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Cally Waite: Greetings and welcome to Currents, a new podcast hosted through the Edmund W. Gordon Institute for Urban and Minority Education. More familiarly will be known as IUME. This podcast is a result of hours of thinking and discussion about how IUME would enter and contribute to this medium. The title Currents but us captures the flow of ideas and the formation of knowledge, which often shifts and changes like currents in bodies of water. It also allows us to enter a discussion about current events, to have the benefit of scholarly knowledge and research without the lag time of publication. Finally, I would like currents to connect scholars to their work and what inspires them. This podcast will provide a space where our network of scholars and stakeholders can share their views on current events, influences on their work and the inspiration of their lives in the creation of knowledge. I'm professor Cally Waite, an affiliate faculty member in IUME and a historian in the program in history and education here at Teachers College. I've described the work of historians as not only studying the past, but preserving the present for those who come behind us and hopefully shaping the future with our knowledge. With that in mind, historians are quite simply storytellers. I'm here to share the stories of our TC faculty beyond what their publications tell us. In this deeply fraught and complex time where education and knowledge are critically important and often threatened, it is imperative that we hear how scholars are connected to their work and its relevance to our current challenges. Today our guest is Dr. Brandon Velez who is associate professor of psychology and education and the director of clinical training for the counseling psychology PhD program. Welcome Dr. Velez and thanks for joining us. Brandon Velez: Thank you, Dr. Waite. It's wonderful to be here. Thank you for having me. Cally Waite: Absolutely. Dr. Velez's full biography and selected list of publications is on our podcast webpage, accessible through the IUME website. For me, this is an absolute treat. I remember when Dr. Velez came to TC straight from graduate school. And although we aren't in the same department, I have been watching his career from afar and seeing it thrive. So this podcast gives me a chance to catch up with Dr. Velez and I want to acknowledge his generous spirit in joining us on this adventure in our first season. So let's just jump right to it. Could you tell us a little about the work that you're currently doing and also letting us know what counseling psychology is and where most people work? Brandon Velez: Great questions. So my research has generally focused on the ways that different forms of discrimination like racism and sexism or heterosexism are related to the mental health or career outcomes of minoritized populations. And with a particular focus on looking at the ways that multiple forms of discrimination work together in shaping those outcomes. More recently, I've become more interested in exploring the social justice training experiences that counseling psychologists and psychologists more generally receive. So I think the second part of your question was what is counseling psychology? Counseling psychology is an applied specialty area of psychology. So people who get their PhD in counseling psychology can, rather than just being researchers or academics, they can also be clinicians. So I think when people think of practicing psychologists, they usually think of clinical psychologists and clinical psychology and counseling psychology are quite similar. And counseling psychologists have historically been very engaged with defining themselves relative to clinical psychologists. I mean, given your expertise in history, just the history of the discipline is kind of fascinating. But historically, counseling psychology has had a relatively greater emphasis on context and the influence of context on wellbeing, and a bit more of an emphasis on typical developmental concerns like career, career development, relationships, identity development. Being more concerned with those topics that most people are likely to encounter and need assistance with, rather than severe psychopathology. And I would say another emphasis is a more of a strength based approach rather than a deficit based approach. Cally Waite: Can you explain a little bit more about the difference between a strength based approach and a deficit based approach? That's actually sort of interesting. Brandon Velez: A deficit based approach, I think is the one that people are probably most familiar with with any sort of health care provider. Usually people seek out help when a problem emerges and the emphasis of the interaction between the healthcare professional and the client or the patient is one focused on treating an illness, treating a psychopathology. And with a strength based approach, there is not as much of a focus on diagnosis. On the problem being something that is within the individual. More of a focus on it being a temporary problem of living and more focus on what coping strategies has this person used in the past that may be leveraged to help them with any current concerns that they have. But also maybe in the future taking more of a preventative perspective as well. Cally Waite: That's really helpful in thinking about that idea of being sort of preventative or proactive as opposed to reactive and somehow sort of solving, if we ever use that term, a problem. I want to pick up on something else that you mentioned before, and that's this whole notion of a social justice emphasis or stance in the program. And could you say a little bit more about what that means and the very difficult question, how are we defining social justice? I think this is especially important right now with everything that's kind of swirling around us. And whether talking about these issues will even be legal soon enough. Brandon Velez: Yeah. And actually, there are some current events that have emerged since we last spoke that I think I can touch upon. Social justice... Well, in counseling psychology, in the late '70s into the '80s there was the multicultural competence movement. And at that point, this was related to of course the civil rights movement and feminist movements of decades before, influencing scholars of the time, really feeling like the body of knowledge that we had in psychology was really actively excluding the perspectives of women and minoritized people. So then the emphasis was, well, what do clinicians researchers, educators need to know to acknowledge human diversity and really provide competent care to the varied and beautiful diversity of the people we work with. And of course my colleague Derald Wing Sue was a founding figure of the multicultural competence movement. But I think many of those discussions, and they were transformative discussions when it came to reconfiguring our professional organizations. Like having divisions that were focused on women and minoritized populations having separate professional organizations outside of