Minority Mental Health Awareness Month
Celebrating Martin Luther King Jr this month and witnessing the inauguration of a new President has got our therapists in Spanish Fork thinking and talking about diversity. In a recent training provided to our therapists, the concept of “re-humanizing” diversity was presented. Re-humanizing diversity means to approach the concept of diversity by focusing on the individual human experiences and identities within a diverse group, rather than simply acknowledging the differences. This creates a more empathetic and respectful (dare we say loving) understanding of people from various backgrounds.
As a general reminder and guide, this training focused on the APA Guidelines on Race and Ethnicity in Psychology (2019 ed.) The guidelines are as follows:
1: Psychologists strive to recognize and engage the influence of race and ethnicity in all aspects of professional activities as an ongoing process.
2: Psychologists are encouraged to maintain updated knowledge of the scholarship pertaining to race and ethnicity, including interdisciplinary and global perspectives.
3: Psychologists strive for awareness of their own positionality in relation to ethnicity and race.
4: Psychologists strive to address organizational and social inequities and injustices related to race and ethnicity in organizational structures within and outside of psychology.
5: Psychologists strive to create an inclusive curriculum and educational environment that promotes racial and ethnocultural responsiveness, equity, and justice.
6: Psychologists strive to promote self-awareness, critical thinking, and reflexive practice regarding race and ethnicity in their students, trainees, and colleagues.
7: Psychologists strive to develop knowledge and skills in students and trainees for community engagement with racially and ethnically diverse populations.
8: Psychologists strive to promote educational systems that address the negative effects of racial and ethnocultural biases and foster health, well-being, and justice.
9: Psychologists strive to provide assessment, intervention, and consultation free from the negative effects of racial and ethnocultural bias.
10: Psychologists strive to engage in reflective practice by exploring how their worldviews and positionalities may affect the quality and range of psychological services they provide.
11: Psychologists aim to understand and encourage Indigenous/ethnocultural sources of healing within professional practice.
12: Psychologists aim to promote health and well-being by challenging negative racial and ethnic biases that perpetuate oppression in practice settings, systems, and methods.
13: Psychologists are encouraged to be aware of the critical role of science in informing practice and policy and therefore strive to conduct and disseminate research that promotes the well-being of racial and ethnic minorities.
14: Psychologists strive to identify and reduce the negative effects of racial and ethnocultural bias in research methods, analysis, and interpretation of findings.
15: Psychologists aim to explicitly operationalize ethnicity, race, and related constructs in research.
16: Psychologists aim to maintain racially and ethnoculturally responsive ethical standards in conducting research.
17: Psychologists strive to promote practices that ensure racial and ethnic equity in research systems.
17 items – Wow, you may think! We know, we know, it’s a lot. But it’s important work! And we believe that as psychologist’s, with a deep understanding of the mind and human behavior, we are in a prime position to dismantle systemic barriers, promote justice, and re-humanize diversity. Our therapists in Spanish Fork want to remind us all to focus on the story, not merely the statistic. So…whose story will you learn about this week?
