Becoming a Social Justice Informed Clinician: Embodying Equity, Inclusion and Liberation to Enhance Treatment with Minoritized Clients

CPD

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Speaker

Meag-gan O'Reilly, PhD Related seminars and products

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Dr. Meag-gan O’Reilly (she/her) is a licensed psychologist, self-worth expert, DEI Consultant, and the co-founder of Inherent Value Psychology, Inc. She previously served as a staff psychologist and coordinator of Outreach Equity and Inclusion at Stanford University, where she created the first satellite clinic for black undergraduate and graduate students and co-created the Outreach and Social Justice Seminar in 2016, which trains clinicians to be culturally conscious and justice oriented. Dr. O’Reilly has taken the TEDx stage and is the creator of therapeutic healing circles for black employees in partnership with companies such as Google, The San Francisco Ballet, Virgin Pulse, and the United Negro College Fund STEM Scholars Program. Her research and writings focus on social justice, and she is the author of Systems Centered Language: A Necessity to Speaking Truth to Power During COVID-19 and Confronting Racism.

 

Speaker Disclosures:
Financial: Dr. Meag-gan O'Reilly has employment relationships with Google, the United Negro College, Stanford University, Stanford School of Medicine, and LYRA. She is the co-founder of Inherent Value Psychology, Inc. Dr. O'Reilly receives a speaking honorarium and recording royalties from PESI, Inc. She has no relevant financial relationships with ineligible organizations.
Non-financial: Dr. Meag-gan O'Reilly is a member of the American Psychological Association.

Objectives

1. Analyze key points in psychology’s social justice history and understand how it shaped the practice of psychology.
2. Investigate how colourblindness and the denial of racism by emphasizing that everyone is the same, or has the same life opportunities, can negatively impact clients and the therapeutic process.
3. Evaluate how racial microaggressions can contribute to poor counselling outcomes in racial/ethnic minority clients.
4. Analyze how mental health professionals can resist oppression through the therapeutic mechanisms they choose to employ.
5. Utilize culturally responsive and racially conscious strategies to recognize the ways clients are impacted by their marginalized identities and systems of oppression.
6. Assess the role of mental health professionals in dismantling oppressive systems that may impact their clients’ presenting problems.

Outline

Oppression: What All Therapists Need to Understand About Injustice

• Exploitation and marginalization
• Powerlessness
• Cultural Imperialism
• Violence
• Tiers – Individual, Institutional, Cultural Internalized Oppression

Colourblindness: How “Treating Everyone the Same” is Detrimental to Therapy

• How race shapes clients’ lives
• Why therapists need to acknowledge the euro-centric culture of psychotherapy
• The truth about colourblindness in therapy
• How therapists can acknowledge power inequality in therapy as well as in society

Diversity: Strategies to Better Attend to Your Clients’ Differences…Without Forcing Them to Teach You

• Therapeutic pitfalls of seeing differences in a stereotypical manner
• Tips for working with the current sociopolitical environment in therapy sessions
• How to prepare for and respond to clinical microaggressions
• Ways to bring conversations about race and class into the therapy room

Multiculturalism: Visualize Your Clients Problems from Personal, Cultural and Institutional Factors

• The importance of intersectionality in each client
• How clinicians can explore experiences of strengths and weaknesses of culture
• What to say – replace negative labels that can lead to ineffective treatment
• Clinical examples of culturally-affirming practices

Inclusion: How to Empower Your Clients for Deeper Engagement in Treatment

• How power, privilege and social context impacts your clients
• How clients’ action for social change can enhance their wellbeing
• Clinical changes required for more inclusive practices
• In-session strategies to overcome struggles therapists face with inclusion

Equity: Clinical Strategies that Embrace Equality and Improve Outcomes

• Fundamental differences from equality
• What you can do to create access: outreach and expanding your expertise to larger communities
• Self-assessment exercise: is there equity in your practice?
• Clinical applications in therapy

Justice and Liberation in the Therapy Room: Steps You Can Take Today to Help Dismantle Oppressive Systems

• Decolonizing mental health fundamentals
• Strategies to cultivate a clinical space that fosters liberation
• Use systems centred language to combat oppressive, policies, practices, and beliefs
• How clients can regain agency in the face of oppression

Target Audience

• Social Workers
• Counselors
• Psychologists
• Psychotherapists
• Physicians
• Marriage & Family Therapists
• Addiction Counselors
• Psychiatric Nurses
• Psychiatrists
• Other Mental Health Professionals