Existential Psychology, Positive Psychology, and Multiculturalism

Existential Psychology, Positive Psychology, and Multiculturalism
By Nathaniel Granger, Jr.



A primary goal of Existential psychology is to not only identify and reduce the symptomatology of mental illnesses, addictions, relationship issues, and other psychological issues, but to go beyond the symptoms, addressing how a person defines meaning, purpose, and a life well lived. It is believed that symptoms can be reduced while unhappiness and discontent remain, often causing symptoms to reappear, exacerbate, and become harder to manage in the future; analogous to putting a bandage over an infected wound. Hence, it is important to remove proverbial bandages to find meaning to one's existence. And although the primary goal with Positive Psychology is embracing meaning and living happily, the challenge with both, existential psychology and positive psychology, however, is arriving to enlightenment on the other side of cultural diversity and multiculturalism. This is disquieting to the extent cultural diversity is inferiorized to something we acquire such as depression or schizophrenia. This inferiorization of cultural diversity lends itself to a pathologization of the preeminence of one's personage, particularly with those whose diverse characteristics are more pronounced than those of the mainstream as in people of color, or other marginalized groups. Dignity, it could be maintained, is a foundational value of existential-humanistic psychology. An essential part of embracing human potential entails recognizing the dignity of all people in their wholeness. The wherewithal to recognize the totality of human dignity to the extent of unconditionally embracing the human potential in any person regardless of status or marginalized groups is more often than not assuaged as a result of environmental microaggressions. Operating within the field must be predicated on a multicultural awareness and approached from a phenomenological mindset so as not to ascribe the worldviews of the clinician upon the client.
While a current trend is seeking to accept and, a word I take issue with, "tolerate" others despite observable differences, an honest critique of existential-humanistic psychology through the perspective of multiculturalism and human dignity would prove that there are yet shortfalls in which to overcome. One attempt here is to examine the insidious challenges and/or problems associated with microaggressions in existential-humanistic psychology and their infringement on multiculturalism and human dignity. In scholarship on cultural diversity, with few exceptions, there has been a general critical tendency to minimize the role of cultural diversity in achieving psychological well-being. Paradoxically, illuminating cultural diversity has in many ways objectified members of marginalized groups into species different from that of their human counterpart, exacerbating symptomology of mental illness. This is also daunting in that cultural diversity shapes our identity from within, i.e., our thought processes, upbringing, genetics, skin pigmentation and other physical features, whereas multiculturalism is the evolution of cultural diversity from without, such as systemic racism, chattel slavery, anti-Semitism, etc., and is introduced by its selection policies and institutionalized by its settlement policies. One descriptive term of multiculturalism refers to the selection policies that formed the demography of a specific place. This may have come about endogenously through the conjunction of two or more ethnic groups into one jurisdiction (e.g. Quebec and Canada) or exogenously through immigration from different jurisdictions around the world (e.g. Australia, Brazil, Mexico, the United States, and many other countries).
Existentially, we are all able to realize from within our personal freedom, however, equity in social freedom is different for different groups based on laws, policies, and societal hierarchies. Contrary to the propensity to use these terms interchangeably, cultural diversity does not equal multiculturalism, albeit, the latter may begat the former. We learn of multiculturalism more often than not through prescribed curricula in Multicultural Competencies, brainstorming while attending "Diversity Workshops," and involving ourselves on Task Forces, writing policies in attempt to make the world a better place for all. Nevertheless, immersion into a culture facilitates an appreciable meaning as to what it is really like to be of that culture, experientially. Additionally, Multiculturalism has been described as a "salad bowl" or " cultural mosaic" rather than a "melting pot". Notwithstanding, cultural diversity seems to maintain separateness and a sense of individuality, whereas multiculturalism seems to denote an effort towards inclusion. Nevertheless, ridding us of the semantics related to cultural diversity and multiculturalism would, of course, throw out the baby with the bath water—a bridge in terminologies is warranted, and certainly terms connoting inclusion instead of alienation is paramount for the 21st Century.

One example of delineating various meanings relative to cultural diversity and multiculturalism is the notion that America is known as the "melting-pot." This is a metaphor for a heterogeneous society becoming more homogeneous, the different elements "melting together" into a harmonious whole with a common culture. It is particularly used to describe the assimilation of immigrants to the United States. The melting-together metaphor was in use as early as the 1780s. The exact term "melting pot" came into general usage in the United States after it was used as a metaphor describing a fusion of nationalities, cultures and ethnicities in the 1908 play of the same name. The problem with this definition is that the homogeneity is a Eurocentric White worldview replete with White norms, White laws, White language, and an untarnished portrayal of White history. This heterogeneous "melting-pot" comprised of Asians, Latinos, Africans, Natives, and many other immigrants does not become homogenized by an assimilation into a Black ethos, or a Chinese custom, but rather a White philosophy in which to denote that "white is right" and any idiosyncrasy outside of the "white way" is marginalized and subjected to the implications of microaggressions. The impact of microaggressions are perpetually traumatizing to groups that are marginalized and/or disenfranchised because of various characteristics that fall outside the normative Eurocentric "white is right" worldview.
In his book, Even the Rat Was White: A Historical View of Psychology, Robert Guthrie (1976), an African American psychologist, wrote a treatise that challenged the profession of psychology as being historically biased. It is common knowledge that much of the knowledge base of psychology is founded on "rat psychology," or principles of learning derived from the study of rats and other animals (hence the title of the book). The point Guthrie made was that the history of psychology is that of the White Euro-American person that neglects the contributions of psychologists of color. Biculturalism is the ability to comfortably maneuver in one's own culture and in the culture of the dominant without giving up one's identity. A similar assertion can be made about the history taught to American children in public school. Although this is an extremely important point, the powerful title of this book suggests an even more meaningful question: Who owns history? Inevitably, the group that owns history controls the gateway to knowledge construction, truth and falsity, the definition of normal and abnormal, and ultimately, the nature of reality. In the United States, it is White Euro-Americans who own the history from which racial reality is based (Sue, 2003). And despite good intentions, it is not the exception in Existential and Positive Psychologies.

