Guiding Questions: Mental and Physical Health Pillar

Relevant points for teachers to consider:

• People with similar cultural identities may share some beliefs, values, or traditions
  • However, that is not always true. Because all of the different aspects of our identity intersect, two people who share one aspect of their identity may be very different due to other parts of their identity. For example, two Black women may have very different cultures and life experiences if one grew up in Jamaica and the other was raised in the U.S. Or, if one comes from a wealthy family and the other is living in poverty.
• People from communities that experience bias or discrimination due to aspects of their personal identity may find it easier to trust, or may feel more understood by, someone who may have similar experiences.

Relevant points for teachers to consider:

• Availability, proximity, and accessibility are some examples of barriers.
• Historically, most of the influential psychologists that students learn about in their courses have been people with specific cultural identities (e.g., white men from Western cultures). This may dissuade some students with different cultural identities from pursuing careers in psychology. If we improve the teaching of psychology to include representation of psychologists with diverse cultural identities, more students may feel like they belong in the profession.
• Despite legal protections and the reasonable accommodations required under the Americans with Disabilities Act, students with disabilities have traditionally needed to navigate several obstacles in educational settings, including technology challenges and limited access to needed resources and training opportunities (e.g., internships, shadowing).
• One barrier to finding a therapist with a similar identity may be proximity. For example, someone living in a predominantly white area may have limited access to therapists of color. Teletherapy may be one way to connect clients and therapists with similar identities despite the physical distance between them.
• Another option that could help to address these barriers is to ensure that all therapists have the appropriate training they need to work effectively with clients who have different cultural identities.

Relevant points for teachers to consider:

• Much of the science demonstrating that certain treatments are empirically supported consists of research studies with primarily white, middle to upper class, neurotypical men and women without disabilities from Western countries. Thus, the evidence for their effectiveness with other cultural groups is limited.
• The majority of psychologists credited with developing empirically supported treatments identify as primarily white, middle to upper class, neurotypical men and women without disabilities from Western countries industrialized societies. These approaches may ignore or devalue rich cultural traditions that promote healing in different communities.
• On the other hand, it could be considered unethical to withhold an empirically supported treatment from a client even if most of the evidence for the treatment’s effectiveness is from research on people with different cultural identities.
• Students may be interested to learn that APA defines evidence-based practice in psychology (EBPP) as the integration of the best available research with clinical expertise in the context of patient characteristics, culture, and preferences.