Everyone is aware of people who intentionally act out in oppressive ways. But there is less attention given to the millions of people who know inequities exist and want to be part of the solution. Removing what silences them and stands in their way can tap an enormous potential for energy and change. —Allan Johnson, Power, privilege, and difference, 2006, p. 125
Jude Bergkamp, Abi Martin, Lindsay Olson
INTRODUCTION
Therapist: You were telling me that something upsetting happened? Can you say more?
Client: Yeah, I was flying out of the airport and, you know, it was really busy. I pulled out those bins. . . . I put my laptop in, took off my shoes, right? I was dressed normally . . . just like now [gestures toward self]. And all of a sudden, they went ahead and pulled me out of line, and they searched my bags before
I even went through the whole TSA check. They patted me down, took me to a room, and gave me the whole questioning thing. I kept questioning back, “Why me? Why me?” and they kept on giving me the same phrase over and over again, “It’s just routine. . . . It’s a random check, sir.”
Therapist: Oh wow. How stressful! What were you doing?
As psychologists and psychologists in training, we all have the best intentions. We want to listen, understand, validate, and support, especially at the beginning of treatment. But are there client-therapist dynamics in which our good intentions and fundamental therapeutic skills are simply not enough? Are there times in which our tried-and-true, well-meaning approach invalidates and unintentionally harms both the client and the therapeutic alliance?
Client: Nothing. I wasn’t doing anything. . . . I was just standing in line. I’m sick of being targeted all the time. And because of this whole thing, I missed my flight.
Therapist: That must be so frustrating. Those lines can be so horrible. It takes forever to get through them. It’s such a hassle to take off your shoes, and people are so slow and disorganized. And people get stopped for no reason at all.
Client: Um . . . but it’s really difficult for me.
Therapist: Oh? Well, it is a random check, though; are you sure they were targeting you?
Client: Um, yeah. . . . I mean . . . they must be targeting me; I mean, look at me [gesturing toward self].
Therapist: Oh, okay. Well, this is clearly really difficult for you. Do you think there is anything you can do to make the process go a little more smoothly for you?
In this short clinical vignette, the therapist was a White woman in her mid-forties. The client was an East Indian man in his mid-thirties, with a darker complexion and a beard. He had grown up in the United States and had an American accent. He was a young professional who typically dressed in business casual attire. The therapist listened, validated feelings, and tried to help alleviate distress by problem-solving with the client. Although the therapist’s technique can always be debated, it is difficult to debate her intention: she wanted to help. Despite the therapist’s intentions, though, the client felt dismissed, invalidated, and misunderstood. The client invited the therapist to openly discuss their racial differences, and the therapist, unfortunately, missed this opportunity.
In this vignette, the therapist had received multicultural competency training in her doctoral psychology program. She learned about Asian culture with the ultimate goal of remaining respectful and considerate toward her future Asian clients. She had learned about working with Asian populations and how she should refer to herself as “Doctor,” consider the importance of family and be aware of psychological symptoms presenting somatically. She considered how her Anglo-European American culture differed from others and learned to be mindful of these differences. In the parlance of current American political terminology, she wanted to be “woke”: alert to social injustice.
If the therapist was aware of cultural differences and was well-intentioned, what else might have caused the therapeutic rupture? The therapist lacked an awareness of the fundamental differences in power and social privilege between herself and her client. The therapist was unaware that her social privilege as a White person conferred an unearned advantage of being able to get through TSA check lines without being targeted, to walk through the world without others suspecting her of wrongdoing even when she was simply standing. Had the therapist engaged in self-reflection about her social privilege as a White person, she would better understand her client’s reality and be able to offer a better therapeutic experience.
The therapist in this short vignette is likely not alone. For many psychologists, reflection on social privilege and application to the therapeutic process is an unfamiliar strategy in a comprehensive therapeutic approach. Most training programs lack curriculum to address psychologist positionality within historical systems of power, privilege, and oppression (Bartoli, Bentley-Edwards, Garcia, Michael, & Ervin, 2015; Motulsky, Gere, Saleem, & Trantham, 2014; Singh et al., 2010). However, the work of scholars such as McIntosh (1988), Tatum (1997), Helms (1984,2017), Spanierman and Smith (2017), Goodman et al. (2004), Goodman (2015), and Case (2013, 2017) suggests it is critical for psychologists to
begin reflecting on their social privilege awareness to provide ethical and multiculturally competent treatment and services. If the therapist in this vignette had received sufficient training, sought consultation for her social privilege, or otherwise found a space to develop her social
privilege awareness, how might the therapeutic interaction have gone differently?
This chapter will address social privilege as a driving construct within psychology and summarize its importance to the future of the field. We will visit the origins of dialogue about social privilege; highlight the understandable and inexcusable resistance and barriers to incorporating social privilege into psychological research, education, and practice; and end with suggestions for a pedagogy of social privilege recommended by Reason and Bradbury (2006) as part of the growing movement toward a pedagogy of social justice (Down & Smyth, 2012).
EBSCO Publishing: eBook Collection (EBSCOhost) – printed on 7/12/2022 6:02 PM via ANTIOCH UNIVERSITY AN: 3280559; Jean Lau Chin, Yolanda E. Garcia, Arthur W. Blume.; The Psychology of Inequity: Motivation and Beliefs.