Because the owner of history cannot help but to have a proprietary attitude, microaggressions insidiously work to perpetuate the power of the owner, making the persons of color perpetual "renters," "debtors," and/or "trespassers." The master can never allow the slave to own the plantation. As a result, the renter, or more exclusively, the marginalized person or group, becomes a virtual nobody in school, at work, in society, and often within his own family, and is hence, invisible. One theory suggest that because the group that owns history is not only unwilling to relinquish its power of ownership nor empower minorities with the same unalienable rights, members of this group unknowingly developed a defense mechanism in the form of racial microaggressions, designed to keep the perceived threat of minority groups at bay. This defense mechanism is so instinctual among White individuals, that it often goes unnoticed. This knowledge is often met with strong resistance in as much [People of Color] feel as if his White counterpart does not get it; and by most accounts, he does not (Granger, 2011).

It is on this wise that the cloud of smoke in which to transcend in order to realize humanistic principles for both the practitioners as well as the layperson is one of microaggressions. The old adage, "where there's smoke there's fire" must remind us that the fire is racism and the smoke is microaggressions. We cannot allow ourselves to become disillusioned and complacent because of the theoretical environment resulting from the new, so-called, Post-racial American. Moreover, awareness of cultural diversity and the implementation of multicultural competencies can no longer remain separate from treatment modalities and theoretical stances such as Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy, Gestalt, Dialectical-Behavioral Therapy, Solution-Focused, etc., but rather included, not so much as an addendum to treatment (or #5 on our list of treatment objectives), but in the recognition of it as an integral part of the person's lived experiences and his/her sense of self.

Little literature has focused on specific issues of the effects of microaggressions and its perceptions relative to existential-humanistic psychology. There is, however, increasingly a plethora of empirical research on the impact of microaggressions on various marginalized groups. Chester Pierce first coined the term racial microaggressions in 1978 to refer to the everyday subtle and often automatic put-downs and insults directed toward Black Americans (Pierce, Carew, Pierce-Gonzalez, & Willis, 1978). While Pierce's theory focused solely on racial microaggressions, it is clear that microaggressions can be expressed toward any marginalized group in our society. These actions can be gender-based, sexual orientation-based, class-based, or disability-based (Sue & Capodilupo, 2008). Sue expounded on the definition as noted: Brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioral, and environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicates hostile, derogatory, or negative racial, gender, sexual orientation, and religious slights and insults to the target person or group, (Sue, 2010). Perpetrators are usually unaware that they have engaged in an exchange that demeans the recipient of the communication or action.

Microaggressions that remain hidden, invisible, unspoken, and excused as innocent slights with minimal harm, allow individuals to continue behaviors that insult, demean, alienate, and oppress marginalized groups. It behooves professionals as well as laypersons alike to recognize and make every effort to ameliorate the effects of microaggressions on both the casual and the therapeutic relationship. Hence, an intent of this disquisition is to facilitate in "making visible the invisible microaggressions" which perpetuates divisions between and within groups. By ameliorating microaggressions and enumerating the roles of the clinician, particularly in existential-humanistic-transpersonal-positive psychology in regards to cultural diversity and multiculturalism, it is my position than we can realize multicultural competence.




References



Granger, N. (2011). Perceptions of racial microaggressions
among African American males in higher education: A
heuristic inquiry. Ann Arbor, MI: ProQuest LLC.


Guthrie, R.V. (1976). Even the rat was White: A historical
view of psychology. New York, NY:Harper & Row.


Pierce, C. M., Carew, J. V., Pierce-Gonzalez, D., & Wills,
D. (1977). An experiment in racism: TV commercials. Education and Urban Society, 10, 61– 87. doi: 10.1177/001312457701000105

Sue, D. W. (2010). Microaggressions in everyday life:
Race, gender, and sexual orientation. Hoboken, NJ:
Wiley.

Sue, D. W., Capodilupo, C. M., & Holder, A. M. B. (2008).
Racial microaggressions in the life experience of Black Americans. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 39, 329–336. doi: 10.1037/0735-7028.39.3.329