2015 Association for Women in Psychology Conference

Peer education is an approach to psychoeducational learning through which students learn from and interact with their peers rather than faculty or staff. Peer educators may solidify their own learning through facilitating workshops and presentations with their peers on topics related to health and mental health (Boud, Cohen, & Sampson, 2011). Additionally, Williams reported, “Learning done in the context of community creates rich opportunities for complex interactions with students different from one another” (Williams, 2011). Interactive learning “in the context of community” lends itself well to focusing a peer education program on the intersections of mental health and social and restorative justice. Although students involved in social and restorative justice based peer education programs have reported profound and transformative learning experiences in terms of insights about others as well as themselves, these programs are rare on college campuses (Voorhees & Petkas, 2011). The Multicultural Immersion Program (MIP) at UC-Davis is celebrating its 18th year as a peer education program sponsored by the Counseling Center that focuses on social and restorative justice work and the intersections of mental health and oppression. This structured discussion will feature past and current MIP peer educators along with their Counseling Center staff coordinators, who will discuss the evolution of their feminist, social and restorative justice work on campus. In the first part of this discussion facilitators will share their experiences in the MIP program, the development of their multicultural dialogue skills through their collaborations with community partners on campus, and the impact the program has had on them both personally and professionally. The facilitators will then engage the participants in discussion and in generating ideas for bringing peer-led social and restorative justice programming to campuses and organizations in which participants are involved.

There are intersections of identities that may appear to be a contradiction. Occasionally these intersections lead to cognitive dissonance whereby accepting one identity indicates the denial of another. This structured discussion will focus on two specific identities, identifying as a feminist and identifying with a culture that is patriarchal. Patriarchal cultures typically have values that are viewed as oppressive to women. Take for example the Hmong culture where daughters are traditionally raised under the notion that they will one day marry and no longer belong with their birth family. Upon marriage, Hmong daughters will be a part of their husband’s family instead. This belief traditionally privileges Hmong sons and men over Hmong daughter or women. Another example is when Hmong women get out of abusive marriages and experience shaming and rejection from their own community. Some Hmong women believe their culture or even their birth parents have betrayed them. Feeling rejected by other Hmong people, divorced Hmong women often feel as though they cannot go back to their cultural community. The current structured discussion will provide some cultural contexts to the examples provided above. The goal of the discussion is to compile ideas for women who feel like they have been wronged by their culture so they may have restorative justice. This discussion gives women in psychology a chance to voice stories, opinions, and ideas on how to be a feminist within a patriarchal culture.

The interaction of the Middle Eastern culture and its constrained depiction of sexuality has brought oppression to women and non-heteronormative sexualities. Middle Eastern women have been desexualized, and this creates an imminent need for a platform for Middle Eastern women to voice and begin a dialogue to reframe their sexuality.

As greater numbers of immigrant women enter training and practice of psychology in the United States, their voices and experiences may have a limited representation within Western psychological literature (Yakushko, 2009). Writings on immigrant experiences within Western scholarship often focus on such concepts as acculturation; frequently, this discourse dictates to immigrants what type of acculturative paths are most appropriate or “healthy” rather than allowing immigrants to pursue their own goals and pathways of adaptation (Yakushko & Consoli, 2014). In addition, immigrant literature often subsumes gender-specific aspects of migration within overall dialogue on migration that emphasizes experiences of men and those who have access to power (e.g., resources, education) over experiences of women (Yakushko & Espin, 2010). Moreover, the literature on migration often ignores the profoundly personal and contextually dynamic aspects of both the decision to relocate and integration within the new culture, including in the culture of Western psychology. For many, move to the United States spurs renegotiations of personal and professional selves. Differences in work culture, relationships, and perceived gender roles may bring on challenges, unexpected discoveries as well as new kind of resilience. The period of cultural splitting, mourning, and nostalgia (Lijtmaer, 2001) can resulted in the reuniting of cultural roots and a new appreciation of their significance in the re-formation of identity. A new type of “going on being” can emerge (Winnicott, 1956): living in two cultures simultaneously and drawing from each one to create a sense of united self. Therefore, the proposed discussion will briefly introduce participants to psychological experiences of several immigrant women in psychology, including women from Iran, Lithuania, Russia, Brazil, and Ukraine. The discussion will focus on vicissitudes of integrating the personal, the political, and the professional within psychological space with the goal to challenge and transform not only ourselves but also the field.