Also, he notes how the two movements he is passionate about - gay rights and immigration rights -- intersect in so many ways. In both cases, laws are enacted that restrict rights and devalue people, hate crimes are aimed at individuals in both groups - and yet in the experience of this young man few of the activists supporting immigration rights such as the Dream Act also participate in LGBT events, whether as allies or gay themselves. This was part of his decision to come out of the "double closet," and he hopes that by telling his story he and other LGBT undocumented immigrants can begin to work together toward their common goals.

Not all undocumented LGBT individuals have as hopeful a story as Barrios. Many experience rejection at home and in their communities. In the US, undocumented immigrants are less likely to seek help if they experience discrimination or violence because of their illegal status. Since sex with same-gender partners is illegal in 80 countries and punishable by death in a few, some gay immigrants fear not only deportation but also police brutality, harassment, violence, and even death. For example, this article describes an Iranian student who, after participating in a protest against harsh immigration laws in Arizona, feared execution if he came out and was deported back to Iran.

It doesn't help to be in a relationship: because the US government does not recognize same-sex unions, even getting married in states with full marriage equality does not afford undocumented LGBT individuals any additional protection against deportation or help in gaining legal residency. This article indicates that about 24,000 US same-sex couples contain at least one immigrant partner. It tells the story of one such couple in which the Venezuelan-born, immigrant partner may face deportation after overstaying his visa. While heterosexual marriage does not guarantee legal residency, it does help their case.

Not only are target and agent group memberships complex and multifaceted, but they can also change over time - for example, when an individual moves from working to middle class, or a previously able-bodied person becomes disabled. The last intersection I would like to consider in this article is LGBT individuals who are seniors. The recently released documentary "Gen Silent" explores the lives of 6 LGBT seniors. The sad and frightening conclusion of the documentary is that many LGBT seniors are going back into the closet as they face decisions about long-term healthcare and housing at the end of life. The film explores how discrimination faced by these individuals in the years before Stonewall continues to impact them, causing long-term mistrust and anxiety about being out. This is compounded by their here and now experience of bullying by other seniors, along with discrimination and even efforts at conversion by healthcare professionals. As a result, many are hiding their lives and gay identities in order to survive in the care system. For some, their isolation is further compounded by the fact that they are estranged from their families of origin. There is hope in the sense that the LGBT community is beginning to address the problems faced by seniors and to develop communities where LGBT seniors can be out and live safely and comfortably, but until those communities are readily available and affordable many seniors face the terrible choices documented in this film.

Writing this article got me thinking about my own intersections, as well as those of the clients I work with in my psychotherapy practice. As a Jewish, lesbian woman, I have noticed how infrequently I bring up my Jewish identity and issues of anti-Semitism in groups and communities I am in, even groups whose focus is to reduce other forms of oppression. At home with extended family, while I am very comfortable in the expression of my Jewish identity, I'm less vocal (though still out) about my membership in queer culture and participation in queer politics. Integrating all of these pieces, in different contexts and communities - while still owning and acknowledging my privilege as a white, middle class, able-bodied individual - is tricky, and it's a dance that I often adjust and modify unthinkingly and unconsciously. For my clients, I am reminded of how important it is to offer a space where they can explore not only the target group membership that may be most prominent for them at a given time, but also the intersections between memberships, and the ways that those intersections can result in internal conflicts or external choices that are challenging to navigate. At the same time, like Jesus Barrios in the story referenced earlier, it's helpful to be reminded of the ways that different marginalized communities can work together toward liberation.

Women's Healthcare at Risk

2011-02-22T10:36:00.000-08:00

Recently the Republican-dominated House of Representatives voted on a measure that would strip federal funding from Planned Parenthood. Much has been made of this measure and its political and symbolic meaning, driven by conservative Republicans who are anti-abortion, but also seen as a part of a larger strategy to repeal the healthcare reform law.

What hasn’t been written about as much is the devastating effect the cuts to Planned Parenthood would have for women of color and low income women. Millions of women and families rely on Planned Parenthood not just for reproductive medicine and birth control, but also for preventive health care, including annual exams, breast and cervical cancer screenings, HIV testing, health education, and more. In fact, it is estimated that 97 percent of the services received are non-abortion related. Cutting funding will therefore eliminate primary healthcare services for millions of women who do not have private insurance and have no other means to obtain healthcare.

These cuts will disproportionately impact African-American women. Planned Parenthood has estimated that 15 percent of its patients are African-American, many of whom are uninsured. Also, African-American women tend to have more chronic illness and disease, and many chronic illnesses such as diabetes and hypertension get discovered during routine wellness visits and annual exams. Therefore many women with undiagnosed, treatable chronic illness will lose critical opportunities to have their chronic illness detected and managed. In short, says Willie J. Parker, MD, Medical Director at Metropolitan Planned Parenthood in Washington, DC, cuts to Planned Parenthood funding are “destabilizing the safety net that many people of color rely on. A hit on Planned Parenthood really becomes a hit for African-American women”.

To read more, click here, and see our Call to Action below if you want to tell your legislators how you feel about this measure.

Floods of change

2011-02-11T17:30:00.000-08:00

- by Stacey Prince

History is unfolding before our eyes. I can't think of anything more important to write about this week than the happenings in Egypt. Who knew that a movement created by the people could overthrow a powerful and dictatorial government that had been ruling with oppression for 30 years? The people would not be suppressed, intimidated, or beaten into retreat; they perservered and made change happen. The beautiful Arab idiom which states that "a flood begins with a mere droplet" has been quoted in many recent articles. I love that image, and it causes me to wonder, where else are droplets falling into pools which run into streams which join rivers which overflow to a flood? I hope that TJP can be a droplet that is part of a growing movement in which healers of all kinds - psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, activists, advocates, physicians, body workers - look beyond our offices and our guild's needs and make it our jobs not just to heal psyches and bodies from the injuries of oppression, but also to confront, resist, reduce and eliminate that oppression at its source. Many droplets can lead to a flood of change.

Democracy Now coverage of Egyptian Revolution

What is psychology's role in social justice (and vice versa)?

2011-02-06T14:05:00.001-08:00

- by Stacey Prince

The title of this article expresses questions that TJP’s leadership council has grappled with and that I’m sure will continue to be at the heart of our discourse for quite some time. I recently attended the National Multicultural Conference and Summit, where I hoped to further challenge myself and deepen my thinking on these questions. I am reporting back now with mixed results.

The first Multicultural Summit met in 1999, and the conference has taken place every other year since then. I was excited that it was in Seattle this year, both because it was easier for me to attend and to share the city I love with out of town friends. Although an official American Psychological Association (APA) event, the Summit traditionally has both a different focus and a different feel. Unlike an APA convention where one might find a few offerings on multicultural psychology, oppression, and social justice, the Summit is a conference where these topics are the explicit focus. Also, it typically has more experiential and participatory components, versus the receptive, lecture style, heavy on the powerpoint offerings that are characteristic of APA. Finally, the Summit has historically been a space where “difficult dialogues” on topics such as privilege and power within our profession, horizontal oppression between marginalized groups, and tensions between various aspects of our profession (research versus practice, for instance) are not only not avoided, but actually welcomed. For all of the above reasons, I was relishing the opportunity to explore areas that are of great relevance both for me personally and to TJP.

To read entire article click here.

People's Movements and Transformative Practice

2011-02-01T00:25:00.000-08:00

Introduction by Liz Goodwin, with link to PMA Resolution, 2010

At this moment, protests continue in Cairo. An Egyptian Revolution is underway and President Hosni Mubarak's thirty year rule may in fact be coming to an end. This massive demonstration shook the world as it unfolded in the last week and reports, videos, twitters and photos circulated. It's clear that the movement is unique, a people's led, with youth or younger generations heading it up, high levels of organization, deep persistence, and people from all walks of life present.

Many write, sing, and speak about how inspiring this demonstration is to witness. And leaders of the revolution describe it as peaceful, even as the media and governments all over the world describe violent looters, count deaths, and paint terroristic pictures. Even so local protests join from afar and the reverberation is felt politically, socially, and economically across the globe.

Tonight - as I listen and watch women sing among tens of thousands of seated resistors or see photos like the one of a woman kissing a soldier on his cheek – I feel the reverberation. I am actually left wondering – yet again - about our process with TJP and where we are in our effort to form and sustain a project that situates transformative healing practice in larger movement based work. This is a concept we are exploring as a leadership council. We recently came to understand our structure in a new way, as a hub, a place where discussion and practice and experiential process around liberatory healing work can happen and get supported. We intended to retreat this month with organizations and individuals in the community who work at, or think at, this crossing. But without a viable space and other logistical questions unanswered, we decided to push pause - again.

This time our pause involves a new layer of conversation about how we might practice an environment of transformative practice. As a council, we are reading literature on this and returning to the question together in February. I wanted to share with you one of the documents we'll be reading - built out of this year's 2010 Social Forum People's Movement Assembly for healing and justice work. To read more about the PMA process and other resolutions, click here:

http://pma2010.org/resolutions

“Transformation,” as this resolution describes, “is an ongoing practice, a process where "one identity or self passes away and a new, radically altered one emerges. The new way of being is more integrated, resourceful and aligned. This is apparent to others in your presence, your actions and your increased capacity to respond based on vision, rather than reaction. This process is repeats itself and deepens through continued engagement in transformative practices and processes. The old, previous “form” sheds again and new emerges again."

To read the PMA resolution, click here.

Race and Parenting

2011-01-25T10:37:00.000-08:00

- by Liz Goodwin

In this piece, Reflections on Race, ParentMap takes on the big, complex topic of cultural difference in parenting. Voices here in the Northwest, Theressa Lenear of Childcare Resources, journalist Naomi Ishisaka, Wendy Harris at Kindering Center, author Fran Davidson, and Heather D. Clark, PhD, take on issues of racism, class, religion, child development, health, and discipline. The notion that Eurocentric, Western notions of parenting are somehow inherently correct or evolved is questioned and wisdom, such as the role of grandparents or how White privilege impacts children, is imparted.

By addressing multicultural approaches to health and development, as well as historical racism, social justice and oppression as it relates to parenting, this piece seems to be a good fit for our blog. To read the article, click here.

It's Not Just Food

2011-01-16T18:09:00.000-08:00

- by Stacey Prince

Among the most common New Year's resolutions are those having to do with eating better, exercising and losing weight. This year I have heard from friends (or stated myself) various food-related goals including eating healthier, more vegetables, less fat, less sugar, less red meat, going vegan, more protein, and keeping it local. Have you ever thought about what a privilege it is to even be able to state these as deliberate (and attainable) goals? Two recent articles made me think just that, and caused me to reflect on the ways that social inequities play out in the foods we eat - with subsequent consequences for things as far reaching as health, obesity, mortality risk, and school performance.

The first article, entitled Divided We Eat, appeared in Newsweek in late November, right before Thanksgiving. This fascinating article describes the various ways that class impacts nutrition, and maintains that food has become one of the most salient representations of "the great divide" between rich and poor. Trends such as being "foodies," "health food nuts," "locavores," and eating "organic" are a privilege and a luxury, out of reach for many. According to data released by the US Department of Agriculture, 17 percent of Americans (more than 50 million people) live in households that are categorized as "food insecure," meaning they sometimes run out of money to purchase food, or run out of food before they can get more money. Food insecurity is most severe in the South and in large urban areas. Food insecurity co-varies with other indices of economic stability such as housing and employment, so it's no surprise that the biggest surge in food insecurity since the measure was established in 1995 occurred between 2007 and 2008, at the beginning of the economic downturn.

To read entire article click here.

Senseless shootings in Arizona

2011-01-09T21:06:00.000-08:00

- by Stacey Prince

The shootings in Arizona are an appalling and tragic demonstration of the deep social justice tensions in this nation. Whether we think the shootings were motivated by US Representative Giffords' support of healthcare reform, opposition to the AZ immigration law, her Jewishness, or her simply being a Democrat in a state that Palin and the Republicans have their eye on in 2012, it really doesn't matter--this is not the way any of us want conflict and difference to be handled in our country, is it? I can't do justice to this topic but refer the reader to this excellent New York Times editorial which does.

Integrating Psychotherapy and Social Justice

2011-01-01T18:24:00.001-08:00

- by Stacey Prince

This morning I remembered that I posted on the blog about my favorite article of 2010at the very beginning of that year, so I thought I would do it again - and this time it's only January 1st! So, my favorite article of the very young new year is actually not an article but an interview with Kenneth V. Hardy, Ph.D. , Professor of Family Therapy at Syracuse University and author of Teens who hurt: Interventions to break the cycle of adolescent violence. He has written extensively about integrating diversity, oppression awareness and social justice orientation into the practice of psychotherapy. The interview was facilitated by Dr. Randall Wyatt and appeared on www.psychotherapy.net/. We talk in TJP about integrating multiculturalism and an anti-oppression, social justice orientation into psychotherapy and other healing modalities. I found this interview to be an excellent exploration of the topic, full of thoughtful, implementable strategies for doing so.

Dr. Hardy begins by describing how, as an African-American graduate student, he felt his training prepared him to be a "pretty good, decent white therapist". In other words, he was exposed to models of psychopathology, interpersonal behavior and therapeutic change that were based on and developed for the dominant (white, middle class, male) culture. However, as he got out into the world he began seeing a diverse population including immigrants, people of color, and families of low income. He recognized quickly that his Euro-centric training had prepared him poorly for working with these individuals. He has devoted his career since then to broadening both who psychotherapists work with and what they study in order to prepare for that work.

To read entire article click here.

Holidays

2010-12-27T16:58:00.000-08:00

- by Stacey Prince

Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and Christmas all have traditions of gift giving and receiving. For many this time of year is a time of plenty, abundance, family, gratitude, and generosity. Yet for so many it is also a time of shortage, scarcity, anxiety, starvation, fear, and war. It can be difficult to reconcile the celebratory tone of the season with the global suffering we see on the news every day. We don’t even have to look around the globe to see this level of suffering. A recent extensive study showed that approximately 1 in 6 Americans experience "very low food security" (defined as reducing the amount they ate and/or disrupting their food patterns throughout the year) : in other words, they go hungry.

Even closer to home, last week I finally got myself to read the list of cuts that the legislators and Governor Gregoire just enacted in order to reduce Washington State's huge (over $1 billion) budget deficit. Here is just a partial list of some of the cuts that were made:

- A 4.2% reduction at public colleges and universities,
- Elimination of funding to keep class sizes smaller in public K-4 schools,
- A 20% reduction to monthly cash allotments to Disability Lifeline recipients (a program for disabled people of low income who are unable to work),
- Reduction in emergency funds that help keep families off welfare,
- Elimination of non-emergency free dental care to adults in need.

