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[Applause]
This is I am psyched for LGBTQI Pride
Month and we are very pleased to have a
roundtable discussion of eminent women
in psychology moderated by Angela
Ferguson who is an associate professor
at Howard University and the
participants in the roundtable are
doctors Connie Chan, Oliva
Espin, and Beverly Greene. First I'd like to say I am honored to be a moderator on
this very fine panel just as a side note
or on a personal note when I was a
graduate student every one of your works
influenced my own research and served as
an influence and inspiration for me to
carry on in the research that I'm doing
so I, I actually thank each and every one
of you for your scholarship your
pioneering work to dare to introduce the
idea that ethnicity and race matter and
are part of the LGBTQ community so thank
you. So to get started I'd like to ask
each of you one simple question which is
going to take you back a few years but
if you could tell us a little bit about
who you were and what you were like
growing up. I'll start I my experience is
kind of characterized by the immigrant
experience my family was in, in mainland
China and basically went to Hong Kong as
refugees when the when the Communists
took over in 1949 and I was born in Hong
Kong so we were displaced and I came to
the United States when I was one and a
half under the refugee act and I had
done some history seeking since then and
I found out that the refugee act that
allowed us in was primarily designed for
people from communist countries who are
refugees from communist countries and they had
quotas and some of the quotas were as
high as fifty thousand for Germans and
Italians and for Hungarians and they had
a quota of two thousand for Chinese
which is one of the lowest groups so I'm,
I feel very fortunate to have been able
to come in as as a documented person but
you know I feel like I could easily have
been one of the undocumented children
who came if if my parents had been able
to come in and we became naturalized
American citizens after that but the
immigrant experience is one that many
people share and certainly as an
immigrant I had the the displacement my
parents didn't speak English well we
were, we spoke Cantonese in the home so I
didn't speak English at home either and
I remember in kindergarten my I was in
San Francisco and my mom picked me up
from school and I was gathering all my
stuff at my cubicle and she started
speaking to me in Cantonese in Chinese and I
remember being horrified you know the
other kids all stopped and kind of
looked and I remember being horrified
and later on I told her I said mom I
don't want you to speak to me in Chinese
ever again in public and my mother said
"You fool if I don't speak to you in Chinese you
won't learn anything" and she was right so
I I guess my experience has been one
where you know like many children you
want to be like others and yet it's been
enriched with my family background and
it's been one of of hardship and
resistance but also opportunity
and that has kind of carried me through
my whole college career and you know
graduate school take advantage of
scholarships and opportunities that were
available to for people like me and that
was just beginning then. Thank you. I grew up in
Cuba and eventually I also became a
refugee from a communist country but
that was when I was already an adult so
that it was not part of my childhood the
question was who were you, how were you
as a child when you know, I was very
inquisitive asking all sorts of things I
read voraciously, constantly, my father
had been fired by Batista he was in, he
created a little school so I grew up in
two bedrooms in the back of the school
not able to make noise because I
couldn't disturb the school. Money was
very limited so and it was also supposed
to be a secret that we were poor, so that
was you know part of that and I think
the way I dealt with that all those
constrictions was to read and let my
fantasy fly. I mean I was all the
heroines that you could imagine,
particularly I was Joan of Arc, jumping
over chairs and things of that sort
because I wanted to be a saint when I
was a child. I was, I was a pedantic
little child I mean I because I was
always the one who knew all the answers
and had all the questions and that kind
of thing. And I wrote poetry,
my uncle published a book of my poetry,
when I was ten years old and so I had a
big sense of my importance that wasn't
necessarily good but anyway
that's that's that and again reading and
fantasizing, saved me so to speak.
Thank you. My, both sides of my family
have deep roots in the deep south and
moved into the north as part of the
northern migration and black folks
trying to get out of the south and
find jobs, you know find opportunities
for their children that were not going
to be had in the deep south at the time
and I'm always aware that all that they
had to do to not lose their minds and
souls, essentially under American
apartheid, was deeply imprinted on us as
children and in and in the most
positive ways one can imagine. Our school
system had an unusual representation of
black teachers, guidance counselor's, and
people who gave us the sort of undiluted
message of you are smart and capable and
you can do anything and don't let
anybody tell you otherwise.
