2015 Association for Women in Psychology Conference

This workshop is developed as a restorative justice experience for women who have experienced the stress of being an advocate for social justice while holding a “marginalized” status. This workshop is a space to reflect upon our conditions, gather our resources, reaffirm our goals and strength, and choose our responses.

This workshop addresses supervision and diversity, particularly the intersections of gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and disability. Four experienced supervisors will offer best practices, processes, case examples, and exercises for supervising diverse students and addressing their diverse clients within a framework of multiple identities. The first presenter will provide feminist/multicultural models of supervision that facilitate supervisees’ expanding knowledge and reducing resistance to self-reflection and dialogue. Topics include: power, privilege, identity development, and under- or over-identification with members of diverse groups. The models are grounded in feminist, The second presenter will explore multicultural considerations and the complexity of issues, such as “cookbook” cultural interventions, socialization into politically correct thinking, and fear of exposure of “not knowing.” These issues complicate the dialogue between supervisor, trainee, and client. A framework for transforming this dialogue toward a more reflective multicultural metapsychology will be advanced. Presenter #3 will address the changing face of supervision for LGBT supervisees and clients. New issues have surfaced as the availability of information about LGBT issues and the sophistication of current supervisees have increased. Topics will include: shifting from a focus on homophobia/heterocentrism to new realities in the lives of LGBT individuals; providing multiple ways to assess supervisees’ competencies with LGBT people and communities; strategies for helping supervisees determine the role of LGBT issues in case formulation; and addressing obstacles to effective interventions and relationships. The fourth presenter will address ways to supervise individuals with disabilities. She will delineate manifestations of both “concrete” barriers, such as physical access, absence of sign language interpreting or Braille materials, and contextual/ psychological barriers such as isolation, prejudice and discrimination. She will describe ways for supervisors to maximize the probability of success for the supervisor, the supervisee, the client, and the agency. Both commonalities across disabilities and specific issues and accommodations for categories of disabilities will be addressed

Many feminist scholars strive to create safe classroom environments that deepen students’ awareness, and raise critical consciousness about the ways societies disperse social power within hierarchies across the world. In order to support a community of teaching pedagogy that promotes this awareness, the purpose of this workshop is to share specific tools and techniques that have found to be successful in classrooms when discussing issues such as identity, inequality, social power, oppression, and privilege. This interactive workshop aims to introduce attendees to four teaching tools focused on raising the critical consciousness of undergraduate and graduate students in classrooms. These activities may also be adapted for use with community groups or in workplace settings. Workshop attendees will have an opportunity to participate in each simulated activity. Each experiential learning activity will begin with an exercise that either requires participants to become aware of their power and privilege or simulates a real world experience that replicates systems of privilege and oppression. This will be followed with a facilitated discussion about how the participant’s social identity is implicated within systems of social power; this discussion will model practices that can be used in classrooms and other group settings. The workshop will conclude with a facilitated conversation about the heightened awareness that came as a result of participation in the exercises. Facilitators will provide attendees with materials on how to run the activities, and suggestions about how to use them in different classrooms.

Confronting our areas of ignorance and making mistakes is inevitable and necessary for our growth in activism work. At the same time, many of us have witnessed the “call out culture” of social justice spaces, in which members of our communities are silenced, superficially told to “check their privilege,” or shunned when they have unknowingly enacted a microaggression. As feminist scholars and therapists, we are inspired by writer Ngọc Loan Trần’s practice of “Calling In” – a compassionate, connecting way of inviting people to reflect on the relational and community effects of their words and actions - as a transformational response to microaggressions that occur within activist spaces. Aligned with principles of restorative justice, the focus of calling in is addressing and healing the impact of hurtful acts within a community, rather than on punishing an “offender.” We propose that calling each other in, instead of simply calling out, can facilitate repair and reconnection following a microaggression, promote greater openness and creativity in activist communities, and contribute to building sustainable social justice movements. This experiential workshop will offer participants opportunities to explore ways to be effective allies, activists, and restorative justice workers when working in multiracial coalitions and restorative justice movements. Participants will critically analyze power dynamics and the impact of “call out culture” in social and restorative justice work and communities. Through our explorations, we will learn principles of Ngoc Loan Tran’s practice of “Calling In” and discover ways to create more relational and healing spaces within social change movements. Participants will be invited to apply principles of “Calling In” in pairs and small groups throughout the workshop.