It is plain to see from this list that the cuts are largely impacting those already in greatest need, thereby further increasing the resources gap, the distance between those affluent individuals at the top of the wealth pyramid and the rest. Meanwhile, it appears that Bush era tax cuts that disproportionately benefit the rich may be extended rather than expiring at the end of this year. Though this has been framed by the media as a “compromise,” a trade-off for extension of unemployment benefits, the fact remains that the Bush era tax cuts further drive the wedge between the affluent and the poor.

To read entire article click here.

TJP 2010 Year In Review

2010-12-20T22:49:00.000-08:00

by Liz Goodwin, in collaboration with Stacey Prince, Anne Phillips, Nathaniel Shara, Briana Herman-Brand, and Keren Lehavot

Since its inception three years ago, TJP has been through some significant changes. We wanted to provide you with an update and an overview of the evolution we have been through, especially in the last year with the formation of our new leadership council. Those of you who have been reading the TJP blog (www.therapeuticjustice.blogspot.com) have probably kept up fairly well with some of the changes, but we realize not everyone has the time or inclination to read the blog. So here, Liz Goodwin, Leadership Council Member, will provide you with a more detailed update about what we have been talking about as well as plans for the future.

Therapeutic Justice Project got started three years ago under the name The Limen Group. Stacey Prince thought it up with the primary goal of combining psychology and political advocacy and activism in deliberate, therapeutic ways. Stacey grounded the concept in impacting traditional psychotherapy tradition by providing professional development opportunities for psychotherapists to learn advocacy/activism skills as well as to develop a psychotherapy model that encourages clients, when appropriate, to become involved in activism/advocacy as an antidote to isolation, helplessness and depression. She deemed this approach “politically informed behavioral activation”, a term coined by Laura Brown, and on the professional development end felt this was very much in line with APA’s recent movement to add advocacy as a basic competency for psychologists entering the profession. She was also very interested in systemic change in the form of legislative change that improves and protects civil rights, and has been a strong promoter of the role psychologists can play as political advocates.

To read entire post, click here.

Predatory grooming in military recruitment and child abuse

2010-12-13T16:55:00.001-08:00

Dear TJP members,

Amy Hagopian and I recently published in the American Journal of Public Health a commentary that compares military recruiting in high schools with predatory grooming. This has engendered a bit of interest from the military/right wing world, as well as from UW, and there may be a special forum held at UW in January to address some of the issues the commentary raises.

Many of the questions and comments we have received have to do with the nature of predatory grooming, and I've pasted in a couple of the radio shows we've been interviewed on, so you have an idea of the reaction to the paper. (I have also added a reference to a TJP blog entry I did, "Why soldiers in school are an injustice to all," which gives more background on the practice of recruiting in high schools.)

While we speculate on the similarities in the processes of grooming and military recruiting, and reference our rationale, deeper insight to support or contradict our speculation would be so appreciated. Our backgrounds are not in psychology or sociology, so any information on the process of grooming, for non-sexual as well as sexual exploitation, would be useful.

If anyone can suggest references and research material, persons to contact, or would like to be involved in the forum at UW, please contact me at kbarker715@gmail.com.

Thank you!

Kathy

This is the abstract:

Should We End Military Recruiting in High Schools as a Matter of Child Protection and Public Health?

Amy Hagopian and Kathy Barker

Am J Public Health published 18 November 2010, 10.2105/AJPH.2009.183418

Copyright (c) 2010 by the American Public Health Association.
New American Journal of Public Health "First Look" articles have been made available (for the period 21 Oct 2010 to 18 Nov 2010):

ABSTRACT
Recruiters for the various US armed forces have free access to our nation’s high schools, as mandated by the No Child Left Behind Act. Military recruiter behaviors are disturbingly similar to predatory grooming.

Adults in the active military service are reported to experience increased mental health risks, including stress, substance abuse, and suicide, and the youngest soldiers consistently show the worst health effects, suggesting military service is associated with disproportionately poor health for this population.

We describe the actions of a high school parent teacher student association in Seattle, Washington, which sought to limit the aggressive recruitment of children younger than 18 years into the military.

(Am J Public Health. Published online ahead of print November 18, 2010: e6–e10. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2009.183418)

For the full paper, click here. Go to the bottom of the page and hit "download."

Here are two radio interviews that show what is bothering some folks about this:

Amy Hagopian with Dori Munson on KIRO news radio

Kathy Barker with Frank Shiers on KIRO News radio

For previous TJP blog article on military counter-recruitment, click here.

Yoga Article Raises Issue of Cultural Appropriation

2010-12-07T22:31:00.000-08:00

Intro By Liz Goodwin. Story by Paul Vitello.

Last weekend, I stumbled across an interesting article in the New York Times, Hindu Group Stirs a Debate Over Yoga's Soul. Paul Vitello discusses certain Hindu groups' claims that the spread of yoga in non-Hindu communities forgets the very foundation of the practice, soul. The Indian-American led debate, he says, is meant to bring Westerners to awareness about the forgotten faith that underlies every yoga style. Responses from Western yoga instructors abound, defending the sanctity of yoga as an age old practice dating back far before yoga as a Hindu practice. Data backs this up, says Vitello, but yoga instructors like Debbie Desmond puts it simply: "nobody owns yoga." Other elements of the issue raised by Hindus are the consumption of yoga as a a growing, even multi-billion dollar business now, and the way this undermines the tradition.

Missing in this piece is any explicit mention of cultural appropriation as a trend in the Western world. From language to music to ideas and different every day acts of exploitation, there is a history of Whites and Westerners taking from communities of color, non-Western traditions, taking and consuming elements that Westerners will benefit from, in some way or another, without any real connection to, engagement with, or complete respect of, that community or history or culture. Whether it be the use of meditation in therapeutic practice, by White therapists, or the participation in yoga by White, Western instructors in White-owned studios for the economic and emotional use of this privileged community, not to mention the class based needed to access these type of courses or this kind of therapy. Whatever way it plays out, as the taking from White Westerners of Eastern philosophy, healing approaches, food or art or taking credit for ideas that are not our own, this element is absent in the article.

This truly is a complicated question and one that deserves serious consideration by healers and specifically White healers, as we integrate varying ideas and practices. The answer, I would like to propose, is not as simple as avoiding all non-Western practices. For, even our language, the very words and sayings and thoughts and ideas, as Whites in the US, at least, have been stolen, reworked, taken, and used, without awareness of their roots. I suggest instead a thoughtful, real engagement in this issue, and this particular form of systemic oppression, one that is age old and new, all at once. Here are some questions to consider: In what ways are we practicing cultural appropriation versus sharing with, in a respectful way, different ways of thinking, feeling, and experiencing? In other words, I specifically wonder, for White, largely middle class, Western healers, what do you know about the cultural and community roots of what we use for healing? How connected are we to the very communities these theories and practices originate in? How does an awareness of this impact the work and make us safer, more available, to clients of Western and non Wester descent? When does lack of awareness of this dynamic negatively impact therapy for clients, with this privilege or without it, on either end of this dynamic? What would it look like to interrogate this with other healers [challenge other healers to think about the role of appropriation in their own work] and how would these conversations look? What can be done in and outside of the actual healing process? These questions, I leave us with, to examine and discuss.

Take a look at the article. And, as always, share your thoughts here on the blog.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/28/nyregion/28yoga.html

What's in your knapsack?

2010-11-30T10:10:00.000-08:00

- by Stacey Prince

When most of us first begin to learn about racism, we focus on interpersonal acts of meanness or harassment. We also focus on the oppressed individual and their disadvantages, rather than on the oppressor. Many white people have been known to say things like, “racism is not a white person’s problem, because I have no race”. This denial of whiteness as a racial identity (the flip side of which is confirmation of whiteness as the norm), and denial of the unearned benefits that come along with being light-skinned, are taught to us from a very young age. It can be a difficult transition to move from a focus on interpersonal oppression and the disadvantages that others face, to an examination of one’s own privilege and the systemic nature of structures and institutions that solidly hold the privilege gap in place. That is what I want to focus on here.

In an article that has since become a classic, Peggy McIntosh in 1988 began to deliberately explore and delineate the unspoken, unearned benefits of whiteness. Many of these are hard to see, because they are often the absence of something (barriers, hindrances) than its presence. You don’t feel doors as you move through them if they open wide for you; you only notice them if they are locked, or get slammed in your face. In the article Peggy McIntosh describes the “invisible knapsack of privilege,” as follows:

I have come to see white privilege as an invisible package of unearned assets which I can count on cashing in each day, but about which I was ‘meant’ to remain oblivious. White privilege is like an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, maps, passports, codebooks, visas, clothes, tools and blank checks.

With this invisible knapsack the white person’s passage through the world is profoundly changed, both on a moment by moment, daily level, and in terms of the larger trajectory of their life: career, building a family, moving about the world geographically, borrowing money, getting an education—all are impacted by the invisible knapsack of special (and unearned) privilege.

To read entire article click here.

Post-Election Blues

2010-11-12T12:12:00.000-08:00

- by Stacey Prince

What did last week’s election mean to you? How did you feel about it? What do you think it signified for the future—for yourself, for the people you work with? Personally, I felt deflated. While I was relieved that WA state would continue to send a democratic Senator to DC, and happy to hear the news that the greatest number of out LGBT individuals in history were elected to public office, the rest of it was pretty demoralizing. With the GOP controlling Congress, I worry about what’s going to happen with healthcare reform (and their “no compromise” talk doesn’t help to allay those fears), immigration, and a return to big tax bailouts for the wealthy. I wonder if all of the hard won victories around Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, domestic partner rights, and adoption by gay and lesbian parents will be repealed (and the Iowa debacle doesn’t help allay those fears). My fantasies of fleeing the country, quiescent since 2008, have returned.

But there is something more, a cultural shift that I am trying to grasp. After all of the tremendous excitement around the election of Barack Obama, what does it mean that just two years in, we can already see the end of this era? What does it say about racism in America, and the ever-widening resource gap between rich and poor, between Euro-Americans and people of color, between the wealthy white people at the top of that pyramid and the rest of us? To help me understand this sinking feeling in my stomach, I turned, of course, to the internet. I found two articles that helped me make sense of things.

To read entire article click here.

Retreat 7: Leadership Council Sets Out to Clarify TJP Vision

2010-11-10T10:14:00.000-08:00

by Liz Goodwin

Last Saturday October 30, the TJP leadership council - including Stacey Prince, Nathan Shara, Briana Herman-Brand, Anne Phillips, Keren Lehavot, and I - gathered to talk project vision. Prior to the meeting, and since the last Retreat 6 (Somatic Transformation day-long with Staci Haines), we met several times to get acquainted, discuss the role of the council, and share and learn about each of our political and social identities and histories. From these series of meetings, it became clear that we needed to spend more time getting clear about the vision, goals, objectives, and process intended for TJP. We agreed that, instead of a large-group retreat, it made sense to hunker down together and spend a day getting clear. It was expected to be a full day – emotionally and mentally – and we even wondered if there would be some conflict as we each expressed our different ideas about what TJP should focus on and how. Our last meeting before this full day retreat consisted of sharing our different conflict styles, defense structures, and requests we might have for others in moving through and staying connected.

Turns out, we hit very little conflict, really. And our visions seemed less far from each other than we may have anticipated. Stacey got us started with her take on what TJP is and where we might go. She presented a diagram of What? How? Why? – with corresponding circles, concentric style. The why is often difficult to answer, she said - and answered it. The big Why question, or the statement of grand purpose of TJP, is to end oppression and the trauma associated with it. Stacey shared about how TJP would be a hub, as she’s seeing it, where this work of how psychology weaves into ending oppression, would be the mission of TJP. She listed different areas of focus, as spokes from the center questions and answers. These included creating transformative space for healers and activists - “intentional community of transformative practice,” impacting higher education psychology programs, community organizing and political advocacy.

To read entire article click here.

What does Project Runway have to do with your work?

2010-11-01T13:38:00.000-07:00

- by Anne Phillips and Stacey Prince

* SPOILER ALERT * Do not read this if you have not seen the finale of this season's project runway and do not want to know the outcome.

Well, everything. Let us explain. I (Stacey) really love Project Runway. It's been a guilty pleasure since the very first season, offering three things I love: beautiful clothes, beautiful people, and complex interpersonal relationships. This season was no exception. The three finalists couldn't have been more different: Andy, a 23 year old first generation Hawaiian whose family immigrated from Laos whose clothes ranged from edgy to elegant; Gretchen, a European-American Northwesterner with an earthy crunchy, indigenous influenced ready to wear aesthetic, and Mondo, the 27 year old, HIV+ gay man whose family is fifth generation Mexican. All worked their asses off and fought to get to fashion week. I think I can safely say that the majority of viewers thought that Mondo was a shoe-in. His designs were spectacularly innovative, playful, creative, awe-inspiring.

What a shock when the winner was Gretchen. What was even more shocking was the deliberation between the judges to make that decision. Racism and xenophobia in action. What enraged me the most was Michael Kors and Nina Garcia REPEATEDLY saying "this is where fashion is now, this is where fashion is going" (regarding Gretchen's designs). What they were really saying was, this is where we want fashion to stay--bland, boring, and ready to wear. None of this Orientalist (Nina's word for Andy's final show) or Mexican stuff (Mondo's final show was influenced by Day of the Dead and featured a crucifix). The irony is, this is NOT where fashion is going. These two judges' denial and marginalization of the multiculturalism of this country was profound. And I won't even comment on the abhorent parallel they drew to food - "it's subjective--you either like Chinese or Mexican!" To their credit the other two judges argued in favor of Mondo, but somehow in a triumph of privilege over authenticity and in a scene that we were not privvy to, they were out-argued and Gretchen was crowned the winner, the next big thing in American Fashion. And please note that this was not just an empty title: the win came with money ($100,000), opportunity (help launching their own design line) and connections. The link between personal and systemic racism and heterosexism was as glaring as Michael Kors' fake tan.

To read entire article click here.

Beyond Inclusion, Beyond Empowerment Released

2010-10-26T13:24:00.000-07:00

By Liz Goodwin

After over ten years of work, Leticia Nieto, PhD, has released the first written record of her anti-oppression curriculum. The book is beyond words. With a central text outlining the key components of the model, images, poetry, prose, personal story, and quotes thread through as well. This weekend in Olympia, community members gathered to celebrate the release of this book, as well as two other creative pieces, and hundreds attended. Professors, students, children, comrades all celebrated Dr. Nieto’s completion of this project, a project that included many of the voices in the room. In fact, story and poetry contributors filled the room.