And that mirrored the message that we
got in our families that family, that was
certainly tempered by the notion that
but there are people who are going to
try to get in your way
they're people who don't think black
people should be successful who don't
think they should be literate and
basically think the worst of us but
that's about them and that's not about
you and you have to manage them but
that's not about you. There was also a
message that you have to be strategic
about choosing your battles you know
that certainly at that time there was
still many limitations placed on
black folks there were many places that
we for the most part where we lived
you know in the North people will not
put out a sign that says they don't want
you there because doing that makes them
something they don't want to be, but
there were certainly places that felt
that way but when we spent time with
family members in the South it was, their
meaning was very clear, and whenever we
had those kinds of encounters I remember
our parents you know sort of clearly
giving us license to keep pissed off
about it but understand you have to
choose when you challenge it and when
you don't around being safe but you
basically want to walk a- walk away to
live to fight another day and that means
sometimes you have to absorb unfairness
but that it's not about you it's about
other people and a problem they have and
they may be able to do whatever they do
because they're more powerful but not
because they're right and that was a
very powerful message to take out into
the world that sometimes, you know, you
can't you don't always get treated
fairly and it's okay you don't you're
not supposed to like it but you can't
always challenge it but it's not about
you. I cheated somewhat when I looked at this
question because I thought well I don't
exactly remember what I was like as a
child other than I also read a lot but I
was in the family of people who were
constantly reading and where there had
been a very probably unusually high
level of literacy among my parents and
grandparents, again for black people
being raised in the south. So one of my
blessings is that I still have aunts who
are in their 90's who have known me all
my life, so I call them and ask them what
I was like as a child,
and they said I was a smart, happy, little
person, who cared about family members
and seemed to have a maturity and an
understanding of things that was beyond
my chronological years. So each of you
have talked about and described how you
experienced marginalization on some
level and were aware of it but it also
from your descriptions, your families
were strong. They gave you a sense of who
you were, that you could be who you were
and that it was your your right to be
who you were and gave you a strong sense
of identity. I'm wondering with those
family histories, how you became
interested in psychology, how did that
become a career path, how did that become
a profession that you wanted to enter.
And you can start Dr. Chan. Okay well
certainly wasn't a chosen path for my
family. I think my parents, you know like
many Asian families, wanted economic
security for their for their families
and their children, and there were only a
few avenues that were considered well
well-trod roots for success, economic
success, for Asians and some of that was
engineering because the math and the
sciences that you had more quantifiable
skills and that if you weren't extremely
verbal you could still get a good job
and you could continue in the job and I
think that it seemed that Asian-
Asian Americans could get jobs in in
the sciences so that was my family's
expectation I was good in science so my
my parents in math, and they wanted you
know me, to become a doctor or at least
go into science. And when I when I went
to college and I didn't expect to go
into psychology whatsoever I took a
I only took psychology because I
had to take the science, that kind of
science, I was going to take math and
found that this I thought that this
psychology was the most fascinating
thing. So for all of you who didn't want
to take the the kind of distribution
courses you're required to in college
they really do open, they're good for you.