APA that focused on those populations. But I think much of the multicultural competence movement in the beginning focused a lot on what was the typical work of psychologists. Individual and small group counseling or psychotherapy work. So I think when you bring in multicultural competence into those contexts, a lot of the work looks like acknowledging clients' experiences of racism and sexism. Building up their critical consciousness of how those oppressive forces have shaped their life experiences and shape their functioning. Working towards motivating them to perhaps make change in their own lives to advocate for themselves. I think with clinicians themselves encouraging clinicians to reflect on their own biases so that they don't continue to expose clients to the biases that their clients are exposed to outside of the therapy room in the therapy room. And all of those things are tremendously helpful. They're really important. And I think competent care is multi culturally competent care. Those are the same things. But I think about two decades ago, like in the early 2000s, there were some discussions among counseling psychologists of, "Well is what we've been doing enough?" So it is acknowledging that racism and sexism exist and all these other forms of oppression. And then they affect clients. Is that really striking at the core issue? And I think that's where social justice comes in. Not just acknowledging the presence of these structural societal issues, but more thinking about how can we change the underlying societal problems rather than just dealing it at the individual level. How can we change societies or organizations or policy so that the clients that we work with in counseling or psychotherapy aren't having these experiences to begin with? That was a very long answer. I don't know if it answered your question. Cally Waite: I think that it got at a really important piece in thinking about the history and the evolution of the fact that counseling isn't static. I think that's the point is you're responding to what was happening in terms of multiculturalism at that time period. And now these notions of social justice and oppressive forms and acknowledging all of those things. I thought what was so interesting is not just acknowledging them for the client, but also for the clinician as well. But I want to really get at what you are doing because you said something has happened recently since we last talked that really reflects our current... That really is a current events issue. So if you could say more about that, that would be great. Brandon Velez: Well I am proud to say that psychologists have a long history of being involved in important social justice issues. Like going back to the Brown v. Board of Education. The Clark's testimony. Their doll study was tremendously influential in that decision. And psychologist research and has been cited in Supreme Court cases related on same sex marriage, on workplace discrimination for sexual minority and gender minority people. So there is a long history of that. The topic I was specifically mentioning with you was this literally just happened yesterday. So for those... Many of you may not know, but all licensed psychologists may, depending on which state they live in, have to do continuing education. I would say most states require continuing education. There is a minority that don't. But yes, psychologists need to do continuing education in order to remain licensed. And in Kansas, there was a Bill that was suggested and supported by a mental health organization, regulatory organization, in Kansas, that called for licensed psychologists in the state to receive, I believe it was three... Three continuing education credits out of 50 per licensure period that focused on diversity, equity and inclusion. And the Senate, the state Senate decided to amend the bill to explicitly remove that requirement. And let me pull up on my phone, the quote. One Senator, Mike Thompson said, "I don't feel like this is an appropriate path and we shouldn't give credit for that sort of thing." Thompson said, "I think they should stick to their lane. And diversity equity and inclusion I don't believe is helpful at all in this situation." And there was connections of the diversity, equity and inclusion to critical race theory. So there is I think, movement from sort of policing critical race theory in K through 12 education to now continuing education of professionals. So, I mean, now just going onto my email account. All of the division 17 of the counseling psychology division of APA is just like a flutter with responses. Like, "What do we do about this? What do we do at the state level?" “What do we do at the federal level in response to this unprecedented overreach by state government in dictating what would be best practices for the training of psychologists? Cally Waite: That's actually, well, one so incredibly timely. The best like such a great example when people are like, "Oh, how does critical race theory affect me in any way?" And the situation is everything is being determined to be critical race theory that mentions diversity or race or equity or anything like that. So I know when we have talked, one of the things you were discussing as the program director is how you create a social justice foundation through the curriculum of the counseling program. So now you have this really interesting dilemma, which you may be unprepared to answer, which is how do you use this example as a teaching tool? Or I guess I should say, will this example help you to bring more to the fore this very difficult to define notion of social justice, made even more complicated by it being wanting to infuse it throughout the program. I'm asking a very long and difficult question, but sort of what is your reaction to this and how will it affect what you'll do in the program or how you will shape the program at TC? And I know I'm just getting your first thoughts on this, but I'm just curious to know. Brandon Velez: Yeah. I mean, those are all great questions. And it's a complicated answer. I think because of our federal system, that each state decides these rules about licensure separately. So there's some states where this type of legislation is like very unlikely to get a handhold. I just want to acknowledge my geographical privilege. Living in New York, this isn't likely to happen here, where a state legislator is going to say that we can't require diversity oriented had continuing education. And I actually also want to acknowledge, I don't know what New York's requirements are off the top of my head because New York actually just started requiring continuing education for psychologists relatively recently. So I should look into that. So in terms of students in our program, I think this is the type of news that they should know about. Like why we encourage them to be connected to these professional organizations so they can know about these types of developments that really shape our profession. I often am a spectator on these email listers. I don't often participate in the email chains, but I think it is tremendously motivating and