The event was a five-hour affair at a dance club venue called The Vault. From the ceiling, where a disco ball might normally hang, were decorations of red and orange paper streamers with gorgeous flowers. A huge movie screen stood next to the main stage to bring the sounds of Los Cavaleras and Sin Fronteras – and tamale, cupcake and popcorn vendors – as well as beautiful art – lined the walls. In addition to the release of the book, the film The Life I Got to Live, telling the story of Alicia Barrera in rural Chile, survivor of the Pinochet regime, was shown and released. Sin Fronteras played tunes from their new recording, Galopa, traditional and nueva cancion music. This is the third work that was released. Hence, the event name, Memoria, Musica, y Liberacion, bringing sound, word and visual together – extravaganza style.

To read entire post, click here.

Take Back the Bridge for Everyone - A Participant's Perspective

2010-10-21T09:36:00.000-07:00

By Anne Phillips

Recently, I attended Stacey Prince and Teri Mayo’s event, “Take Back the Bridge for Everyone”

Vine Ministries Church organized their second annual “Take Back the Bridge” event to have a community and church response to the people who are committing suicide by jumping off the Aurora bridge.

Stacey Prince organized this event after contacting Pastor Rainwater, and his choice to discount the fact that 30% of youth suicides are LGBTQI and the rest can easily be argued connected to some manifestation of oppression.

To entire post, click here.

Take Back the Bridge for Everyone

2010-10-11T10:07:00.000-07:00

This past weekend, TJP founder Stacey Prince and her partner Teri Mayo organized an event called Take Back the Bridge... for Everyone. Originally an event co-sponsored by the Seattle/King County Crisis Clinic and Vine Christian Ministries, Stacey and Teri thought it was very important to raise awareness in the community of suicide risk factors for LGBTQI youth and adults, and also to call attention to the detrimental role that faith communities can play when they promote messages of intolerance. The event was very well attended by 40 people including TJP co-founder Anne Phillips and several other TJP members. It was a success in increasing visibility of issues of critical importance to LGBTQI individuals. It received news coverage and fostered much discussion on the internet.

To read entire post, click here.

Bullying

2010-10-03T08:20:00.000-07:00

- by Stacey Prince

Several months back I began collecting information and resources for an article on bullying in the schools. Discrimination and harassment experienced by youth, and the related social justice issues, are something we have not talked about very much yet in TJP. This was before what is now being termed an "epidemic" of teen and young adult suicides that can be directly linked to harassment, bullying and violence experienced by LGBT youth. I'm sure many of you have seen the terrible stories, too many to recount, in recent weeks about teen suicides. Most recently there was the young Rutgers student who killed himself after peers posted video on the internet of him being intimate with a male partner. There was the 13 year old in California who hung himself after being taunted by classmates for being gay, and the 15 year old in Indiana who hung himself under similar circumstances. Then there were the five suicides, including three by gay teens, in a single Minnesota school district.

Results of the 2005 Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) Climate Survey showed that while 22% of the general student population feels unsafe in school, 74.2% of LGBT students reported feeling unsafe. Further, based on data from the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, the CDC, and estimates that approximately 30% of youth suicides are related to sexual orientation, the National GLBTQ Youth Foundation recently concluded that over 1,400 GLBTQ youth between the ages of 10 to 24 complete suicides, and an additional 15,000 contemplate committing suicide, each year. Even these whopping numbers are likely to be under-estimates since the sexual orientation of youth suicide victims is not always known.

To read entire article click here.

Leticia Nieto's Beyond Inclusion, Beyond Empowerment - Book Release

2010-09-27T13:18:00.000-07:00

By Liz Goodwin and authors of Beyond Inclusion, Beyond Empowerment

This October, Beyond Inclusion, Beyond Empowerment: A Developmental Strategy to Liberate Everyone, by Dr. Leticia Nieto, with Margot Boyer and co-authors Garth Johnson, Liz Goodwin and Laurel Smith will be released. This is the first ever written account of Dr. Leticia Nieto's anti-oppression curriculum. Dr. Nieto visited TJP last year, as part of our retreat, and shared some of the training model. But students study it for years and trainers go through an involved process to ready themselves to facilitate trainings or pass on the material. Unique in its incorporation of nine areas of social inequality, a compelling designation between three kinds of power at play at all times, as well as the incorporation of social justice and systems history and theory, human development, psychodrama, and attachment, the mode brings together psychological and social transformation.

In this series, we will post the press release, information about the upcoming book release event, reviews, and excerpts.

To read entire post, click here.

Thoughts on Yom Kippur

2010-09-19T18:08:00.001-07:00

- by Stacey Prince

I am a sporadic Jew. Well, that's not entirely true--I am Jewish all the time, it is a constant in my identity, culture, and sense of myself. But my observance is quite sporadic. I dip into synagogue from time to time, generally for Shabbat services and the High Holidays, as well as family events like weddings and bar/bat mitzvahs. I have not joined a congregation here in Seattle, but instead enjoy visiting different congregations--this one for its very modern interpretation of Judaism, that one for its music-filled "Rock Shabbat," and another one for its more traditional service.

On Friday night I went with my partner and some close friends to Kol Nidre, the beautiful and somber service that opens up the 24 hour observance of Yom Kippur. Known in English as the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur is a time to make amends and ask for forgiveness from those you have wronged in the past year, as well as to forgive yourself for transgressions and shortcomings. From sundown to sundown many Jews spend the day fasting and in prayer, offering much time to contemplate one's life and ask the hard questions.

This year, in addition to reviewing my relationships and behavior in the past year, I found myself thinking a lot about the strong connections between Judaism and social justice. A strong tradition in Judaism is tikkun olam, or healing the world. For many Jews, this sense of social responsibility--not just for one's family and community, but for society at large--translates into community service, social activism, and generous giving of one's time and resources. When I think about where my commitment to social justice comes from, this tradition of tikkun olam is at its source.

To read entire article click here.

System Failure, Part II

2010-09-15T09:18:00.001-07:00

- by Stacey Prince

A few months ago in a blog article entitled System Failure I wrote about some of the challenges facing transgender individuals, including transphobia and lack of access to appropriate services. I laid out how invalidation and discrimination experienced at the micro (family), meso (jobs, school) and macro levels (laws, lending institutions, insurance companies) contribute significantly to their emotional distress. A very concrete example of this is the incredible inaccessibility of gender reassignment surgery, which is explicitly excluded by many health insurance companies, yet prohibitively expensive to pay for out of pocket. Yet for many transgender clients, surgery and other gender confirming procedures are in my mind as medically necessary as is bypass surgery for an individual with severe heart disease, or insulin for a diabetic.

What I really want to focus on here is what TJP can do about it. What can we, as an organization espousing to integrate healing and liberation, contribute to the solution? How can we make this better? Do we work to reform existing systems ("sensitivity trainings" for hospitals and police officers, teaching clinical psychology graduate students and psychiatry residents how to work affirmatively with transgender clients, getting insurance to pay for SRS)? Instead of reform, do we work toward transformation, and what would transformation look like in this case--for example, can we envision and work toward a world in which regardless of their assigned-at-birth gender, pre- or post-operative status, or anything else, individuals can self-determine their gender identity, that identity does not have to fit within our convenient male/female binary, and it can change over time? In a world where that binary, and transphobia, do not exist, would gender reassignment surgery be readily available as a medically necessary procedure--or in some cases, would it not be necessary at all? Do we go for advocacy (the slow, tedious process of systemic change, whereby perhaps laws governing surgery, bullying, and discrimination are altered) or activism (sit-ins and demonstrations outside of insurance companies who deny services)?

To read entire article click here.

Supporting Macro Level Change

2010-09-08T11:49:00.000-07:00

- by Stacey Prince

One aspect of the intersections between healing and social justice that has been less explored thus far in TJP is healers supporting or opposing legislative change. Yet we can have a significant impact at this macro, systemic level of change, for example by testifying regarding the impact of particular bills on our clients, citing relevant empirical research, and using our relational skills to discuss critical social issues with our friends and colleagues. Recently along with representatives from several other states I was interviewed by a reporter from the APA Monitor, the monthly journal of the American Psychological Association, on the involvement of state psychological associations in supporting or opposing relevant LGBT rights legislation. Although the article focuses on LGBT issues (domestic partnership, adoption, anti-discrimination laws, etc.) the strategies suggested can be used by mental health professionals who want to get involved in the legislative process regarding a wide range of social justice and public policy issues.

Click here to read the APA Monitor article.

Transforming Wellness and Wholeness

2010-08-29T20:06:00.000-07:00

By Cara Page

This article is part of inciteblog's Reflections from Detroit series. Cara Page describes the work of organizing for healing justice and liberation at the US Social Forum.

To read the entire article, click here.

The Best Thing I Did at APA

2010-08-21T15:17:00.000-07:00

- by Stacey Prince

Well, some of the best things I did at APA* were personal—spending time with old friends and new, jogging by the marina in the cool ocean breeze, watching batters hit home runs at the Padres game. But the best thing I did professionally was to attend Laura Brown’s Division 56 (Trauma Psychology) Presidential Address. As many of you know, Laura is a psychologist, supervisor, teacher and author in Seattle. I believe she is one of the most innovative, prolific and committed psychologists around. Her many accomplishments include being the foremother of Feminist Therapy, battling the false memory movement in order to have the truths of her trauma survivor clients be heard, and recently creating the Fremont Community Therapy Project, which offers high quality, low fee assessment and psychotherapy to individuals with limited means as well as outstanding, social justice oriented training to pre- and post-doctoral psychology trainees.

In addition to all of these stellar accomplishments, Laura recently took on the challenge of being President of APA’s Division of Trauma Psychology, and on August 14 I attended her presidential address. In a packed room of current and former students, supervisees, colleagues and trauma psychologists, Laura began by saying that at an earlier time in her career she had utopian visions of being able to eradicate trauma simply by telling the truth about its existence: “I did not want us to need a Division of Trauma Psychology”. She also asserted that abuse exists and persists because it is supported by systemic inequities that are much bigger and more difficult to change than is the behavior of individuals. But then she went further, and challenged us as trauma therapists to think about the relationship between our livelihoods and social injustice. “This field of ours, trauma psychology, requires the presence of social injustice in order for us to exist. That’s a problem. That’s a fact about which we need to do something, because we need more justice.” This was so uncomfortable to think about, yet it rang so true, it couldn’t be ignored.

* APA is the American Psychological Association, and this was their annual convention, held this year in San Diego, CA.

To read entire article click here.

A Good Gay Day

2010-08-15T15:53:00.001-07:00

- by Stacey Prince

During the first week of August I was in Long Beach, CA at a training for VA mental health professionals who are learning an evidence based approach to treating relationship distress called Integrative Behavioral Couple Therapy. I’m one of the consultants on the project, which is part of a larger rollout of empirically validated treatments for a variety of veteran issues including PTSD, depression, family conflict and relationship distress. As a consultant on the project I will be providing phone supervision to the therapists, who are from VA hospitals and Vet Centers around the country. Prior to the training, I asked the organizers if same-sex couples would be treated as part of the project. Despite Don’t Ask Don’t Tell (DADT) many gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender veterans (primarily not active duty, for obvious reasons) and their families have traditionally sought mental health treatment at VA’s. These numbers will likely increase as DADT is likely to be repealed as soon as this Fall.

I was told by the project coordinators that yes, the therapists would be working with same-sex couples, and they then asked me to prepare a talk on the topic to be added to the week-long training schedule. This felt like a small victory—both that same-sex couples would be included, and that material on issues of importance to LGB clients and couples would be presented. Unfortunately, because the week’s programming was already set, my talk was squeezed in to the lunch hour during one of the training days. This felt somewhat marginalizing (for example, people had to choose between taking a break in the middle of a long day and coming to my talk) and a few participants noted that. The organizer did arrange for box lunches to be delivered, which helped a lot.

To read entire article click here.

What's Missing from Gay Pride?

2010-08-09T07:07:00.001-07:00

- by Tim Popanz

Sometimes I need to step away from an experience for a time in order to gain perspective. In the moment, my feelings can become jumbled like some type of word puzzle and meaning doesn’t show through. Such was the case this year with Gay Pride.

I have been celebrating Gay Pride in one form or another for almost 25 years. In the beginning, the experience was a revelation: the shear breadth, diversity of experiences, and history felt remarkable (at some level they still do). As a young Gay man, there was both this sense of carrying on the tradition started after Stonewall and a feeling of complete public honesty of who I am. To experience both this responsibility and freedom with my community was exhilarating.

The Gay community is one also marked by trauma. First, there’s the collective, generational trauma of oppression, which expresses itself, in part, in disproportioned rates of mental illness and substance abuse. Added on to these experiences have been the losses associated with AIDS. As an adult Gay man, I’ve never known a world or a new sexual encounter without the threat of HIV transmission. To implicitly link sexual intimacy life-long with illness and premature death is anxiety producing in and of itself.

Even with these experiences, most of the Gay community responds with resiliency. This is the primary experience anyone would see participating with Gay Pride. But, under the surface there is a more complicated ritual going on. Which brings me to my question: what’s missing from Gay Pride?

To read entire article click here.

Media Justice, Therapy Justice - and Puerto Rico

2010-08-06T08:57:00.001-07:00

By Liz Goodwin

A few weeks ago I was invited to join a media justice delegation to Puerto Rico with the Center for Media Justice, based in Oakland, CA. This organization’s mission is to “create media conditions that end racism, eliminate poverty, and advance human rights.” They work on issues of media access and ownership and intersect with progressive movements with communication strategy and action. Key initiatives further these goals like one of their main projects, MAG-Net, that focuses on the “critical use and transformation of media communication systems” with a local-to-local network of social justice, media and cultural organizations.

One of the objectives of the trip was to connect with local media on the Island. We met with one of the organizers for the University of Puerto Rico (UPR) student strike that recently ended and with Radio Huelga, the radio station established by the students to communicate speedily about the strike. The students at UPR said their main goals were to stop the Administration from privatizing campuses and from raising tuition. Their strike was unique, they shared with us, in that it was: grassroots, consensus-based, and submerged in technology. With constant stream of news and communication through Radio Huelga, as well as twitter, facebook and other social networks, they adopted the slogan: media not violence. They threw flowers at the police as they tried to squelch their demonstrations and rewired makeshift internet operations when the Administration attempted to cut off their access. They aired all day and night on the radio with everything from soap operas to latest news about the strike. They structured their large group by gates, representing fields in the University, like Humanities Gate, Communications Gate, etc. Each gate made decisions by consensus. In the larger assemblies, they voted democratically, by show of hands. At one point, the students shut down ten campuses across the Island and they won a long list of victories.