And so the the study of psychology that
interested me the most was understanding
human behavior. And you know like many
people, I didn't understand why people
acted the way they did and didn't understand
why there was so much you know hatred
against people who seemed to, to be
innocent and why people behaved
sometimes badly. And so I was interested
in understanding that and the social
psychology aspect is why I got into
psychology. Okay. When I was in, well in in Cuba,
in high school, and in Latin America in
general, you have a course in psychology
in high school and there's no
flexibility to take lots of electives so
you have to and the person who taught
the psychology course when I was 15 was
my favorite teacher
so she had taught history before and
before I wanted to be a historian. Part
of what was interesting about psychology
is that it made me sort of discover
people and it was not the psychology of
rats and pigeons. If it had been rats and
pigeons I would have never gotten into
this but it was at the same time it was
the old type of
faculty psychology, the will, intelligence
emotions, you know everything sort of
compartmentalized but still it felt so
interesting that human beings did these
kinds of things
and that it was possible to study why
people did those things and so. So that
interests me then when I was about 19
years old I started having very serious
panic attacks, it's a long story but, so
there was a woman psychologist who
chaired an organization I was beginning
to join in in the transition to, into
college and she gave me free
psychotherapy for 18 months and it made
a difference I mean eventually panic
attacks disappeared and I have never had
them again, so it sort of convinced me
that there was magic to do with this
thing so I wanted to be able to do that
magic so that that's what got me there,
those two things. Well my passion was
music, but I had no talent so that was-
that was that was easy that wasn't
going to work and I was interested in
medicine and I went to college as a
psychology pre-med major and a history
minor and the psychology at the time was
rats and pigeon psychology but I also knew
about this other psychology with Freud
and the unconscious and abnormal that
was really compelling and it was much
more compelling than the courses I was
taking that were pre-med,
so that was kind of a no-brainer but
at some point I think I also had an
awareness of my own gifts I think that
while doing therapy is compelling you
also have to think about temperament and
you know when you're listening to people
talk about really disturbing things that
most people don't want to be listening
to, I didn't have the language for it
then but I had some kind of an awareness
that I could do that and be present but
not feel like it was happening to me. And
that people would sort of talk to me
about things they weren't talking to
other people about and that spoke
to a capacity to do something with
people that I also enjoyed and that my
own experience in therapy in college was
that you know this is something that can
help people to heal, you know, that where
where does someone find, you know, that
for 50 minutes or an hour you have
somebody else's captive attention, you
know, but that really is a kind of a gift.
And I, I think I also had an awareness of
ways that marginalized people really
need places where they can talk about
that when it's a reality for them that's
always denied that, that part of being
marginalized is having sort of
crazy-making experiences where you're
experiencing things that are real and
people are telling you that didn't
happen, you know, that doesn't happen,
people aren't like that, and then therapy
could be an important place where people
get those experiences validated and that
they get support for them so that that's
what led me to
eventually the doctoral route.
Okay.
So each of you has had some experience
in your early years of the magic of
psychology and it's healing capacities
that there's a place for people to talk
about feelings and issues where they can
get validated and trying to understand
what makes people behave in the way that
they behave when they don't do very good
things at times but trying to understand
those dynamics and so going from that
place to where it seems that you have
arrived in your scholarship relative to
social justice and talking about
marginalized communities and the racial
and ethnic pieces of those communities
can you say a little bit about how that
transition progressed for you. It was a, I
think a natural, it just seemed a natural
outgrowth of social justice work that
you know if you think about what goes on
in psychotherapy when it really works
it's quite subversive because you're
telling people the truth and they get to
know the truth and they get to figure
out how to act on their truth in ways
that subvert the status quo when often
you can't do it directly sometimes you
can but sometimes you can't but it it's
you're using that process to give
people agency you know that, that is part
of what social justice is about you know
that you're you are as good and as
deserving as anybody else and don't let
anybody tell you otherwise. I think for
me it, yes, I could say ditto to all that,
also because I had left my country and
actually I lived at 20 between 22 and 23
I lived in several countries and I slept
in eight different beds in one year
because I did not have
a firm plan, and it's not bad in that other sense, really to go to sleep.
So I knew there was
something different in in people in Cuba,
in Spain, in Costa Rica, in Panama, in in
the States.
