Module 1 Blog Post

Module 1

Introductions

Part 1: Introductions

Hi all! My name is Sarah, a psychology grad student and aspiring sex therapist. I am also currently enrolled in a sex educator certification program. I have been working in various aspects of the sex industry for eight years, including working for my family’s company that manufactures and markets sexual aid products as well as on and off digital sex work.

I am expecting to graduate from this program in December and then will begin a Marriage and Family Therapy masters program in the fall of 2021, which will make me eligible for licensure as a therapist. I currently live in Phoenix, Arizona but will be moving to rural upstate New York in the next couple weeks to spend the summer – and hopefully ride out the pandemic – with my parents.

I’m an avid world traveler. I have visited 46 countries and spent time living and working abroad in Australia, Thailand, and Ireland. I had planned to retire from the traveler lifestyle last fall, but this lockdown has me itching for the chance to move abroad again. I’m thinking New Zealand next.

Part 2: Module 1 Reflections

2a. Being an ally to all demographics has always been extremely important to me and I think the first step is recognizing where I am ignorant to the specific struggles of each demographic. That being said, there is so much information out there and it’s so hard to decide where or how to start in education myself on these issues. A course like this one is the perfect way to gain guidance and a starting off point for further education on intersectional issues, especially through a psychology lens. I’m eventually going to be a sex and relationship therapist so I fully intend on continuing my cross culture psychology education after this course, but I’m grateful for having this place to start.

2b. I found this video about interracial marriages, which feels particularly relevant this week considering the discovery of the racist, white supremacist website aiming to dox white women with black partners (referred to by the slur “coalburners”) and out them as “race traitors.” I personally know a few women whose private information was published on this website, which effectively acts as an official YellowPages for the modern KKK’s lynch mobs. Despite this website being removed from multiple platforms, the creators and followers keep finding new sites to host their racist agenda. The video shows interracial couples who express their love for each other, but also discuss the microaggressions they’ve faced based on the fact that they married outside their races. One black woman even mentions that her family was concerned her white husband would throw around the n-word during a fight and use it against her.

Dovido, Gaertner, Kawakami, and Hodson (2002) discuss the different perspectives of race relations that leads to the breakdown in communication between races. They describe how whites tend to view blacks as faring much better than blacks see blacks faring in the US. It is because of these massively differing perspectives that there is a lack of understanding between the races, which negatively affects race relations. I think the video of the interracial couples shows that not only can there be civility between races, there can be love.

My parents have been married for 50 years this August but they didn’t start liking each other until around year 43. I’m studying to be a sex and relationship therapist and they were one of my first projects. I recommended a lot of books and talked them both through ways they can better understand each other. They’ve now learned to see the world from each other’s perspectives, which has allowed them to love each other more authentically. I think if races were viewed like spouses, as evidenced by the video, and taught to see the world from each other’s perspectives, understanding each other would be much more achievable.

2c. My understanding is that cross-cultural psychology is the study of the basics and fundamentals of the entire scope of psychology, but through a multicultural lens. Alternatively, cultural psychology is the study psychology within each culture, which is markedly different from culture to culture. Based on this understanding, I think they both have their merits. Cross-cultural psychology was an initiative to de-Westernize the psychology field, which held a blindness to non-white cultures. Cultural psychology took this a step further, recognizing that applying traditional psychology to multiple cultures is not the same as understanding the differences in psychology between the cultures. (Ellis & Stam, 2015) Neurologically speaking, I think that certain mental disorders are most likely wired the same way across all cultures, but the way those paths are created is most likely different between cultures. For this reason, I think cultural psychology is the direction I want to more closely focus on in my psychology studies. Applying the basics of psychology, which were formed and based in Western (white) cultures doesn’t uncover all of the complexities of psychology based in any other cultural sphere.

References*

Ellis, B. D., & Stam, H. J. (2015). Crisis? What crisis? Cross-cultural psychology’s appropriation of cultural psychology. Culture & Psychology, 21(3): 293-317.

Dovido, J. F., Gaertner, S. L., Kawakami, K., & Hodson, G. (2002). Why can’t we just get along? Interpersonal biases and interracial distrust. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, 8(2): 88-102.

National Geographic. (2018, March 12). Couples share the happiness and heartache of interracial marriage [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Of3FL4X7mLo

*Can’t create a hanging indent on this site.