The rest of our time was spent at the beach, road tripping around the Island, attempting to find our way around, and tasting Puerto Rican food. Mofongo is just one example of the local food we tried – made with mashed plantains, garlic and pork cracklings. Delicious. Humacao was our home base, on the Eastern coast of the Island. It took just a few hours to realize that the Island is stunning – lush, green, magnificent in color and culturally unique. Even as I know Puerto Rico is unincorporated U.S. territory, that there is a rich revolutionary history, and an ongoing fight for independence, it is different to be there, talk with folks, see it with my own eyes.

To read entire article click here.

System Failure

2010-07-25T22:06:00.001-07:00

- by Stacey Prince

Several clients in my practice who are transgender struggle with depression, anxiety, PTSD, and in some cases suicidality. I believe that their transgender identity plays a large role in the difficulties they experience, but I say this not because I thnk being transgender is a disorder. In fact, as discussed in an earlier blog article (Transcending Diagnosis, March 2010) I am highly in favor of revisions of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) so that transgender is no longer categorized as a "disorder," and so that people who fully transition can be diagnosis free. I believe what is ailing these clients is not their transgender identity, per se, but a system around them that refuses to recognize the validity of their experience, harasses them for being different, and denies them the services and procedures that would set them free.

For many transgender individuals, the problems start at home. For example, some parents continue to use their child’s birth name and gender pronouns rather than those consistent with their transitioned identity. Other parents who have the financial means refuse to help with sex reassignment surgery (SRS) which costs upwards of $25,000 and is explicitly excluded from the list of covered services by most health insurance plans. Other transgender individuals are fortunate enough to have supportive and understanding family members who help them access care, advocate for them, and explain gender dysphoria and transgender identity to extended family members.

To read complete article click here.

Is visionary, progressive, oppression-aware, social justice oriented philanthropy possible?

2010-07-18T10:04:00.001-07:00

- by Stacey Prince

Many people make charitable donations from time to time. If you are like me, there may not be much rhyme or reason to your decision-making about who to give to. There are a few organizations that I support year after year, without fail although the amount I donate may fluctuate as the economy (globally and mine personally) waxes and wanes. At other times I am compelled to give in response to a particular event or disaster (Haiti earthquake, Gulf oil spill, Indian Ocean tsunami) or a request from a friend (someone walking in the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure, for example). But I don’t have a very good system (or any?) for choosing organizations based on particular dimensions (local, national or global? progressive or mainstream?) or topics (though I tend toward civil rights / social justice oriented, healthcare, and environmental organizations). I’m also not great about researching how effectively my money is spent when given to a particular organization. There is a pretty good website for this, by the way, called www.charitynavigator.org.

Charitable giving is also influenced by class and economic issues. Most giving comes from individuals, not organizations, and those individuals are from all class backgrounds. As a member of the middle class I recognize it is a privilege to have funds to spare for charitable causes. One’s current economic and employment situation, and access to other vital resources such as healthcare and childcare, will influence choices about giving as well.

Also, I struggle to discern when charitable giving is actually helpful: when is it condescending or rescuing versus empowering? When is it more about the giver (wanting recognition, wanting to be seen as generous and benevolent, etc.) than the receiver? How can funds be used effectively to help people utilize and mobilize the resources they already have access to, rather than bringing in (and then removing or ending) outside funds?

To read entire article click here.

US Social Forum 2010: A commentary on the challenges facing our movement toward social justice

2010-07-11T15:42:00.001-07:00

- by Dr. Hope Cristobal

Hope Cristobal is a clinical psychologist specializing in the assessment and treatment of native and indigenous populations. She is an indigenous Chamoru and a native of Guahan, and has worked as an advocate for colonized Chamoru, including testifying to the United Nations Committee on Decolonization. Her article, Perspectives on Social Justice: The fight to end colonization in the island-territory of Guahan, was posted previously on the TJP blog. Here she talks about her recent experiences at the US Social Forum in Detroit. This article first appeared on the blog West Coast Famoksaiyan and is reprinted here with her permission.

This year’s US Social Forum was held in downtown Detroit, Michigan from June 22 to June 26. As one of the 10,000 progressive activists registered for the Forum, my experience that week was both captivating and disenchanting.

I was part of a small group of indigenous Chamorus representing a local non-governmental organization (NGO). Our group – four from Guam, one from California, and one from Boston – was well organized. Each was strategically packed with a schedule of mandatory workshops and People’s Movement Assemblies (PMAs) in order to maximize our attendance at such an important forum. Our goal was to bring home good solid knowledge and skills in addition to networking with strategic folks involved in issues of decolonization and self-determination. I can tell you, in this respect, we certainly were NOT disappointed!

Our information table was also brimming with material for the American public about Guam, especially about the proposed hyper militarization of our island home by the Department of Defense. The biggest draw to our table was this quote, spelled out in big bold white letters, “The indigenous Chamoru people of Guam who have already suffered near genocide and violent colonization for over 400 years will bear the burden of U.S. military buildup on Guam – and have been given no say in the process.” Many people who passed by our table slowed to read the sign, shaking their heads in disbelief. Manning the table was valuable experience for each of us. We learned how fellow Americans knew little about what is happening in the westernmost U.S. territory of Guam. Our efforts did not go unheeded; we received a few hundred signatures in support of our petition to stop the military buildup and to grant the Chamoru people the exercise of our legal and political Right of Self-Determination. I do, however, wonder, “What does the American public understand about this Right and the struggles of colonized indigenous peoples in this world?”

To read entire article click here.

ADWAS Founder Marilyn J. Smith Keynote Address

2010-07-09T13:19:00.001-07:00

In May of 2010 we posted an article on the blog about a luncheon benefitting Abused Deaf Women's Advocacy Service (ADWAS) and honoring its founder, Marilyn J. Smith. We are now happy to be able to post a transcript of the talk Marilyn gave that day. In it she describes the need for advocacy services among Deaf and Deaf/Blind women and their families, the vision that led to the formation of ADWAS, and its development over the years. In addition it is inspiring to hear the story of another group that, like TJP, started with an idea and a vision, become a community, and developed over time through the hard work and creative energy of a group of passionate individuals. I hope you will take a few minutes to read her terrific speech.

Transcription of Marilyn J. Smith
May 5, 2010
ADWAS Strength and Courage Luncheon

Well, I’m happy all of you could come. When Carol and I talked about this and she said she wanted me to talk about ADWAS from its founding back in the old days up to present day, and to do it in 15 minutes, I thought, “Wow. How can I condense 25 years in 15 minutes?” Well, I’ll give it a try.

Some people don’t know our story, and I tend to sometimes say, “my story... our story” but it really is not my story, it’s a group of people who started ADWAS. I often get the credit, but there were many people involved, if truth be told.

To read entire transcript click here.

Ally is a Verb - Part II

2010-07-05T10:08:00.001-07:00

- by Stacey Prince

A few months back I wrote here about allyship. It was a start. I would like to revisit the concept of allyship based on some recent events and reflections. Specifically, a Facebook friend made an overtly racist comment on his "wall". I can't even call it a micro-aggression; there was nothing subtle or ambiguous about it. Or funny. To my despair, several friends gave his comment a thumbs up, and others wrote comments that were supportive or even reinforcing. Only one was gently chiding, and it was hard to tell whether she was going along with the joke, or really trying to give him some feedback.

I debated what action to take. Do nothing, just let it pass? That didn't feel good. Say something on Facebook? I didn't want to publically shame him, and I don't think people learn well when they are shamed. But on the other hand I didn’t want to engage in that "passive bystander" behavior, where I see it clearly but don't call it out. What must it be like for other people reading his post, especially people of color, to not see anyone standing up and making a corrective comment? I chose to communicate with him backchannel. Though my action did not resolve the bystander problem, it felt better than nothing. I told him I found his comment offensive, and explained why, and asked him to look at his own biases and prejudices as well as the effect that such a public statement has on others. I idealistically thought it would lead to his retracting or apologizing for the comment, or at least to a dialogue between the two of us.

I waited for a response... nothing. The next day I went on Facebook and realized that he had unfriended me! Ah, the modern day, social networking version of letting someone know you are really pissed off, so pissed off you just don't want to see them, ever again. Part of me laughed at this, like, really? But what was was the power of the visceral response I had... I was shaking. Though two of them were not aimed directly at me, this felt like a series of three affronts: first, his original comment, then his friends who patted him on the back for it, and finally his "un-friending" in response to my feedback.

To read entire article click here.

LIVE from the US Social Forum 2010, Day 3

2010-06-25T18:27:00.001-07:00

- by Mara Collins

I can hardly contain what is happening here. Today is Friday. I spent almost the entire day in healing space. During my shift in the healing practice space this morning I sat with two people, after having an awesome session with somebody last night. People's minds are getting blown all over the place here, and they need/want to talk. My mind is getting blown, too, and that makes it especially cool to have this opportunity to write about it with you.

This afternoon, 90 healers from around the country-massage therapists, midwives, counselors, etc spent nearly 5 hours together to form a nationwide collective for healing justice. TJP! you're gonna love this! We need to hook into this! I will post the synthesis of this People's Movement Assembly soon, after the forum. For now, suffice it to say, we converged to address the ways healing and organizing go together and must infuse all our movements for greater effectiveness, sustainability and growth.

Now I am in a ballroom of a convention center where this convergence is being held. The room faces the river that divides us from Canada. A vessel called the Riverboat Princess just floated by. About 10 other healer/practitioners are here with me, playing music, stretching and talking. We made an open call to do work tonight with a group of folks who may need support after an intense week. The sun still hangs high at nearly 830 on this glorious summer night. I don't know what the other 20 or so thousand people are doing, but that's me. More soon.

Love,

Mara

LIVE from the US Social Forum 2010, Day 2.

2010-06-24T12:58:00.000-07:00

- by Mara Collins

Hello from Detroit! Today there was an earthquake in Canada, right over the river from the city, can you believe it? The earth shook from all these positive vibes. It's late now, and I want to talk about everything that happened. But for each person ten stories could be told. It's late now. So what I'll do first is tell you what I did today and then maybe tomorrow sink it into the context of the work here at TJP.

I woke up so tired so I knew I needed some more sleep. As invigorating as these things are, they also really take it outta you. So I gave myself more time, got up and stretched, and went to the Healing Justice space in the United Auto Workers Ford Building. The boardrooms of the Union Building were converted into meditation spaces, candles set out, massage tables set up for bodywork. It was so cool! All of us volunteers sign up to practice our therapeutic modality and when this is all over, we will have each other's contact info and do collective healing justice work.

In the afternoon, I tried to facilitate a People's Movement Assembly space for the Northwest. Not very many people came, though. I felt disappointed, but my co-facilitator reminded me that it is a slow process to do regional organizing. The question came forward, though-what would people think of having a bigger NW meet up, where we can strengthen our issue-based work by building relationships regionally. In our case it would be a real regional healing network, which I think would be awesome. What do you think?

After that, I was supposed to do my shift at the healing space but the UAW had been closed. The earthquake occurred and because the building security crew was nervous we might get some aftershocks. I want to start the work. Hopefully it ill reopen tomorrow. I ended selling event posters at the vendor tables.

The day's programming ended with an amazing plenary with old time Detroit activists including Jerome Scott, the founder of Project South, Grace Lee Boggs, long time Detroit activist and revolutionary-who turns 95 this week! Ron Scott, who has been fighting police brutality since he was 13 years old and General Baker from the League of Revolutionary Black Workers. It was like standing among giants as they talked about this city that they love and fight to keep alive.

Grace Lee Boggs said to take a piece of Detroit's mentality home-That when they give us a crisis, turn it into an opportunity.

So that was my amazing day 2. Gonna hit the hay and send you more tomorrow,...

LIVE from US Social Forum 2010

2010-06-23T14:02:00.000-07:00

- by Mara Collins

This afternoon I joined tens of thousands of visionaries and activists in Detroit, Michigan, a city known for Motown Music, the Automobile, as well as a city known as the epicenter of the nation's economic crisis. I am here at the United States Social Forum, where the saying goes- Another world is possible, another US is necessary. As we converge to share our ideas and strategies for a better world, a healing world, we distinguish ourselves as citizens engaging in two crucial activities -practice and participation.

Convergence is Movement practice. I read this in the newsletter for Project South in Atlanta, one of the anchor organizations of the Social Forum process. The first social forum took place in Atlanta three years ago, and they have been practicing movement building for over twenty years.

We know as therapists, healers and body workers, that it often comes down to our practice. We are building a practice, practicing our craft, and when we don't keep up on reading and consultation, we can feel out of practice. You are likely reading this blog because you see a link between justice and well being. You know that the world is better off if our hearts and minds and bodies are in tune. You know that we can use our healing as a catalyst for healing in the world.

As practitioners, we know it takes an ongoing series of conversations, adjustments and bodywork sessions to create lasting change, so does it take a long-term strategy. We also know that, even though we are constantly striving to improve, it isn't necessarily about getting it right-it's about forward movement.

This happens in part because we continue to participate. For instance, this week I will try to give it my all. I get to help hold space at the healing justice area where people will come for community accupuncture, massage, making art, mediation, and talk therapy. I will get to know other participants and try to remember names. I will mess it up. I will help clean up. I will shout chants in call-and-response in the crowd. I will make sure my fellows reach their rooms safely. I will soak in the experience. I am not a consumer. I am a participant.

You can participate in the Social Forum too, even here in Seattle. ussf2010.org is a way to see what is going on this week in Detroit. In addition, Seattle central Community College is holding a social event for people who can't make it this time, but want to attend an event in connection with the Social Forum

http://www.socialecologyvashon.org/index.php?module=pagemaster&PAGE_user_op=view_page&PAGE_id=19&MMN_position=34:34

In the days to follow, I am going to submit more writing from the space in Detroit. If you have any questions, or things you want to know about from the convergence, let me know! I'd be happy to share what I learn.

More tomorrow-

The Racial Resources Gap

2010-06-20T16:58:00.000-07:00

- by Anne Phillips

The Institute on Assets and Social Policy of Brandeis University has released a 23 year study on race disparity, specifically a comparison of African-Americans and European-Americans. The study followed White and Black families from 1984 to 2007 and found that for families with similar incomes, White wealth increased while Black wealth decreased. (I am not sure how they took into account mixed race people/families.) Many reasons for this disparity were cited, including:

- Ongoing disparities in access to resources and assets. Even on an ostensibly "even playing field" there are factors such as tax breaks for investment and inheritance taxes that European-Americans are far more able to utilize and benefit from because of ownership of additional resources and assets that have only increased in value over time. Meaning today and historically Whites have been given lots more.