energizing to see my colleagues all over the United States really voicing their concerns and making really great suggestions about who to contact. Both politicians, but also policy makers broadly who work in nonprofits or at the state level, at the federal level, in our professional organizations. Recommendations for who to contact about op-eds to inform the public about this. About how really harmful this type of action is to the profession and then indirectly to the public. Yeah. And I teach a class called multicultural psychology and counseling, and this is really great topics to bring up. I think because our program is such... The climate event is so affirming of diversity, multiculturalism, and social justice. We talk about it all the time. And I think sometimes students can sort of take for granted that in other places that's really their experiences will be the same. But even just going to clinical sites throughout the city. They're not necessarily going to encounter people who have the same sorts of attitudes towards clinical practice. And I don't know how likely it is that our students will be moving to Kansas, but if they do move to Kansas that is the context in which they'll be practicing. Cally Waite: Right. They may not have to go as far as Kansas to run into that. But I think one of the things that you brought up, which I just want to emphasize because I think it's really important, is thinking about this relationship between the American Psychological Association, the professional association, the APA, the state governments, the federal government, and these ideas of licensure. Because I don't think that everyone is aware that you have to be licensed with the state and that that the practice will be different depending on which state you are in. And that the licensure requirements will be different. So then it brings in this whole other issue of what role does the government play in this notion of sort of, for lack of a better term, clinical care in the way that you all are thinking about administering it. So one of the things that you mentioned is it's always great when the national news can help you to shape your class discussions, right? Like now you got a few weeks of discussion coming on. But I'm curious to know as you're talking about these larger issues, how do you think that this will affect your work or redirect the type of research and writing that you do? Or will it? Which it may not. Because it's sort of thinking about what are you working on? What type of project are you working on right now? And will what's happening affect this? Certainly it will as you direct the program, as you try to infuse it with these notions of social justice, multiculturalism diversity, equity, all of those issues. But what does this mean for you and your work? Brandon Velez: Well, I think that bit of news certainly makes everything feel much more immediate. Of course I've tracked the public debate about critical race theory. It is just all dog whistle politics about white supremacy. It's just about white supremacy. And so I've certainly been aware of that, but then when you see it relating to your profession, it strikes home in a different way. And it was something of concern for me, but now it's more... It just feels like a more immediate and present danger frankly. In terms of like of changing the work I do. I have this new and emerging area of interest in wanting just to know more about what social justice training counseling psychologists are receiving. What they think about the quality of that, and reflecting on what should that mean for our training moving forward. So the graduate training of applied psychology programs like clinical counseling in school, there's just a lot that people have to learn and have to master. They have to take coursework work in foundational areas of psychology. They have to take coursework in assessment theories of counseling, the history of the profession, research methods, statistics, consultation. There's just so much that our students in our program have to do. So my question then is are we able... As a specialty area, we've said counseling psychologists are invested in social justice. But how are we actually doing that? Are we able to provide our students with coursework. With practica. Or externships in which they are actually learning how to make systemic or organizational change? I would say just from my personal perspective, I think we're doing a great job at training people to be multi culturally competent therapists for counseling or psychotherapy. But I don't know to what extent our students are leaving our programs feeling like they know how to influence public policy. That they feel well prepared to write an op-ed using the same sorts of skills that they're learning in their assessment class for instance. Cally Waite: It's a really interesting place to sort of take a pause and maybe come to an end because we've learned so much about how people are trained to be counseling psychologists, but also that your role goes beyond just dealing with individual clients. There are, again, these issues of meeting a set of standards. And like many TC programs, it's already packed to the gills with requirements. So do you either add more courses which you don't necessarily want to do, but think about how you infuse the courses that you have with the messages that you're trying to get to put forth. But it's also an interesting idea thinking about psychologists as policymakers and as op-ed writers. So it's more than just the relationship with the client, but a relationship that can have a tremendous amount of influence beyond just the individuals. So, I mean, I learned a lot there and thank you for that. I wanted to thank you overall for sharing your ideas and your thoughts about the profession, but also what you said is so key. When it happens in your profession, it becomes more immediate. And so really giving us this current issue. As New Yorkers, we can all feel little shocked that anybody would exclude these things because they are so much a part of our daily conversation. And it's almost this thing of we're sort of working on resolving the problem, but there are places where they don't think there is a problem whatsoever. As evidenced by the quote that you read us from the Kansas state Senator. So thank you so much for your time again, and for your knowledge, you've given us a lot to think about. And also just really illuminated us on what counseling psychology is. So thank you again. Brandon Velez: Thank you. Cally Waite: I also want to thank all of those who are listening, and if you're curious about our next conversation, please visit the webpage and subscribe. Our web address is tc.edu/IUME. There you can find a full bio of Dr. Velez and a list of his selected publications. On our webpage, you can also find more information about each of our episodes and you will see that our guests come from a wide range of fields. We are interested in knowledge across and through the disciplines. So I hope you'll join us and listen to each episode. So once again, this is professor Cally Waite, wishing you the best.