I mean it, it was very clear that there
were different things making people
tick and when you went to psychology we
are all human beings and this is what
happens and this is the human
development and this is this and this is
that and I knew that it wasn't that
because I had seen it and so in fact my
practice was always with mostly with
women immigrants women of color so, so I
knew there was something different there
and I knew my own experience that it was
not true that everything happened
following a certain line so that part of
wanting to validate experiences that are
normally not validated, also realizing
that what's happening inside people has
a lot to do with what's happening
outside people for good and for bad. And
so, you know, to know that my practice and
my teaching were an instrument in sort
of letting people see that they were not
crazy, that the situation's were crazy
but they were not crazy so and then you
you do it in the practice you do it in
the teaching teaching what other people
have written and and then you start
saying I have to say something about
this because I'm finding out things that
I don't see written anywhere so you know
that story if you want to read a good
book write it or something like. Okay, so,
if I'm not finding this
anywhere, if this is nowhere, and it's
what I'm seeing in, in practicing and
teaching I need to put this out
somewhere so I started writing about
immigrant women about Latina lesbians
about you know social justice and therapy
about you know things like that and then
a number of particularly young Latinos
but you know in in general, general young
students saying what you wrote in 1984
made me think blah blah blah and okay so
let's keep writing about those kinds of
things because it's making a difference
even in people I'm not touching directly
with my practice and my teaching. Wow I
resonate with all these very much. I
think that when I was in graduate school
and we were learning about some of the
things you were talking about in terms
of human development, adolescent
development, family theories, and such. I
remember sitting and thinking this
doesn't fit with my own experience and I,
just you know Asian cultures are not
like this and I thought it's not
universal. You know the whole separation
and all you know, and and becoming
independent I said Asian families they,
they don't subscribe to that they don't
think you should be independent
necessarily. Always part of the family, a
family should come first not not your
independence and so it made me question
a lot of the stuff I was learning as a
PhD student I said you know they're not
really taking into account
culture and and different experiences
and this is maybe you know and that time
they didn't even think that much about
gender but they certainly didn't take
into account gender differences either.
so although I questioned it a lot you
know, you graduate you get your PhD
and then you start going into you know
and it really was I was working in a
clinical job but it was really because I
got onto a tenure-track position where I
had to publish and I was kind of casting
about for an area of research to you
know to sink my teeth in and I had done
you know dissertation on sports
psychology because I was also a marathon
runner and people say oh you know you
should do that because it's safer
there's a big body of literature in
sports psychology it's a growing field
it's a new division
you should definitely focus on sports
psychology and I remember thinking you
know I am interested in and I still am
but I thought there's all this other
stuff that no one's writing about and
and and you know I saw some clients and
I it was then during the the AIDS
epidemic so I worked I was doing some
clinical work with gay men and a lot of
the stuff they told me resonated with
with the understanding about
developmental theory and about identity
and it didn't fit into what the
universal mainstream had taught and I
said no I you know I really going to
have to no one you're right no one else
was writing about each of those kids or
about black and Latino lesbians and
about gay men and their different
experiences if they were not non-white
so I think we felt kind of forced into
it in a way the good part was it because
there hadn't been that much published we
you know we were the the foundation so
you know things that we published were
were published and read the bad thing
was that you know people said you know
it's not going to get you tenure and
it's not going to be cited you know how
they look at how many citations but your
article gets and they said your sports
psychology articles have more citations
by far and I said yes but I think my you
know my sexuality organization and
culture articles are actually more
meaningful and we're groundbreaking and
I had to make that case you know in a
tenure kind of review so you have to
fight for it though it didn't come easy
there certainly were I certainly had
people in my department and other
mentors who said don't go there that's
not the established field and you know
it's
it's not a growing field they were wrong
about that it is a growing field and
that that was the experience I
anticipated
yeah and so academia was the anti plan
and I'm never ever ever going to have
anything to do with an academic career
or writing or you know you finish your
dissertation and that's it yeah you know
stick a fork in me I'm done of that
forever and I don't know to what extent
you know do this now and have a
successful academic career because
there's so much pressure to generate
grants and your own funding but I spent
ten years in public mental health before
sort of wearily looking at academic jobs