- Ongoing job opportunity disparities. Statistically, a white person who has been in prison is far more likely to be hired for a job than a black person who has never been arrested for anything and Black college graduates are twice as likely to be jobless than white graduates.

- Ongoing inequity in access to home ownership. Today and historically, people of color are charged higher finance fees and interest rates on home mortgages than whites.

These are just a few examples of the ways in which institutionalized inequities maintain the gap in financial and vocational success between Black and White individuals/families and institutions.

To read entire article click here.

Rising Up as Allies in Culturally and Personally Congruent Ways

2010-06-14T14:13:00.000-07:00

- by Agnes Kwong and Natacha Foo Kune

There are so many ways one can stand for social justice. Recently, I have been contemplating ways of challenging oppression that feel culturally and personally congruent to me given my own intersecting identities and cultural background. I am posting here a recent article a colleague and I wrote for the Division on Women of the Asian American Psychological Association (Summer 2010 Newsletter, Vol. 15, Issue 1).

Asian American Women Rising Up as Allies

In addition to our professional roles and our roles as co-chairs of DoW, we are also queer Asian women who reside in the U.S. but do not hold American citizenship. There have been many hate crimes and political developments of late that have deeply disturbed us both because we are committed to social justice and because of the intersections of our identities. Amidst our feelings of fear, hurt, anger, indignation, and more, we thought about the different ways in which we are already allies in the face of oppression and the barriers that get in the way of our being able to be more effective and/or consistent allies. In our attempt to share with you some of our thoughts, we reflected on a few specific oppressive events that occurred recently and discuss some of the personally and culturally congruent ways of challenging oppression.

Recent Oppressive Events

Over the past several months, there has been an onslaught of hate crimes perpetrated on campuses throughout California. Early in the year, someone spray-painted a swastika on a UC Davis campus building and a month later, a swastika was found carved in the dorm room of a Jewish student at UC Davis. During Black History month, a noose was found hanging in the library at UC San Diego. In March and at UC Davis, anti-gay slogans were found spray-painted on the exterior of the LGBT center. At UC Riverside, two students were physically assaulted by three people who were hurling anti-gay comments at them both before and during the assault. In April, a transgender student was attacked in a restroom and the word “it” was carved in the chest at California State University at Long Beach. At the University of Missouri, students spread cotton balls outside of the Black Culture Center. Unfortunately, these are just a few of the many, many hate crimes that occur both in California and across the nation.

As frightening to our sense of safety and worthy of our indignation is the passing of the SB 1070 Immigration Bill in Arizona in April. Consistent with our personal views, AAPA’s official position on this law is that it will “inevitably be a form of racial profiling, discrimination, and hostility toward racial and ethnic minority group members” and there is significant concern that “anti-immigrant sentiments that underlie this Arizona legislation would put Asian American and Latino communities at increased risk of harassment and discrimination.”

Personally and Culturally Congruent Ways of Challenging Oppression

How does challenging oppression interact with some of the values that many Asian American women hold such as maintaining harmony, saving face, and collectivism? As social-justice oriented AAPI women who value relationships and harmony, how do we make our voices be heard in the face of bigotry, hatred, and prejudice? We pose these questions because we sometimes feel slightly stuck as relational, harmony-oriented AAPI women about how best to challenge oppression.

To read entire article click here.

Voices Rising

2010-06-06T18:05:00.001-07:00

- by Stacey Prince

On May 29 Liz Goodwin, Anne Phillips and I attended the seventh event by Voices Rising. This organization was founded by poet/performer/event producer Storme Webber, with fantastic programmatic support including graphics, marketing, organizing, and photography from Naomi Ishisaka. Voices Rising has become the premiere showcase for LGBTQ artists of color in the Pacific Northwest. This time their performance took place at Southside Commons, a renovated church in Columbia City that has become home to several progressive nonprofit and grassroots organizations dedicated to social, racial and economic justice.

The performance featured artists from Seattle, California and Chicago who combined spoken word with music, song, and video. It was a powerful, moving, and electrifying night. Here is one audience member comment that captures well the essence of the night:

Voices Rising is an essential cultural event highlighting the truth and culture, spirit and art of people that are marginalized even within an already marginalized community. Queer folks of color must be heard in order to bring to light a fuller diversity within the queer community and culture.

Reprinted here with permission is one piece that was performed by Malkia Cyril, an artist, activist and journalist from Oakland, California.

The Redemption of My Criminal Body

by Malkia Amala Cyril aka Red Son Rise
June 2009

run run my momma say mourner run
beautiful butch and black
welcome the Native son
Oh Pirates yes they rob I
this black woman’s body I got been
cannon shot and systematically spread
over centuries of dead gospel lined with living truth
the way I hurt is living proof that I was
raped as a child
but I’d still rather be nine
so I could be three sides of three dimensions at the same time
cause/we been cannibalized burned alive beaten alive till God cried out
we been hog tied convicted before we was tried by
stacked juries laced with white power tracks
I wanna paint y’all in color but can’t find you in black
And I need y’all back homeys to show me how
I lost my soft places between then and now

Oh Pirates yes they rob I
Stole I to the merchant ship
Minutes after they took I
From the bottomless pit

To read entire post click here.

ADWAS Strength and Courage Benefit Luncheon

2010-05-31T07:16:00.001-07:00

by Anne Phillips and Stacey Prince

On May 5, 2010 I was invited by Anne Phillips and her partner Carol Brown to attend the annual benefit event for Abused Deaf Women’s Advocacy Services (ADWAS). ADWAS provides services to Deaf and Deaf/Blind women who are victims/survivors of sexual assault, domestic violence, and stalking. As many of you may remember our very first TJP (then Limen Group) retreat was held at their Seattle transitional housing residence, and Anne’s partner Carol is their Donor Coordinator. This event was one of their annual fundraisers. There will also be an auction in October that you are all more than welcome to attend. The luncheon also honored Marilyn J. Smith, who has been their Executive Director and founder for the last 24 years and is retiring in 2011.

Marilyn founded ADWAS 25 years ago out of a need she saw for women who were Deaf and Deaf/Blind survivors of sexual assault. In her address she discussed some of the profound gaps in service for such women, and their children. For example, when police respond to a call regarding a domestic violence incident between a deaf woman and her hearing partner, they will sometimes go to the residence with no interpreter. Due to hearing oppression, often the person who is Deaf is arrested because the hearing police do not know what else to do. Because they do not take the extra time to work together with everyone involved, they have been often known to take the "easy" route and communicate with the person they are able to, which in turn means arresting the person who is Deaf. Like any marginalized group, the Deaf community is small, and therefore communication travels quickly across the country. As Marilyn joked, "Deaf people invented email/texts etc. way before hearing people did". As a result, it is often not an option for a Deaf person to leave town for "safety" by disappearing into a new life. If one Deaf person knows where you are, many know.

Marilyn spoke of how ADWAS grew over the years--the staff would identify a need, and a new service would be developed. In addition to advocacy and counseling, they now have a transitional housing facility, services for children, a positive parenting program, and a variety of education and consultation programs. You can learn more about them at www.adwas.org.

To read entire article click here.

The past didn't go anywhere: Working to reduce anti-semitism

2010-05-23T17:15:00.000-07:00

by Keren Lehavot

Part of our work as advocates and activists is to understand various systems of oppression; how they impact others, ourselves, and the world; and to make whatever difference we can using our knowledge and skills. When I came across The Past Didn’t Go Anywhere: Making Resistance to Antisemitism Part of All of Our Movements by April Rosenblum, I felt like I came across a gem that put a bright and insightful light to an often hushed topic. The pamphlet defines anti-Semitism, highlights ways in which it is still a world problem, reviews relevant and recent history, and argues for the need to recognize and incorporate anti-Jewish oppression in our activist work at the same time that we acknowledge other systems of oppression and criticize Israeli policies. One of the enlightening pieces of the pamphlet reads:

Anti-Jewish oppression has been around a long time - it became government practice in Christian society about 1,700 years ago and only stopped having official Vatican approval in 1965. But when anti-Jewish oppression isn’t at its most brutal, it can be really hard to see. How come this oppression can seem so invisible?

Partly it’s that it allows Jews success. Many oppressions rely on keeping a targeted group of people poor, uneducated, designated non-white, or otherwise 'at the bottom.’ Anti-Jewish oppression doesn’t depend on that. Although at many times it has kept Jews in poverty or designated non-white, these have been “optional” features. Because the point of anti-Jewish oppression is to keep a Jewish face in front, so that Jews, instead of ruling classes, become the target for peoples’ rage, it works even more smoothly when Jews are allowed some success, and can be perceived as the ones “in charge” by other oppressed groups.

Partly it’s that it moves in cycles. Because it can allow Jews to ‘move up,’ antisemitism is cyclical: Attacks come in waves; but each time things calm down and Jews are able to blend in or succeed in society again, it gives the appearance that anti-Semitism is 'over.' In some of the most famous examples of anti-Jewish expulsion and mass murder (i.e., medieval Spain or modern Germany), just prior to the attacks, Jews appeared to be one of society’s most successful, comfortable, well-integrated minorities.

I appreciated the complex, rich views offered on a complicated, and often heated, topic. Understanding and learning about ways in which unique oppressions show up enriches my personal life (e.g., how do I understand this as a Jewish, Israeli-born woman? How does it resonate with my experience? How can I use it in a way that is empowering, that can empower others?) and impacts my perspective and actions in other social movements. If you are interested in reading the pamphlet, a link is available here.

Keeping the Faith: The Prison Project

2010-05-16T18:58:00.000-07:00

by Stacey Prince

I have followed the visionary Seattle-based choreographer Pat Graney for years. She is probably one of the most innovative modern dance and performance choreographers around. Perhaps some of you were lucky enough to attend the incredible event she orchestrated in Magnuson Park in the mid-90’s, a huge undertaking called “Movement Meditation” with dancers and martial artists moving in waves across the hillside, all accompanied by a giant, 180 foot string instrument.

Recently I had the opportunity to attend another Pat Graney event, and this one was even more astounding. For the past 15 years, she has been working with prison inmates on workshops in dance, art and spoken word, all culminating in an annual performance. “Keeping the Faith: The Prison Project” is:

A program designed to provide positive, creative, and life-affirming experiences for women who are currently incarcerated or in pre-release programs in Washington State. Project Director Pat Graney has developed this program with the following emphases:

1. Explore issues of self-esteem through the development of autobiographical material and the acquisition of performance skills.
2. Experience re-integration with a diverse group of women to build cooperation and mutual respect through partnering and other performance structures.
3. Open pathways for individuals and groups to go inside the prison environment and interface with members of that community. [excerpted from the 2010 program]

To read entire article click here.

powercube.net - Understanding Power for Social Change

2010-05-11T10:44:00.000-07:00

For those of you interested in theory and practice about power relations in interpersonal and organizational dynamics, check this out. It's another way to think about and address power.

Description:

We are excited to announce a new online resource on power analysis for social change: http://www.powercube.net is live and ready to use! Please feel free share with interested people and networks. Powercube.net has creative commons copyright which means you can share and adapt the work as long as it is attributed, not used for commercial purposes and shared
onwards in the same way.

Powercube.net is a response to requests from many people for more practical and conceptual methods, materials and resources to help them think about and respond to power relations within their organizations and within wider social and political spaces and institutions.

The new site is a collective effort, representing contributions from members of the Participation, Power and Social Change team at IDS as well as a number of others from social movements, NGOs, civil society organisation and donor agencies across the world. Many contributors to the website participated in a workshop at IDS on ‘Power analysis in practice’ in June 2009.

The link is:

http://www.powercube.net/

Revisiting the Body

2010-05-02T18:22:00.000-07:00

by Stacey Prince

It is a rare and beautiful thing when you attend a CE conference and everything comes together: professional learning, personal relevance, and interpersonal connection all rolled into one. Such was the case for me last Monday, April 26 when I attended the Generative Somatics workshop facilitated by Staci Haines. The workshop felt so relevant to our work in TJP, my own work as a therapist and activist, and was emotionally and interpersonally powerful as well. While this will not be an exhaustive review of the material, I hope to share an overview and some personal impressions here, and invite other attendees to do the same.

Staci Haines co-facilitated this event with Vassilisa Johri; both live in San Francisco and are deeply involved in healing and activist work. The event was co-sponsored by TJP and was skillfully organized by TJP members Nathan Shara and Briana Herman-Brand. About 70 advocates, activists, body workers, social workers and psychotherapists attended. Staci Haines founded this approach to treating trauma in part because she felt (and research supports) that talk therapy alone often does not sufficiently impact the long-term emotional, physiological, and cognitive impacts of trauma. “Memory lives in the muscle” says Richard Strozzi-Heckler, PhD, founder of the Strozzi Institute (a forerunner of Generative Somatics), and this is one of the core principles of Generative Somatics. Since memory lives in the body, uncovering and recovering from memory must also be rooted in the body. Generative Somatics therefore focuses on the soma, the living organism in its wholeness. But Haines emphasizes that while body-centered approaches such as mindfulness meditation are becoming popularized in mainstream psychology, just because the body is mentioned does not mean that a particular approach is somatics. Body awareness is just one component, along with somatic opening and somatic practices, and all within a social context, that comprise Generative Somatics. I will talk about what each of these means later on.

To read entire article click here.

Healing Sex: A Mind Body Approach to Healing Sexual Trauma

2010-04-27T23:11:00.000-07:00

On April 26 TJP had the great honor of co-sponsoring an all-day workshop with Staci Haines, founder of Generative Somatics. The workshop was attended by a large group of body workers, activists, advocates, mental health professionals and healers. It was intense, invigorating, and incredibly relevant to the work we are trying to do in TJP. Here we reprint, with her permission, the introduction to her book entitled Healing sex: A mind body approach to healing trauma. We hope to follow up with some more personal pieces about participants' experiences at the workshop.

Introduction to the Second Edition

Staci K. Haines

In 1999, when this book was first published as The Survivor’s Guide to Sex: How to Have an Empowered Sex Life after Child Sexual Abuse, I haggled over the title with the publisher. I wanted the word somatics in the title; the publisher understandably said no one would know what that meant. The next round continued over the term trauma and whether people would understand that word in the context of child sexual abuse. Now, here we are eight years later, and trauma is a more commonplace concept. Well beyond the boundaries of psychology, the general public uses the term to describe anything from the impact of war on soldiers and civilians to the intimate traumas of domestic violence and sexual abuse. And while somatics doesn’t roll off of everyone’s tongues, mind/body integration is recognized as something relevant to healing and learning.

