2015 Association for Women in Psychology Conference

This workshop offers participants the opportunity to acquire substantive information and skill enhancement in the construction and instruction of the courses that seek to develop cultural competence in mental health training programs. The presenter will examine the pedagogical components that are deemed necessary for training clinicians to be competent in the delivery of psychological services to members of culturally diverse groups. Such groups include but are not exclusive to, women, people of color, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered men and women, people with disabilities, members of diverse religious groups and socioeconomic statuses, immigrants, particularly dynamics that apply to individuals who have multiple identities along these axes. The workshop will also identify challenges that instructors frequently encounter and strategies for negotiating those challenges.

The focus of this session is unconscious bias and the racial micro-aggressions in which it often results. Within that context, workshop discussions will focus on the root cause of unconscious bias, its impact on recipients, and some very specific, effective strategies for eradicating it. This is a very interactive session.

This workshop provides an introduction to implicit attitudes, a framework for thinking about issues around diversity that bypasses shame and blame while offering a vehicle for taking responsibility for creating real change. The research on implicit attitudes suggests one important empirically based avenue for understanding how, despite so much laudable institutional change, different forms of oppression continue to present members of target (and non-target) groups with constraints and challenges. The implicit attitudes framework allows us to label some of the more subtle forms in which oppression occur and provides clear implications for intervention. This workshop will demonstrate applications of this model to such areas as diversity training, psychotherapy/counseling, academic skills development, group therapy, work with members of targeted groups and groups of allies, and varied teaching, outreach and consultation interventions. This workshop will begin with a thorough exploration of the implicit attitudes model and how it can be used to understand subtler dynamics in issues of oppression. We will create a community of participants who will focus on developing a working understanding of the model, with attention to the dynamics of sexism, racism, homophobia/heterosexism, ableism, classism, genderism, anti-immigrant bias, and religious bias. We will be sharing real life examples of applying the implicit attitudes model in an array of settings looking at both successes and challenges. Participants will take part in interactive and experiential activities to allow for practice with labeling, explaining, and interrupting these attitudes and addressing them at personal, interpersonal, institutional, and climate levels. Participants will leave with clear action steps of how the implicit attitudes model can be used in their own personal and professional work.

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.