and then being somewhat pushed to do so
but I just saw academia as this
potentially hostile climate that wasn't
gonna be interested in any of that and
was sort of like do I want to have to go
someplace and have to fight with people
to do it but thanks to you've not asked
about mentoring yet but I think that's
what I was going to go to but the
mentoring I had a number of people who
chose me to mentor and it was another
one of the ways that I was blessed
because I didn't expect anybody to want
to mentor the kinds of things that I
wanted to do Laura Brown Adrian Smith
Ellen Cole who was then I think the
co-editor of the Journal women and
therapy sort of started Hawking me about
writing stuff and
was like nope not not interested what
would I know about that anyway you know
that kind of response and I had a
supervisor in Kings County Hospital who
you know and again I think for for young
people who are thinking about their
careers mentors can come to you in a
variety of different ways that you don't
necessarily expect and don't look like
what you expect you know this was a
person who was not an academic who did
not write and publish who was the
director of child psychiatry and she
wanted as part of our training programs
to develop some kind of didactic courses
talking to who were then primarily white
clinicians treating predominantly black
and Latino children and decided I should
do it
and I decided no I'm not going to do
this you know sort of anticipating the
kind of resistance and all of the things
that you get when you're teaching those
kinds of courses and and sort of not
wanting to do all this extra work for
not extra money you know that's the
other feature of public mental health is
they want you to do research and a lot
of things that but you are supposed to
sort of squeeze it in to everything else
that you have to do and she basically
wouldn't leave me alone and at some
point invoked her authority as the
director of the training program to say
you know you're you know one of our
staff you've got to teach a seminar this
is it you know you're gonna have to do
this and kicking and screaming I sort of
proceeded to do that and of course to
develop lectures and the like you know
it takes a lot of time and she gave me
the time to do it she gave me the
release time during the course of the
week to use the medical library to go
and put together things so it wasn't
like she was just saying go do this now
you know
you figure out how but she gave me the
support to do it and of course I'm
thinking this is a lot of work how am I
going to get as much bang for the buck
as possible so I started writing
lectures as potential papers and those
lectures became apparent primarily the
early papers that I published and much
to my chagrin realizing well this is I
can do this and I kind of enjoy doing
this and you know people seem to want to
hear about this and you know once once
you begin to do it then you're under
more pressure to do it and at some point
I was just doing so much that I could no
longer sustain it in a full-time job
that didn't give me the kind of sort of
flexibility and blocks of time that you
get in academia to write because you
really need blocks of time and that's
that's what it gives you but I would
have been just as happy to remain in
public mental health and I not been
pushed to do that we're glad that you
had a mentor to push you otherwise we
would not have had the fortune there may
be many of your work I'm glad to but I
don't I think often people think when
you see the outcome oh there was this
careful plan that you had to do this and
you know it wasn't that way at all for
left up to me I I might not be you how
about the mentors for you and I know
that you said that you saw gaps that the
experience that your experiences
personally did not match what you were
reading or what you're being taught at
the time and in as much as you had your
own self motivation and the initiative
to do that were there mentors that that
helped push you or support you and them
in that way I didn't have any mentors in
my doctoral program oh my I'm older than
both of them I'm gonna be 80 in December
okay so in my doctoral program all
professors were white males and there
was one of them I said it when we were
having lunch
who said that women were less
intelligent than men because they had
smaller brains and bigger tongues and so
luckily I had one who in his own way was
was good enough to do let me sort of do
some things on women and Cheerilee
dissertation in which I was writing
about women in Latin America that kind
of thing but for the most part no and I
started my career I had no idea what I
was doing
nobody told me don't publish that nobody
I didn't have anybody to tell me that
that was a bad idea
so which in hindsight I'm very glad but
at the beginning it was very hard to get
tenure because I was writing about all
these things in fact in a university
that should remain unnamed I did not get
tenure because I was told you published
very creative things but in very
unimportant journals which of course the
only important journals were the only
ones who would take what I was writing
so that you know that was that was what
what was going on so I sort of fumbled
the first course I talk I'm at least
it's not quite mentors but I taught the
first course ever in that university in
that program about cultural issues in
counseling because it was counseling and
one of my colleagues when I was talking
about doing the course number one a
number of them said that this was
political this was not psychology okay
one and one of them said Oliva we all
have our pet issues and there are more
important things than that like this in
