Riots Spur Questions for Family Therapists : Behavior: Some say profession must re-examine focus on white middle-class. ‘It’s a kind of benign neglect,’ one social worker says.
Six months later, the ramifications of the Los Angeles riots continues to trouble a group of family therapists.
But while anguishing over the unrest in Los Angeles, a panel at the annual conference of the American Assn. of Family Therapists seemed just as concerned by the implications for their profession. With its tradition of catering to a primarily white, middle-class clientele, family therapy is struggling with issues of diversity.
The result was a curiously public identity crisis--a discussion marked equally by rage, despair and professional embarrassment.
“As family therapists, I think the best thing we can do for the victims of Simi Valley and of South-Central L.A. is to start by looking at ourselves,” said Kenneth Hardy, who teaches at Syracuse University.
Said Bok-Lim Kim, a social worker from Chula Vista, “We, as a profession, are uninformed and ignorant” on the subject of ethnicity. “It’s a kind of benign neglect. And I don’t see any concerted effort going on to educate ourselves.”
The stern words came from a “Response to L.A.” panel that was balanced by race and gender. The five women present included Kim, a Korean-American, and Marlene Watson, an African-American psychologist from Philadelphia who chairs the association’s ethnic minority committee.
Among the five men on the panel, two were African-American and two were Latino. Charles Waldegrave, conspicuous as the group’s sole white male, wasted little time in setting a sharp tone for his remarks about how his profession has handled racism and other urban ills.
“In a sense, therapists are the barometers of social pain,” he began. “But what do we do as therapists?” When treating people from the inner city, “so often we deal with the symptomatic sickness, and then send the people right back where they come from.”
Therapy that takes this approach, Waldegrave declared, “is a form of cultural imperialism.” As for its practitioners, “we work in a therapeutic vacuum--and we are making a lot of money out of a lot of people’s pain.”
The tenor of these mea culpas reflected a feeling among some of the 5,000 therapists who met here over the weekend that psychological hand-holding needs to be paired with political activism.
Smaller and arguably less influential than the American Psychological Assn., the AAMFT nevertheless carries its share of clout. The setting of state licensing requirements, for example, often involves participation from AAMFT members--and the organization finds itself increasingly poised on the brink of more concerted political activity.
Far from firebrands on the fringe of their field, the therapists offering this “Response to L.A.” represented AAMFT insiders, as well as educators and practitioners who are seeking to raise cultural awareness within their own ranks.
“I think we have a professional responsibility, a moral responsibility, to try to help the families who are living in the poorest parts of our cities--most of whom are minorities,” said panelist and AAMFT staffer Theodora Ooms.
Watson, who turned to the office of Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) for advice in preparing the panel, stressed that this “open dialogue” was intended not merely to acknowledge the shortcomings of the therapeutic community, but “to generate an ‘action plan’ for people--especially therapists--to address racism and the urban crisis.”
Her goal, she said, was to seek “ways that we might respond so as to prevent Los Angeles from becoming every city in America.”
A. J. Franklin, a professor at the City University of New York, argued strongly that such a response should begin with a change in certification procedures for therapists.
“As family therapists, as clinicians, as policy-makers, we need to have extensive cultural diversity training and awareness,” Franklin said. “It’s a necessity that that kind of training be required for certification.”
Calling for a “strategic and targeted approach” to certification that would include cultural awareness, Bok-Lim Kim also urged practitioners of family therapy to sponsor and attend regular cross-cultural “town meetings” as well as ongoing continuing education programs about race and gender issues.
“It shouldn’t be too hard,” she said, an edge of cynicism in her voice. “They’ve done it with things like human sexuality.”
But David Baptiste, from the AAMFT’s staff in Washington, lamented that discussions of this nature seemed seldom to progress beyond the talking stage.
“The more things change, the more things stay the same,” Baptiste said, shaking his head. “We’ve gone through wonderful exercises like this before, and nothing changes.”
Bok-Lim Kim expressed similar reservations.
“I think they mean well,” she said of her fellow congregants. “And we have to start someplace. But I’m very skeptical.”
Kim gestured out at an audience that was largely female and white.
“Do you see many minorities here?” she asked.
And then she shrugged. “But we have to start somewhere.”
