by Dr. Bergkamp of DSPAI Presents at NCSPP 2023 Conference
Dr. Bergkamp gave two formal presentations at the National Council of Schools and Programs of Professional Psychology (NCSPP) 2023 Mid-Winter Conference in mid-January. The titles and descriptions are as follows:
Citation: Jones, C., Coble-Temple, A., & Bergkamp, J. (2023). Instilling Intellectual and Cultural Humility in Doctoral Psychology Students: Successes and Failures of Three Doctoral Programs. Continuing education presentation at the National Council of Schools of Professional Psychology mid-Winter conference.
Presentation Description:
How do we train doctoral psychology students to tolerate distress, ambiguity, and complexity? How do we teach them to think with complexity, allowing them to be therapeutically curious, open, and humble while staying mindful of their own strongly held ideas? Positive psychology has begun to explore the concept of intellectual humility, one’s insight about the limits of their knowledge, openness to new ideas, and ability to receive contrary ideas without taking offense (Davis, et al., 2016). Intellectual humility is considered to be negatively correlated with a strong need to be right, or a strong personal investment into one’s own convictions. The ability to maintain emotional regulation when one’s strongly held ideas are at odds with the other is an essential skill of clinical psychologists, allowing effective psychologists to maintain curiosity, openness, and full engagement with clients who hold different perspectives (Kim, et al., 2019; Markey, et al., 2021). This ability to remain mindfully aware of one’s own perspective while also empathically connecting and understanding the value of another’s seemingly contradictory perspective is perhaps one of the most difficult and essential things to help doctoral psychology trainees develop (Placeres, et al., 2022). When psychological trainees are faced with incongruent belief systems, members of the dominant group tend to exercise their “privileged safety” by becoming defensive, minimizing others’ experiences, and/or offering solutions to “fix the problem” without self-reflection (Bergkamp et al, 2022). Simultaneously, members of non-dominant/marginalized groups are often mentored to censor their anger and frustration in order to avoid being viewed as disruptive by the dominant group. Thus, training programs must recognize how safety is constructed and managed between polarized groups (Bergkamp, 2022).
This presentation seeks to explore methods used in three doctoral psychology training programs to navigate the intersection between the development of cultural humility and the ability to tolerate ambiguity and internal discomfort. Each presenter will highlight specific examples of successful strategies for nurturing intellectual and intrapersonal cultural humility development versus those that led to further ruptures and community divide. Presenters will define the delineation between perceived safety and privileged safety, and how these concepts impact the development of cultural humility in the face of ambiguity. Symposium participants will be given opportunities to strategize their program-specific challenges connected to facilitating intellectual and intrapersonal cultural humility and managing distress tolerance.
Citation: Newman, G., Concannon, D., & Bergkamp, J. (2023). The reaffirmation and revising of the National Council of Schools and Programs of Professional Psychology (NCSPP) Training Model. Continuing education presentation at the National Council of Schools of Professional Psychology mid-Winter conference.
Presentation Description:
The National Council of Schools and Programs of Professional Psychology (NCSPP) Model (Peterson, R. L., et al.) was published in 1997. Since that time, there has been some rearticulation of the model, elucidation of specific NCSPP competency areas, and a small number of articles in an exchange regarding criticism levied by one of NCSPP’s founders (Peterson, R. L., et al., 2015; Kenkel and Peterson, 2009; Peterson, R. L., 2004; Crossman, etal., 2004; Peterson, D. R., 2003; Kenkel et al., 2003). Examining NCSPP conference topics during this past quarter century reveals continuous attention to some of the core competency elements of the educational model (relationship, intervention, assessment, research and evaluation, consultation and education, and management and supervision), and considerable attention to “the social nature of professional psychology” (Peterson, R. L., et al., 1997, p. 383) including social responsibility, diversity, gender, sexual orientation, and disability. An enduring and brilliant feature of the model is expressed through “a broadened view of psychology, with a flexible epistemology, multiple ways of knowing, and a delineation of how practitioners doing practice remain local clinical scientists doing.
disciplined inquiry” (Peterson, R. L., et al., 2015, p 517). Our application of science is derived from a deep commitment to cultural humility, reflective practitioner activity, competency-based training and education, and socially relevant and contextual conceptions informing our work activities. Though the model continues to have relevance to our programs, there are a variety of elements that warrant review. We will present innovative approaches to education, training, and research that might serve to suggest how we update our educational model.