a faculty meeting
and the Dean of the school which I have
to say was a black man call me into his
office to say that I was teaching things
that were not what I was supposed to be
teaching and I was inventing courses
that were unnecessary still and the
students in the counseling program did
not take my courses it was the teachers
of English as a Second Language who
filled the course so it was always full
but not from the ceilings in my
counseling program because they did not
need this and so that's why we were
talking this morning how things change
yes things have changed because that
would not happen now at least mostly
they have to bake the course now so
anyway I didn't actually have any
mentors either I had you know people who
were supportive faculty of supportive of
me when I was in college and then in
graduate school but only in that
mainstream area and when I started
looking at cultural issues and
asian-american sexuality and and women
people my you know my former mentor
teachers would say you know that's great
but I don't know anything about that so
I was kind of left on my own but I will
say that the division 44 which was then
known as the Society for the
psychological study of lesbian
issues and then became the what does
that want a new name now it's like
sexual orientation and gender and gender
neighbors yes so division 44 which was a
new division in the nineteen late 1980s
and I remember going to a talk by every
hooker psychologists you know who did
the groundbreaking study on homosexual
men and and the Rorschach and the
normality of what they call it at that
time homosexual men led to the removal
of homosexuality as a classification for
pathology I remember going to her talk
meeting people from Division 44 and many
of the leaders of Division 44 who were
the pioneers them were supportive and
and helped him into me people like you
know the Kimmel as to Roth bloom and
live the Garnett's and you know Laura
Brown and and people like that it
definitely certainly was one of the
early pioneers to in Division 44 so the
you remember that you made me run for
president I called her up and I said you
must run okay and we were all each of us
has been president of to visit of 44 but
there were a number of Chris Hancock a
number of but particularly gay men who
were very instrumental and beginning the
division and who helped gave me advice
in terms of publication and help to
write for my tendon tenure case since
we're supportive of my work and saying
that it had a place in LGBTQ psychology
so I would say you know pretty much all
the division 44 has been mentors to me
okay
okay that gets into perhaps another area
of mentorship which is you each of you
will at least you two talked about being
voracious readers and certainly your
work is in our literature and you have
served and you served as a mentor to me
at that time I didn't know any of you
and I'm very glad to know you all now
but that was one way that I felt
mentored was by reading your work in
terms of the young scholars now ECP's at
this point how would you just describe
them getting mentors and being mentored
at this point I know you talked about
division 44 for sure but they may be in
environments where there's not one
person there or any person that's there
to support their work and yet they need
to get tenured so how would you advise
or encourage mentorship at this point on
how you even mentor well it's I think
it's harder now you know again because
there because it's all about money and
the pressure is will this get you a
grant will this bring money into the
department or the university above all I
it s-- important to have someplace that
they can get validation and you can't
always get that in your department we
were your program you you shouldn't feel
that if it's not there but that's the
only place it can be but there has to be
either peer groups in professional
organizations I mean that's where I
first you know sort of made connections
with people because people in my
department that wasn't an interest in
graduate school we tried to have those
discussions even though at the Derner
Institute there were always five black
and Latino students in every class
cohort which was very unusual so there
was always a critical mass of us but
still those discussions didn't go very
far but because there was a division 44
and other places
around we were able to meet other
people and have those kinds of
discussions division 45 as well. There
also can be informal now because of
technology you can connect with people
literally all over the world so you're
not limited to just connecting with
people who are in the physical space
that you're in. You know again my
academic experience was somewhat unusual
because I I wrote papers before I was in
academia so I didn't care really what
the department or someone was going to
say because where I was just publishing
was such a plus you know they didn't
care what you wrote. A journal. Yes so
they were happy about that. When I
decided to move towards academic jobs I
was clear about my resume saying exactly
what I did, because I thought I'm not at
the stage in my career going
someplace where I have to pretend I'm
something I'm not or I'm not interested
in things that I'm interested in because
I won't get tenure either and I don't
want to be someplace that's not going to
count those things so to the extent that
you can you know you need a job but you
can't work in a place where you just
can't be supported and it makes you feel
crazy to want to go to work every day.
If you're not, if you can't get tenure in
a place because they're not going to
value your work you need to rethink do
you... Why do you want to have tenure there?
