'Cultural sensitivity' may go missing for psychologists without a DEI program
If you're Black, is it harder to 'manage happiness' during Trump's second-term presidency?
I couldn’t tell you how many psychologists I’ve interviewed over the years. I started a freelance career in journalism in 2006 and sat down in my first (of three) newsroom jobs shortly before President Barack H. Obama won his first presidential term. Then, my interest in mental health and physical health skyrocketed in 2011. At that time, I was a Digital News Editor of a national online health news section and the moderator for a live, monthly health discussion between a reporter and a special guest. A few years later, I was freelancing again with an online news organization and talking to mental health experts almost daily.
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As an Amazon affiliate, I earn a percentage from purchases with my referral links. I know some consumers are choosing to boycott Amazon for its DEI removal. However, after thinking about this thoroughly, I choose to continue promoting intriguing products from small businesses, women-owned businesses and (specifically) Black-owned businesses who still feature their items on Amazon. All five of my Substack publications now include a MINIMUM of one product sold by a Black-owned business. (I have visited the seller’s official site, not just the Amazon Black-owned logo, to verify this.) If you still choose to boycott, I 100% respect that decision.
When I briefly switched from the journalism industry to the marketing industry, I was still into health topics. I happily learned an abundance of information about mental health and went to my first “therapy” session (in expressive arts therapy). The one theme I kept hearing (from women and minority mental health experts) was why psychologists need to have a psychologist before taking on the job. Why? As one psychologist bluntly put it, she spent time “kiss(ing) a lot of therapist frogs before (she found) the right therapist prince.” She felt like psychologists needed to get their own s*it together before trying to help someone else. Agreed!
That’s been on my mind a lot within the past month of signing up for several audit (free) courses from Harvard University, one of which is called “Managing Happiness.” I’d already completed Harvard’s “American Government: Constitutional Foundations” online course and signed up for two more political courses to refresh my foggy memory on how the government works (“Citizen Politics in America: Public Opinion, Elections, Interest Groups, and the Media” and “U.S. Political Institutions: Congress, Presidency, Courts, and Bureaucracy”), but I was looking for something that would help me tune out the news.
Recommended Read: “How I went from being a grad school dropout to enjoying Harvard's free history course ~ Why did this college grad, who wasn't interested in history class, sign up for Harvard's "American Government: Constitutional Foundations" class?”
Happy questions, (un)happy answers
In between toggling lessons about politics, politicians, elections and government, I’m currently getting a dose of “happy” and “gratitude” education in my fourth Harvard online course. And while I’m supposed to be focusing on happy thoughts and positive psychology, I have been distracted by three thoughts about happiness (that are not in this course):
1. Can anybody Black who follows politics be truly happy under a Trump presidency? (I’m not referring to Black men conservatives or Black women Republicans. I’ll never understand that level of delusion.)
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2. With anti-DEI attacks on higher education universities, will the psychology field end up with more unbearable “experts” like the Leadership and Management program guy I interviewed once — who ironically claimed “cultural sensitivity, being socially minded global corporate citizens” was important while being one of the most dreadful interviewees I’ve ever had in 20 years and 258 interviews? How can this anti-DEI stance make the psychology industry happier?
3. Could Black people find increased happiness with Black mental health counselors who can (potentially) relate to them more than non-Black psychologists?
As of now, and before I finish this course, these are my answers.