To read this introduction, click here.

If you do one thing today...

2010-04-19T21:57:00.000-07:00

by Stacey Prince

Dear Allies,

If you do one thing today to work on your allyship skills, I hope it will be to watch this brief, 13 minute video. It contains excerpts from the keynote speech given by Dr. Omi Osun Joni L. Jones, Director of the John L. Warfield Center for African and African American Studies at the University of Texas / Austin at the 17th Annual Emerging Scholarship in Women’s and Gender Studies Conference in February of 2010. Dr. Jones suggests 6 rules for allies (across ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, nationality, religion, etc.). The rules include going beyond being “liberal” (being willing to be a warrior for equality), speaking up and naming injustice when you see it, never asking a person in an oppressed group to “be patient,” recognizing the new, more subtle and insidious forms of racisim/sexism/homophobia (as opposed to some of the more overt and egregious forms of discrimination in the past), welcoming the feedback when someone calls you out on your own racism/sexism/homophobia, and considering the transgressive power of alternative, non-traditional modalities and strategies to undo systems of oppression.

But please don’t take my word for it, and just watch this 13 minute video--Dr. Jones elaborates on these rules for allies with power, humor and passion. Her words inspire and challenge without shaming. The transcript is great, too (and contains material not given in the excerpted video) but the video is terrific. We are all allies to someone… I hope you’ll check this out.

To view video click here.

To view transcript click here.

Dual Relationships (Life in a Small Town)

2010-04-12T13:56:00.001-07:00

by Stacey Prince

The American Psychological Association’s official stance on dual relationships is to try to avoid them. Associations with clients that extend beyond the therapy relationship have the potential to be exploitive, harmful, and at the very least confusing. This includes friendships, business relationships, and certainly sexual relationships, which are categorically prohibited with both former and current clients, for obvious and sound reasons.

However, the reality is that in certain communities paths can cross in ways that create sometimes unavoidable dual relationships. For example, if you are the only mental health professional in a rural community who treats a particular disorder, you may end up providing psychotherapy to someone with whom you have another type of association as well (for example, your child’s schoolteacher, or the owner of a local business you frequent). In these situations the APA ethical guidelines encourage us to carefully consider the pros and cons of such relationships, weighing the necessity of treatment and availability of alternatives against the potential risks. The guidelines suggest that multiple relationships that would not reasonably be expected to cause impairment or risk exploitation or harm are not necessarily unethical, but that the clinician should carefully consider all potential outcomes when entering into such relationships.

Another community in which dual relationships are sometimes unavoidable is the LGBT community. Even in a sizable city such as Seattle, clients and therapists frequently run into each other at LGBT social and political events, there may be a higher incidence of intentional dual relationships when therapists wish to support LGBT owned businesses, and we more often find ourselves in the awkward situation of dating someone who is friends with (or once dated, or once was the client or therapist of) one’s own client or therapist. In an article on this topic Laura Brown (1998) referred to lesbian and gay communities as “sociological and psychological small towns,” in which members frequently and unavoidably cross paths.

To read entire article click here.

No More Blank Slate

2010-04-05T18:47:00.001-07:00

by Stacey Prince

Life as a psychotherapist in the internet age has changed quite a bit as a result of the proliferation of social networking sites, use of the web as a resource to locate treatment providers, and sites like YouTube that can take anything mundane and make it go viral. Used to be, when someone came in to see me for an initial session they knew nothing about me except perhaps what they had heard from a friend who referred them, or what they gathered in our phone conversations to set up the appointment. Now, not only do they have the intentional communication of information about me through my website (which includes, as it does for most of us, a fair amount of information about my background, education, orientation to psychotherapy, a link to my CV, etc.) but they also have access to a whole bunch of unintentionally communicated information about me.

For example, there is the video my partner and I filmed for Equal Rights Washington. A series of these videos, entitled “One minute for marriage,” were filmed during the campaign to support domestic partner laws in WA State. The one of my partner and I shows us up close and personal (I wish that guy had backed away with the camera just a little bit!) talking about why we think DP laws are important in general, as well as a few personal experiences that have led us to want greater protections to be legislated. In the end, we kiss. Several clients have commented on the video, which was posted on ERW’s home page and somehow, like so many things, ended up on YouTube. 256 views—yikes!

To read entire article click here.

Transcending Diagnoses

2010-03-31T12:43:00.000-07:00

by Stacey Prince

One place where issues of politics, social justice and mental health come together in profound and impactful ways is in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM), the diagnostic "bible" used by medical and mental health professionals to identify psychiatric disorders. Although its authors strive to be value-free and scientifically based, the DSM is unavoidably influenced by cultural norms, and conversely it influences how society determines what is normal, pathological, or deviant. On the flip side, the DSM can be a positive influence when it increases access to appropriate care (for example, insurance companies typically require a diagnosis in order to reimburse for treatment) and legitimizes previously unrecognized suffering (such as when PTSD was coined and identified as a common consequence of combat trauma for Vietnam veterans).

The next version of the DSM, the DSM-5, is currently being drafted and is scheduled for release in 2013. I have been watching closely the controversy surrounding one particular diagnosis and its proposed revisions in the DSM-5. Gender Identity Disorder (GID) is used to identify individuals whose internal experience of gender and/or desired gender expression is opposite that of their biological sex or gender assigned at birth--individuals who often identify as "transgender". From the beginning there has been a great deal of controversy around the GID diagnosis. At the most basic level, the very existence of the diagnosis implies that significant gender variance is pathological. This not only adds fuel to the fire for those who stigmatize, discriminate against and harass gender non-conforming individuals, but also lends credence to efforts to change or "convert" gender variant people, enforcing their conformity to their assigned birth sex. Further, the classification of gender variance as a mental disorder is used by some to deny transgender individuals basic civil rights and legal protections. These arguments against diagnostic criteria are similar to those around homosexuality, which was not removed from the DSM until 1973. (For those interested in this topic please see an excellent article by Jack Drescher offering a thorough review of the parallels and contrasts between GID and homosexuality with regard to diagnostic criteria and civil rights.)

To read entire post click here.

Perspectives on Social Justice: The fight to end colonization in the island-territory of Guahan

2010-03-28T10:46:00.000-07:00

by Hope A. Cristobal

The Insular Empire: America in the Marianas Islands documentary will be airing tonight 3/28 at 7pm on KCTS in Seattle. Here is a schedule of upcoming national PBS air dates.

I was 18 in the fall of 1996— “Rock the vote!” was in the air. MTV touted, “Choose or Lose!” Unfortunately that year, I was about to be labeled the “loser,” not by my choice, however, but by the choice made for me by the United States Department of the Interior.

I am an indigenous Chamoru from the island of Guam (the pronunciation given to the island by foreigners). Guahan, is the actual name given by the indigenous people—it means, “We have.”

“Do you guys wear grass skirts?...Do you even have stop lights there?…What do you call your tribe?...Wow, you speak such good English!” These were common questions I encountered when I moved to Washington State at the age of 17. You see, for the first 17 years of my life, I grew up in a United States colony in the Pacific, and many Americans knew nothing of Guahan, so I did a lot to educate my college friends that year. Yes, Guahan is a colony—or politically termed, an Unincorporated Territory of the United States. This is a fancy name for a place where the people are “part of the United States,” and have American citizenship, but do not fall under the United States Constitution, and thus, do not share in the inherent rights afforded most citizens of this country. As a colony, the people of Guahan are governed and “cared for” by the Dept of the Interior—the same federal department that cares for all the national parks and endangered species.

To read entire post, click here.

Butch Voices Conference Closing Keynote

2010-03-22T09:28:00.000-07:00

From August 20-23rd Oakland hosted the 2009 Butch Voices conference featuring a series of workshops, lectures and community events designed to build confidence and a community among various types of self identified women ranging from Butches and Studs to Aggressives.

The conference drew an impressive roster of thinkers and activists to discuss ideas of gender, sexuality and social justice. Oakland's Malkia Cyril, a longtime media and community activist delivered the final keynote, which addresses individual freedoms and the work that still needs to be done to achieve them for all people.

To read the keynote, click here.

Somatics, Trauma and Resilience Workshop April 26th

2010-03-12T13:32:00.000-08:00

We are pleased to announce that Staci Haines will be offering a one-day workshop for therapists and advocates during her upcoming visit to Seattle in late April. In collaboration with the Therapeutic Justice Project, this Somatics, Trauma and Resilience workshop will be offered on April 26th, 2010 from 9am-5pm (location TBA). This workshop will be oriented towards therapists, social workers, advocates, and others working with survivors of trauma. Registration information is included in the attached announcement.

NASCAR in Vegas (and what it has to do with TJP)

2010-03-10T10:26:00.001-08:00

by Stacey Prince

On the last weekend in February I traveled with my partner Teri and 12 of our friends to Las Vegas to celebrate her 40th birthday. A decade earlier we celebrated her 30th there, and over the years Vegas has become a fun getaway destination for us, a guilty pleasure where we can eat great food, shop and gamble a little, see a show, and get some sun. This particular weekend was also NASCAR weekend, so lots of racecar fans were in town with us. We knew the hotels and casinos would be crowded as a result; what we didn’t expect was how much homophobia and gender queer phobia we would experience.

Vegas is a very gendered city. The men are men and the women (well, some of them anyway) have heels and cleavage. Under the best of circumstances my partner and I get some stares there. On this particular weekend, the experience was almost constant. On the day we arrived, approaching the hotel registration desk we were called "gentlemen" by a staff member--apparently our short haircuts and androgynous Seattle clothing were too much of a gender violation. Walking from the elevator to a restaurant for breakfast, shopping in the malls, hanging out at a bar, we got stared at so much that I jokingly asked my partner several times if I had toilet paper stuck to my shoe or was having a bad hair day or visibly displaying some other defect. The worst was on the night we were set to go to a very lovely Italian restaurant for her big birthday dinner. We were both dressed to the max (which is a big deal coming from Seattle, land of fleece and skechers). Teri had on a nice pair of dress pants and a button-down shirt, and I was wearing a dress and sporting, well, cleavage and heels. I can honestly say that I do not remember ever being gawked at as much as we were that night, walking the long path through the casino to the restaurant. Much as I would like to think it was just because we were such an attractive couple, I know this was not the case; we were an easily identified, lesbian couple who not only were flaunting our same-sex relationship status, but also were butching and femming out about as much as we ever do. It was uncomfortable. It made me think of all of the studies I’ve read about how threatening gender-atypical behavior is, and how that rather than someone’s gayness is often the provocation for harassment and violence. I found myself staring back at people defiantly, challenging them to look away—or to say something to us, so we could have an actual confrontation instead of this wordless staring.

To read entire post click here.

Generative Somatics is coming to Seattle!!!

2010-03-01T20:43:00.000-08:00

-- APPLICATIONS DUE MARCH 5TH --

Dear friends and community members,

We are very excited to announce that Generative Somatics is coming to Seattle! Generative Somatics offers a body-centered framework for individual and collective healing, within a social movement context. This body of work was developed by Staci Haines, author of The Survivor’s Guide to Sex and co-founder of Generation Five, an organization committed to ending the sexual abuse of children within five generations.

This spring Staci will be making a rare visit to Seattle to hold a 3-day intensive in Somatics, Trauma, and Social Justice. This course will introduce somatics as a strategy for effectively addressing the impacts of both individual and collective trauma, while organizing for sustainable social change. This is a unique opportunity to build this work in Seattle and we hope that you will consider joining us!

To read this entire post, click here.

Midwives of Peace

2010-02-21T18:48:00.000-08:00

by Stacey Prince

At the Association for Women in Psychology conference last weekend I met a woman named Yvette Nahmia-Messinas, who had traveled from Israel to Portland, OR to attend the conference. Yvette is a mother of three daughters, Reiki master, writer, and therapist. She holds a BA in Psychology and a Master's Degree in Jewish Civilization. In 2005, along with her husband, "green" architect Elias Messinas, she established the environmental NGO Ecoweek to help raise awareness on environmental issues (www.ecoweek.org).

Since 1995 Yvette has participated in and led women's groups in both Israel and Greece. One such event was the first in series of retreats of the Joint Venture for Peace. The 2-day retreat brought together 40 Israeli and Palestinian women to meet each other and consider possible business ventures that they could carry out as partners. After the retreat she was inspired to write a series of poems, entitled, They all sound like love songs: Women healing Israeli-Palestinian relations. At Shabbat services at the conference, she shared these beautiful and moving poems with us. Here is my favorite of the poems, reprinted with her permission:

They All Sound Like Love Songs

They all sound like love songs
from the yearning to meet you,
know you, connect to you, love you.
They have tried to keep us away for so long.
Roadblocks,
barriers,
borders,
checkpoints
all aiming to stop
the flow of love and friendship,
peace and understanding,
humanness and common sense of us women.

To read entire article click here.

Hanging out with a bunch of cool feminists in Portland

2010-02-15T13:53:00.000-08:00

by Stacey Prince

This past weekend I traveled to Portland to attend the annual convention of Association for Women in Psychology. I haven’t been to this conference in 10 years, and I loved it—it’s such a shot in the arm of inspiration and connection, simultaneously stimulating and exhausting. Shortly after arriving on Friday I presented a paper on being a psychologist-activist and integrating advocacy into psychotherapy. My co- presenters focused on building resiliency among individuals faced with negative decisions regarding LGBT rights, and the impact of such decisions on our straight allies and family members.

To read entire article click here.

Running Amok

2010-02-10T07:03:00.000-08:00

by Stacey Prince

A disturbing article appeared in the New York Times in January. Entitled The Americanization of Mental Illness and written by Ethan Watters, the article outlines an aspect of American-led globalization that is especially relevant to TJP. He explains how mental illness is much more culturally influenced than the scientific community would like to admit, and how, in recent years, the American version of mental illness has begun to impact not only diagnostic practices but actual symptom expression in cultures where formerly indigenous forms of illness and healing existed.

Watters begins by citing research amassed by anthropologists and cross-cultural psychiatrists indicating that mental illnesses have not been consistent over time and place but instead are very much influenced by the culture in which they occur. A classic example that many of us have heard of is amok, a phenomenon seen in which individuals suffer "murderous rage followed by amnesia". This condition is seen solely in cultures in Southeast Asia. Similarly, hysterical leg paralysis, a form of what would now be called conversion disorder, existed among thousands of women in the late 19th century, and (the author notes) seemed to be a poignant expression of the restrictions set on women's social roles during that time.