Yeah, do you really want to be in
that place because it's, it will
just be hell for you. Your thoughts?
I think that part of the internet giving
access to they're a number of sites now that
store papers that you want to have
stored and every so often I get a little
note saying so-and-so in Australia read
you're such a loose paper you know okay.
I wouldn't have reached that person and
that person wouldn't have had access to
me were it not for these things so in
that sense young people have access to
things that we didn't have. Right. So, so
that's you know that's something that is
good and you know I I suppose you do too
every so often I get an email from
somebody I'm writing a paper and I want
to know and can I ask you a question and
you know okay so ask me a question of
course you know particularly now that
I'm retired I have a little bit more
time you can ask me the question we can
talk about this or we can communicate or
I can point you to some things to read,
mine or from others who may be in the
line of what you're looking for. So this
possibility for communicating that we
have now I think it's something that
helps in mentoring young people in
different places. I always think it's a
delight when somebody said they read a
paper that I wrote I always wonder if anyone ever reads it you know? I read something you
wrote and they ask you about it, you
sau you read that? That's great so you
know I always tell my students you know
that doesn't matter if they're not in
academia,
that they should publish at least one
article even if they're under when
they're undergraduates because I say if
you publish an article on something
that's really important to you whether
it's you know your master's thesis or a
paper you did your senior year or your
dissertation then at least you've made a
statement and you're gonna always live
through that article you can have a
dialogue with other people about that
and even if it's a really obscure thing
there will be someone who you will reach and
and so I I tell everyone they should
publish at least one article and it and
put there their mark and their voice
out there. As far as mentors go I you
know I didn't have a mentor and I'm
surprised actually to hear Oliva say
she didn't either because I kind of you
know you kind of assume that successful
people have great mentors but I didn't
but I would you know I would have liked
to have one and I would recommend if
people can find a mentor and people are
more intentioned about that now, people
can that it doesn't have to be sort of
like finding your you know your partner
or your life mate doesn't have to be one
person for the rest of your career or
the rest of your life. Sometimes it be
someone for five years or three years or
right during your graduated career or
right when you're you know an ECP and
your early career or later on when
you're trying to go from associate
professor to full professor you need a
different kind of mentor but actually
you got you can seek people out and you
can ask them for if you ask them for
specific things they can help you right
but if you expect you know it's sort of
like it not gonna for me I never had one
person who carried me through more than
like a couple, two, three, four, years you
know friends and and supportive people
yes but no one who you know was a mentor
and I think that some people have that
and I admire that
and I you know if you have a chance to
get that that's great but if not then
you can have serial mentors.
Right exactly
exactly. I want to shift the attention a
little bit to you've certainly talked
about some of the challenges you've had
the mentorship you may have had may not
have had maybe maybe it's been a little
spurious. What do you, can you describe a
little bit about what you've done for
self care throughout the years? It's,
you've done a lot of scholarship, they've
done a lot of publishing, therapeutic
work, what do you do for self care? Goof
off *Laugh* you know I one of the lessons
that I took from family members who you
know I remember growing up hearing like
stereotypes of black people were lazy
and it's sort of like everybody black I
know has at least two jobs what you know
what did what
what's lazy who really worked very very
hard all their lives but always made
time to play. Elders in our family always
made time for the children in our
family who were welcomed and not
silenced. Who they had parties, they, they
did things that the the the message was
it's important to have a life you know
you can't, you don't survive just on
your work and that the balance can be
tricky but it's important
someone once said well you know I
schedule in fun, because if I don't put
it in the calendar, I won't do it so you
know having having time to spend with
friends, having time to spend with your
family and in my family having children
in the family to watch them grow up and
be a part of that. Was, was just important
to me so having the time
and making the time to do that helped to
save me. I travel a lot, sometimes
combined with work, sometimes just travel.
And it's very nourishing, I read a lot of
novels, things that have nothing to do
with anything that has to do with work.