To read entire article click here.

Racial Equity Report Card: Washington gets a D

2010-01-31T07:26:00.000-08:00

by Stacey Prince

Last week on Martin Luther King Day, the Northwest Federation of Community Organizations (NWFCO), a coalition of over 20 organizations working to promote racial, economic and social equity, released the first ever Washington State Legislative Report Card on Racial Equity. The purpose of the report was to evaluate WA legislature for its actions in 2009 that either supported or undermined racial equity in our state. This is an amazing document, with an abundance of information gathered in a succinct, 50 page report. I encourage you to read the report yourself (a link to it is available at http://washingtoncan.org/) but here would like to provide a brief summary to highlight some findings and hopefully peak your interest.

The report begins by providing an overview of the current make-up of Washington state residents by county, showing the percentage of people of color, immigrants, and non-native English speakers in our state. This review underscores the fact that people of color are an increasingly large proportion of residents in WA state. It then reviews current racial disparities in our state, some of which are increasing. For example, median income, number of families without health insurance, and high school drop-out rates are increasing at a faster rate for people of color than for whites. The authors make the point that our Governor, representatives and senators have multiple opportunities every year to positively impact racial disparities. This report card is an effort to evaluate how they did in 2009.

To read entire article click here.

Tips for effective political advocacy

2010-01-24T08:14:00.001-08:00

by Stacey Prince

You are having dinner with your in-laws, who live in the Southwest, and one of them makes a derogatory comment about Mexican immigrants, blaming them for increased crime in the neighborhood. He make no reference to factors such as poverty or lack of availability of legal employment, nor does he back up his contention that it is in fact Mexican immigrants who are to blame for the increased crime rates. Instead he comments on the need for the US government to provide more stringent "protection against illegals". You are steaming inside but wonder how you can possibly make your point when you know they are so entrenched in their views.

You are angry that your city's new policy on the homeless has led to the closure of several encampments that previously provided some safety and community. You decide to write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper in support of legally recognized camps and other services for homeless individuals and families.

You have the opportunity to go to your state Capitol to lobby for a particular piece of legislation you feel very strongly about. You know you will likely have 5 minutes or less to make your point to your local congressperson before the next wave of visitors gets their turn.

Besides being anxiety producing (at least for me), what do these scenarios have in common? They are all about getting your message across in an effective way, a way that has credibility, will be heard by the recipient, is impassioned enough to connect with the listener but not so emotional that it gets dismissed. I am going to loosely call this advocacy. Though we usually think of advocacy as the more formal process of trying to influence decisions in a political arena, such as is described in the last example above, one can also advocate with family members, colleagues, through the media, etc. Wikipedia defines advocacy as "a deliberate process of speaking out on issues of concern in order to exert some influence on behalf of ideas or persons".

To read entire article click here.

My favorite article of 2010

2010-01-18T08:31:00.001-08:00

by Stacey Prince

I know, I know, it's only January! But I just randomly stumbled across this article that was so good that I wanted to share it with you and it holds the temporary status of my favorite article of the year. The article, by Roderick Watts, is entitled Integrating Social Justice and Psychology and appeared in The Counseling Psychologist (2004, Issue 32, p. 855).

In the article the author grapples, as many of us do, with the notion that a "context free" understanding of individual functioning and well-being continues to dominate traditional psychology, focusing primarily on intrapsychic or at the most interpersonal behavior, and ignoring critical contextual variables such as racism, sexism, homophobia, poverty, and oppression in general. The article states that multiculturalism is a step in the right direction, but still sometimes has a tendency to minimize analysis of power and social inequities. He suggests that multiculturalism is "neither the first nor the only thing people with a history of oppression require for liberation" (p. 855).

However, rather than completely eschewing the concepts of traditional and multicultural psychology, he suggests a rethinking of concepts, what he calls an "upscaling" to reframe concepts in sociopolitical terms. He talks about several forms of such reframing. The first and least drastic he terms "conceptual rehabilitation," in which the new concept maintains the essence of the old, but scales it up to look beyond the micro (or intrapsychic) level of analysis. A good example of this is mapping the idea of self-efficacy onto the community, rather than individual, level of functioning and thus discussing collective efficacy. The upscaled concept address the social context of behavior, rather than considering the individual's behavior in a social vacuum.

To read entire article click here.

Social Class and Finances Related to Mental Health

2010-01-14T13:05:00.000-08:00

Posted by Anne Phillips

The article posted below discusses the revelation of combining financial planning with mental health therapy. Currently, and historically,( it is of no surprise to you TJP readers), folks struggling with poverty are experiencing symptoms of depression and anxiety, so the idea came to coach financial planners with mental health training.

TJP already recognizes how societal inequality, poverty, injustice are used as justifications to blame individual peoples for their struggles and "mental health" symptoms. The purpose of TJP is to stop blaming and/or ignoring the individual because "they" have the problem and instead recognize "we" all have the responsibility of systematic inequalities to address. If mental health and the healing arts were truly inclusive of the impact of the collective, what we call mental health today would be completely redefined.

http://www.newson6.com/Global/story.asp?S=11629551

One example of possibilities to draw from is from author and activist, Urvashi Vaid. She talks about the movement of "social capitalism" -that capitalism will not die, but equitable shared capitalism for all to take part in is possible, instead of the monopolies that currently control the markets. Ms. Vaid is the author of the book, Virtual Equality: The Mainstreaming of Gay and Lesbian Liberation.

Why soldiers in school are an injustice to all

2009-12-29T18:48:00.000-08:00

by Kathy Barker

Counter-military recruiting in high schools is “my” social justice issue. It may strike many as a niche issue, an orphan issue, but I see it as a wedge to frame and integrate and confront many of deep and challenging problems of our society.

The USA is one of two United Nations members (Somalia is the other) that haven’t ratified the 1989 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. One reason is that an "optional protocol" to the convention ensures "persons who have not attained the age of 18 years are not compulsorily recruited into their armed forces” – and the USA military recruits and signs up minors.

We are wrapped up in two wars for which the military needs soldiers. The draft was suspended in 1973, and the Department of Defense, with its 700 plus bases all over the world, was having trouble meeting its quotas even before our current wars. High schools were the desired hunting grounds, and while many high schools gave military recruiters free reign in the schools, others were not as compliant.

To read entire article click here.

Socio Cultural Therapeutic Consult Group

2009-12-28T20:20:00.000-08:00

TJP's socio-cultural therapeutic consult group has begun. Please consider joining us. It is an open group for now, but it will unlikely stay that way. To participate, contact Anne - annelphillips@gmail.com.

Come and have the experience of expanding your understanding of you and your clients' symptoms through the lens of oppression's impact by paying attention to our cognitive, emotional and somatic minds.

Our next meeting is January 7th. We meet every first Thursday of the month from 9:15-10:45am.

TJP 2009 Year in Review

2009-12-27T20:10:00.001-08:00

As the year draws to a close, we would like to reflect on where Therapeutic Justice Project has been in its first full year of existence, as well as look ahead to plans for next year. Consider this our holiday card to you, our supporters and participants who have helped to get this project off the ground.

I would like to name TJP’s first year the year of Limen. As most of you know, this was the name we started with, and in many ways it perfectly describes our first year. Limen means in between, threshold, and moment of transformation. This was the year we moved between being an idea and being an actual entity; we explored the territory between mental health and social justice; we crossed the threshold into existence and were transformed collectively in the process. Our name has since changed to Therapeutic Justice Project, which so aptly describes the work we want to do together, but Limen was our beginning.

To read entire article click here.

Where the Limen Things Are

2009-12-18T08:50:00.001-08:00

by Stacey Prince

I don’t know how many of you have seen Where the Wild Things Are, but I thought it was a wonderful film and a brilliant adaptation of one of my favorite childhood books. There are many ways to interpret the story. Some reviewers have seen it as a simple depiction of the conflicts of childhood, including loneliness, disempowerment, and sibling rivalry. Others see a Freudian portrayal of Oedipal jealousy (mom, separated from the protagonist’s father, has a new boyfriend and her attention is diverted away from her son Max). Still others see in the story a tale of colonialism and cultural imperialism (the dominant culture sends in a ‘king’ to tame the wild things and take over the land). But all I could think of as I watched the movie was our group, TJP (which as many of you know started out as Limen), and how it related to us.

To read entire article click here.

Cristien Storm's new book

2009-12-16T17:12:00.000-08:00

Congratulations to TJP member Cristien Storm who has published a book! Full description is below, and see the announcements column to the right for details regarding her book release party in January.

Living In Liberation: Boundary Setting, Self Care, & Social Change

What happens when a collection of artists, musicians, and radical activists imagine self defense as a revolutionary tool for social justice? What happens when this group, working for social change, holds a variety of collective visions of what safety and security mean that embody the complexity of how privilege and oppression operate? What happens when someone envisions boundary setting, self care and self defense that not only keep individuals safe, but also help energize progressive social movements making them more vibrant and resilient? For the past twenty years, Cristien Storm has grappled with these questions as a self defense instructor, a writer, musician, therapist, activist, survivor, partner, friend and community member.

To read the entire article click here.

The Road - A Movie Review

2009-11-30T18:57:00.000-08:00

by Liz Goodwin

Last weekend, a couple friends and I took the Light Rail downtown and saw The Road. A couple of us had read the book and knew that we'd either be disappointed by a Hollywood style version of this Apocalyptic tale or we'd really be in trouble. For, if the movie could tell Cormac McCarthy's story even close to the way the book could, it would surely be upsetting. Surprisingly, our hearts were broken - and opened - for yet a second time around as we watched The Road on film.

For those of you unfamiliar with the plot, The Road is about a man and his son surviving in a post-apocalyptic world. Born into the first sounds of chaos and the barren reality of death - the result of what could be a nuclear war or possibly an environmental destruction - the boy follows his father as they escape home and head South on "The Road." As this quote from the book describes: "Then they set out along the blacktop in the gunmetal light, shuffling through the ash, each the other's world entire."

To read entire article, click here.

Celluloid Reflections

2009-11-24T10:46:00.001-08:00

by Stacey Prince

The first time I saw my identity as a lesbian woman reflected on film, it was a revelation. It was in Boston, about 23 years ago, the movie was Desert Hearts, and I was sitting way in the back (because the theater was packed) with my girlfriend at the time. I started crying about half an hour into the movie, and pretty much didn’t stop. It wasn’t so much anything about the movie itself (those of you who have seen it know it is not a cinematic masterpiece) but the experience of seeing my own identity reflected on that giant screen was so profound, I couldn’t contain my emotions. I wept with joy, with pain at the uncertainty of it all (I had come out to myself, but not yet to my parents or extended family) and with gratitude.

Last night, watching A Serious Man with my partner and two friends, I had a very different experience. The movie is the Coen Brothers’ latest, and is the first where they have delved deeply into their own Jewish identity, which has been only referenced in their previous films.

To read entire article click here.

Talk Therapy

2009-11-16T14:12:00.000-08:00

by Stacey Prince

On November 13 I attended the Bent Writing Institute's 2009 Mentor Showcase, an event showcasing 22 poets and spoken word performers, as well as honoring a published writer who was a guest teacher this past year. I have known about Bent, the only queer writing institute in the country, for several years, but have never attended one of their events. Thank you to TJP member Christy Hofsess for telling us about it; it was fantastic and one of the most moving, inspiring and energizing arts events I have attended in a long time.

Right off the bat the fabulous emcee had us laughing. The event was a fundraiser for Bent and he encouraged us to buy treats during the admission, including some non-vegan cupcakes for which he assured us "no animal was harmed, just mildly inconvenienced". Then the lights went down and the poetry began. We were stunned by the beauty, strength, and truth of the words. Gay, lesbian, bi, trans, people of color, disabled, recovering from substance abuse, childhood abuse--all told their stories, stories that don't often get told, in ways that made us laugh, cry, shake, gasp, and cheer. I hope the performers will forgive me for excerpting, out of context and probably not completely accurately, some of the phrases that stuck with me.

To read entire article click here.

Centro de Atencion Psicosocial – Roles for a Gringa Psychologist

2009-11-10T08:54:00.000-08:00

by Deborah DeWolfe

Stacey Prince asked if I would write a “brief blog post” about my work in Nicaragua. Since it is difficult for me to be “brief” about anything that I experienced in Nicaragua (except for maybe the heat), I offer the following. In the complex situations that we feel compelled to engage with, we all must grapple with “where do I start?” and “what seems most important?” These are my preliminary answers to those questions.

Each morning before 7AM, twenty to forty people line up outside of Centro de Atencion Psicosocial, the public mental health clinic in Leon, Nicaragua’s second largest city. The men, women and children waiting in line suffer from all manifestations of psychological and psychiatric distress – some in acute crisis. Many are accompanied by family members.

To read entire article click here.

For a flyer about Proyecto Oportunidad click here.

Courage to Love Retreat 2009

2009-11-09T10:06:00.000-08:00

by Liz Goodwin

Every fall, I attend Irene Michon’s Self Relations retreat for healers and psychotherapists: Courage to Love: From the Inside Out. Every year the experience frightens and amazes me. And this year was no different. What starts as the ordinary skepticism and anxiety, with questions like: Will it be engaging? Exposing?, within hours, inevitably shifts into an extraordinary experience.

Aside from a few separate exercises, most of retreat is spent being a therapist or client and debriefing the experience. Each of us joins a pod of three, acts as therapist twice, away from the large group, and acts as therapist or client once in the middle of the group. Irene offers grounding exercises and short talks that teach new concepts and affirm both the difficulty and value of the work. This year’s themes – beyond just the ongoing learning about Self Relations – were: moving beyond hope and fear and shadow work – looking at the positive attributes about ourselves that we are afraid to hold and project on to others.

Here I’d like to share some of what I learned and how it may relate to liberation psychology and TJP. I’ll start with a description of Self Relations.

To read entire article click here.

Where the psychological rubber hits the political road: Reflecting on Referendum 71

2009-11-07T17:58:00.000-08:00

by Stacey Prince

“What do psychology and politics have to do with one another, anyway?” This question comes up fairly often when I talk with some of my psychologist colleagues about my involvement with various political issues, particularly LGBTQ rights legislation. At this moment it looks like Washington state’s Referendum 71 has been approved. I will use it as an example of the profound ways that psychology and politics are interconnected, and the ways in which psychologists can be involved in supporting social change.

To read entire article, click here.

A Yoga Workshop Focusing on Trauma and Resiliency

2009-10-26T21:19:00.000-07:00

Upcoming Workshop - taught by Cristien Storm and Jenny Ingwersen

Saturday November 7, 1-3:30

Cost: sliding scale $20-$40

1205 East Pike Street - on Capitol Hill

"We will use yoga and therapeutic techniques to navigate through and around traumatic experiences within the body without being consumed by them. We will focus on developing understanding and control of the inner environment and our relationship to it."

Meditating on the (In)Justice System

2009-10-19T15:52:00.000-07:00

By Stacey Prince

On October 13 I attended an event that was organized by Therapeutic Justice Project member Cristien Storm and her colleague Kate Boyd, who together form the organization "If You Don’t They Will". This group trains individuals and organizations how to effectively identify and counter white nationalism and supports communities in reducing and responding to hate. The event, which was co-sponsored by TJP, was a screening of the film “The Dhamma Brothers: East meets west in the deep south” followed by a panel discussion. The film is a documentary first released in 2007 about the introduction of vipassana meditation practice into the rehabilitation program at a high security prison in Southern Alabama.

The film begins by introducing us to several men incarcerated in the prison, and giving us a little bit of background on each of them including descriptions of their crimes (all were incarcerated for murder). It then follows what happens as two outside meditation teachers come into the prison and do a 12-day silent retreat with the group of inmates who choose to participate. There are interviews with each of the men, some of their family members, as well as the warden, psychologist and other prison officials.

Without a critical analysis this film could be viewed in a very positive light. This would be especially true for those living from a dominant social awareness. The prison psychologist talks about two approaches to incarceration: lock individuals away and forget about them, or provide treatment and rehabilitation. Not only was this facility providing some treatment, but it was stepping pretty far outside of the box of traditional rehabilitation, by introducing an approach that is novel and progressive, especially in bible belt southern Alabama. Further, the film depicts the inmates as experiencing many benefits of the retreat and their continued meditation practice, including facing their crimes in a more honest way than they had before, and getting in touch with feelings of grief about losses they had experienced. The tone of the film suggested optimism that prison can be a healing place, and that meditation can be a valuable tool even in this unlikely setting.

However, there is a lot missing from this picture. In their invitation to the event Kate and Cristien highlighted the fact that so often trauma work is conceptualized on a very individual basis. Further, there is little analysis of the societal conditions that can lead to criminal behavior and incarceration and the ways that institutions such as prisons perpetuate abuse and violence. This analysis was starkly missing as we viewed the film: there was only passing reference to circumstances such as racism, lack of access to resources, family and community violence, and trauma that were likely antecedents to the mens’ behavior. Both their behavior and the treatment approach were conceptualized as intrapsychic: the problem, and the solution, lay within. Similarly, problems in the prison (gambling, substance use, prostitution, and violence) were passingly mentioned, but again seemed to be attributed to the mens' moral fiber rather than complex causality and existing in the context of systemic issues. Further, there was absolutely no mention of the prison system itself, and the financial and social agendas that might keep that system in place.

Also disturbing was the portrayal of meditation as almost an anesthetic, making the men more compliant and easier to get along with. There was a suggestion that meditation only got people in touch with the “softer” emotions such as sadness and self-compassion, and there was a lack of exploration of anger, at the injustice of their incarceration and/or the circumstances leading up to it.

After the film, a panel answered questions posed by both the event organizers and the audience. The panel consisted of four community activists with expertise in bringing a critical sociocultural analysis to healing work. It included: Sooja Kelsey, founder of the Race/Knowledge Project; Nathan Shara, social justice therapist and community educator (and TJP member); Shamira Shirdel, who works in anti-domestic violence advocacy for immigrant women; Elaine Waller-Rose, who does interreligious and intercultural work around overcoming racism. Much of the discussion centered on the prison industrial complex, including the need for a radical rethinking of how society deals with those who commit egregious crimes. The community accountability model was mentioned as one such alternative. We also discussed the need to link individual trauma work with radical social movement, in this case the prison abolition movement. Criticisms of the prison system include the fact that it has become a privatized, profit-driven industry more interested in making money and suppressing social problems such as racism, classism and poverty than in rehabilitation.

I had thought that the discussion would be focused primarily on the prison system and the lack of analysis in the film, but it actually ranged far beyond that. I very much appreciated the discussion of integrating individual healing with social movement work, and the idea of “self-care” as so much more than “going home and taking a bath with scented candles” so you can return to the movement. People shared ideas about how not to get frantic, stressed and overwhelmed in social movement work, including the importance of long-term visioning (Generation 5 being one great example of a group that is looking at what changes need to happen over 5 generations to end childhood sexual abuse), paying attention to our bodies and our emotional and physical needs, and bringing playfulness and joy into our work together.

We also talked about how trust building and the interpersonal work that goes on in groups is just as important as the work that gets done in the world. This last part was especially helpful to me, as I had very publically expressed some grief and frustration at our last retreat that we are spending so much time building our foundation, and not yet able to put our feet on the ground and do some work together. It is slowly sinking in that the work we are doing together —by building a trusting, cohesive group, one in which challenging discussions can take place around privilege and tokenizing and representation and leadership—is not separate from the work that we will do together out in the world, and this event’s discussion helped to solidify that.

The organizers of this event are "If You Don’t They Will," and I found myself musing about their name, what it might mean and how it relates to this film. If you don’t what, they will what? Some thoughts I had are that if people and systems who are marginalized don’t name and define yourselves, your self-worth, and your lived experience, they (society, authority figures, parents, schools, the justice system) will. And if you don’t focus on your own empowerment and work to change things for the better, they will work to maintain the status quo. And if you don’t work toward addressing systemic inequities, they will work toward maintaining privilege and control. Cristien and Kate, I don’t know if that’s what your name means (and I will ask you in person the next time I see you) but I want to thank you for bringing us together to share such a stimulating and supportive evening.

Name change and other retreat highlights

2009-10-15T16:44:00.000-07:00

Thank you to all of you who attended retreat four. It was dynamic, as usual, and, at least we hope, enriching as well. A detailed narrative is available here. Some highlights from the retreat are:

- Our group has a new name! We are now Therapeutic Justice Project. We feel this name captures well what we are trying to do, including infusing healing work with a social justice and anti-oppression focus, and bringing therapeutic healing to social change work. The name was unanimously approved by the group present at the retreat. If you weren't in attendance and have any objections to it please write to one of us, and in the future we will be sure to present major decisions to the entire group in advance of retreats, so you can give us feedback and your thoughts and feelings can be represented at the meeting if you are unable to attend.

- Note that you can now download a general TJP flyer, as well as a consult group flyer, directly from the blog (right-hand column under the vision/mission statement). We hope you will find the blog to be a place for connection, resources and information.

- A socioculturally focused psychotherapy consult group will begin in December, every 1st Thursday of the month, led by Anne Phillips, at her office, sliding scale $25-$50. For more information contact Anne at 206.297.5929.

- Starting in 2010, TJP will have annual dues of $5-$500 pay what you can. Dues for 2009 are also welcome.

- Decisions will continue to be consensus based and will typically involve the leadership council presenting a decision to the larger group for discussion. Your vote will count if you attend retreat (or register your thoughts with us beforehand, if unable to attend) and are a dues paying member. Your thoughts and feedback prior to a meeting will always be welcome and considered, regardless of attendance and dues status.

- We will be starting a new Leadership Council to steer the group and everyone interested in being part of the council is welcome to join us in the first meeting to determine the size, membership, and scope of this group. Our next step is to set the first leadership council meeting. Please let us know if you would like to attend and, if so, what are generally good times for you during the week.

We look forward to seeing you and/or hearing from you over the next couple of months. Please let us know if you would like to participate in the consult group, join the leadership council, or have any other questions.

Sister Helen Prejean Visits Seattle

2009-10-12T14:34:00.000-07:00

By Mara Collins

I attended a dinner where I heard about some on-the ground organizing taking place in the Northwest and the Rockies. To me it seems there appears to be some lack of communication about what work is happening and where it overlaps. That this may speak to the disengaged culture of this region. The Social Justice Fund, which used to be called A Territory Resource, recently joined forces with the Western States center to fund grassroots projects which have already proven they posses the momentum to change and implement policy. The schools were built, the predatory lenders were made to be accountable, etc. The funding of these groups is intended to build on the momentum generated by the election. We got to see a movie about the 9 regional organizations’ work. It was very cool to even know what is being done to eradicate poverty in Washington, specifically. And it was also very cool to learn about what is happening in Oregon, since that feels like my home more than any other place, even though I live in Seattle.

And then they served us some cheesecake and Sister Helen Prejean came up to the podium. I got the sense that people loved her immediately. Sister Helen is the main character from the movie Dead Man Walking where Susan Sarandon became close to a death row inmate during the months before his execution. She continues to do this work and has more recently written a book called Death of Innocents.

She talked about her experience of becoming politicized, about moving from the distant place of being a nun, separate, praying for people-to being with people and connecting with their suffering. That experience woke her up. She saw her friend’s child killed by a neighbor and said, “My mom never had to worry when I went out to play or my sister or brother whether I would be killed”. And how when Black people get killed there is no mention of it in the New Orleans Picayune, but when white people are killed it makes the front page.

She talked about the victim’s family getting ensnared in the politics of what was being called justice. Killing the perpetrator, the prosecuting attorneys said, was somehow to get justice for the lives lost. But how does that bring anybody back? she pointed out. I mean we all already know the death penalty is awful and off base, but she told it so well, it sunk in even deeper. She has a great way of moving so easily back and forth between story and message.

And then she talked about the experience of being the one person in the death house who looked at him with love as he was being executed. She was, to him, the face of Christ as the guy died. They do it in private, she told us, a private ritual of justice killing. And then she brings it home by –get this - making the link how our compliance with the death penalty just tills the soil for the cruel and inhumane torture of inmates at Guantanamo. We all just took it in the gut. She really nailed it beautifully. There is so much more, but that’s the gist.

She said that it might seem too overwhelming to imagine having to fix the whole machine, and hearing that definitely helped me. I for sure spin out into the idea that it’s all too big. Grab the rope where you are and start to pull, she told us. But I am not sure. Are we pulling our end of the ropes just by being therapists who utilize a sense of social justice? If we are politicized, but not lack a developed analysis, do we run the risk of doing more harm than good? How do we know whether we know enough to act? Do our gaps in knowledge give us permission to not take risks?

Ally is a Verb

2009-10-06T21:30:00.000-07:00

by Stacey Prince

In couples therapy there is a cliche that gets thrown around that "love is a verb, not a noun". Trite though it is the phrase does capture an important principle of relationship satisfaction, that to love someone requires repeated actions (internal and external) that are loving and that love is a process, not a commodity. Similarly, I am learning (and relearning and relearning) that to be an ally is a verb, a process, not a static quality or status that I possess. This learning can be painful and humbling but is so worth it.

My best (and hardest) learning takes place when it is interpersonal, especially in relationships that I care a lot about, and in this context it is so much more than book learning or theory. I come up against it when I say or do something in my interactions with people of color, or someone with a disability, or members of other marginalized groups that is unintentionally hurtful or offensive, or in which I am negligent to my own privilege. Sometimes I don't understand what is pointed out to me right away; at other times I understand immediately. Either way, my immediate response is often to feel embarrassed and exposed. As a well-educated ally I of course like to think of myself as not making such blunders (and even more important, not having the underlying attitudes the blunders may represent). I like this quote from some readings that were given to me at a recent multiculturalism training:

Racism takes many forms. To perpetuate racism, I don't have to make derogatory comments, exclude someone, or believe in a common stereotype. I can abhor personal expressions of overt racism, but still overlook covert racism, especially my own, especially if I'm not vigilantly working to spot and root it out of my system.... If I don't want to perpetuate racism, I have to consciously and diligently reshape my assumptions and instincts, because even though I reject the idea of white superiority, it is how I was socialized and it still fills the air I breath (Margie Carter).

Like this author, sometimes I am easily able to name those more public expressions of overt oppression, but overlook some of my own blind spots. There are many examples of this. For one, my education and training as an academic psychologist causes me at times to present my thoughts in a way that can be distancing, naming the experiences of people with target membership in a way that sounds like a research study. The biased world view of researcher and study subject is one that I am still trying to unlearn. For another, I sometimes make assumptions about the internal experiences of people different from myself, rather than simply asking and listening. Third, I am quick to spot examples of personal oppression (both internalized and external) but am not as attuned to systemic oppression. Fourth, my efforts to be inclusive can be unintentionally tokenizing, especially if they are not backed up by really moving the center of power to the individuals I am trying to include. Finally, seeing the patterns is not enough; I need to take steps to change (or at the very least not participate in) the systems that support continued oppression. As an agent, naming the inequities would mean changing a system which gives me automatic privilege, and acknowledging that I am a part of that unjust system, and both of these are difficult.

It is something, but not enough, to notice the patterns. My privilege allows me to not see those things, to look away, to walk away. Once seen, my privilege allows me to ignore, or not to acknowledge. Once acknowledged, my privilege is to not do anything to change the structures that hold these inequities in place, because by changing those systems I put at risk the privilege those systems bequeath to me. People who do not hold dominant social memberships do not hold those privileges, and if I am to truly be an ally I need to be vigilant to the ways my privilege blinds me, makes me inactive, and makes me withdraw from the hard work.

Sometimes this work reminds me of running. When I go for a run, I am usually a happy camper as long as the terrain is level, and the weather temperate. As soon as I hit an incline (or it's too rainy, or too cold, or too hot, or my legs hurt) I want to slow down. Or walk. Or not head out in the first place. In my work as an ally, as soon as a blind spot is pointed out to me, or a blunder made (no matter how unintentionally) there is that reflexive part of me that says "this is too hard," or that retreats into a place of defensiveness or shame. Yet truly what I want is to be open, to learn, to be able to make mistakes in my relationships with friends and colleagues with different social memberships than mine, to be an effective ally. So I keep trying.

So, what I pledge to do as an ally is this: acknowledge the inequities I see (don't look away), say them out loud (don't be afraid to have a voice), engage in discussion around difference (don't be afraid to make mistakes), and work actively toward shifting the center in the groups and organizations I am a part of (be willing to give up privilege).

In our group, I hope we can continue to create an atmosphere where we can have respectful dialogue with one another about difference, to reflect the world that we want to see in the microcosm of our group. Racism, classism, transphobia, homophobia, ableism, and other forms of personal and systemic oppression are factors in our group. Especially in the areas where we have social privilege, we will not see everything, but we can support each other in seeing and naming as much as we can, and trying to understand more. We can only feel safe in a world/group/family/relationship where we don't feel we will be censured by naming difficult truths and where we trust that those truths will be held with respect.