So novels and, and about our friends, you
know, friendship the time for, for
being with people and, and different
friends do different things, some are
good when you're suffering, and some are
good when you're having fun, and some are
good when you need advice about how to
invest your money. So you know it's like
different kinds of roles that friends
play but having friends and and being
connected to other human beings it's
what I find most nourishing. Thank you.
Well I spent a lot of time teaching and
sometimes doing clinical work and I
needed time to disconnect from other
human beings. So my my passion was was
running and I ran marathons for over 30
years and I ran 33 marathons and I ran
the Boston Marathon many
times and that was just having a a
pursuit that was you know separate from
from my career and my my sort of intense
life and my advice would be for people
that you don't put your self-worth or, and
I know this is true for everyone on this
stage, you don't put your self-worth all
into you know your job or your career or
wherever because there are many
frustrating days at work, many, and there
are many promotions you don't get, there
many things for which you are not chosen,
and many things that are not
validating about your job,
but if there are other things that
validate you and give you great pleasure
and give you sense of accomplishment
that's what you should pursue as well so
I literally spent a lot of time running
and training and running marathons and
racing and enjoying a whole different
set of friends and a whole different
life and traveling to do it so find
that passion and pursue it and feel you
know I was never good enough to really
succeed at it but I you know I
participated and I got my own success
from finishing every time I finished the
race. Yeah that's one of the things I
also share with my students as well in
graduate school you can get very caught
up in five year, six-year track and
school is the only thing that you're
thinking about and they forget all the
rest of their life but it's just the
beginning so knowing how to do that is
an important skill and some schools
foster that idea that that is true that
supposed to be the only thing that's
important in their life. Yeah and
sometimes you have to let them think
that you believe that but then, do
something else. So each of you has
your career has spanned a number of
years in psychology and I'm wondering
what you think about the state of our
field at this point? It's better than it
was but not as good as it could be. Okay
okay. That's true I mean it's a lot
better, it's a lot better, when you
couldn't even have these kinds of
discussions with, right exactly, being
told how you were over id- if you wanted
to discuss the issue of race with a
patient you were over identifying with
the patient or something ridiculous. When
you know the idea that this is your
little pet thing, yeah, but has no
relevance anywhere else. Yeah you know it's where
at they're actually courses in curricula
now where programs are required to have
courses but it still isn't integrated
into the mainstream of psychology if you
look at the non womens course flat
course gay lesbian course it it's, you
know if you look at a developmental
psychology course you're not really
looking at human development you're
looking at the development of a narrow
slice of people both in terms of
ethnicity, culture, sexual orientation,
class and all sorts of things and as you
talked about the outside world has an
effect on the inner world of people and
who they become and ignoring that for
such a wide range of people still it's
still a challenge in psychology it
doesn't... Doesn't end yet. It no
and Dr. Chan we'll end with your last comments. I see that you
know there is the pressure like and i
see it across psychology departments, the
pressure to get get grants, and to get to
do quantitative research and then
there's also many of the psychology
departments are focused on brain
sciences and on neuro-psychology
which is a great and you know burgeoning
field but you know it doesn't, I don't
want it to take over psychology and I, we
see it more and more in academic
departments so there's that, but there's
also there's also the the excitement of
the role that psychology has to play I
think in society and I think that you
know APA has been doing an excellent job
and you know can do more in advancing
the role that psychology plays in
reducing violence, in bringing to light
the issues of you know racism and and
sexism and you know all the isms that,
class issues, disability issues, that we
deal with and that we, I think I'd like
to see you know psychology quoted more
and more every time there's something that
happens in the news that you know, I love
it when I see more and more
psychologists and I have definitely see
psychologists quoted in the media and
you know making comments and talking
about the phenomenon of gun violence and
how we can how we as psychology can can
play a major role in combating that, but
I don't think we do enough, I still don't know
how we can have a much greater outreach
in policy and in shaping you know laws
and legislation than we
do already. So I'd like to see psychology
advance more and more in that area you know
in that public sphere. And I think, thank
you for that and given that you three
have served as excellent models for- role
models for many of us I certainly see
that that kind of work hopefully will
continue to grow and I want to thank
you all for being here today and for us
being able to honor you so if we could
give it an applause
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