NMTP Newsletter Volume 6, Number 1, January, 2002
Index
Crossing Global Boundaries: Experiences of Loss by International Students - by Gita Rakhsha, Ph.D. CMTP DIRECTOR’S COLUMN by Kermit Crawford, Ph.D. BOARD OFFERS AMNESTY FOR MEMBERSHIP RENEWAL NMTP TO LAUNCH MENTORSHIP PROGRAM
FROM THE PRESIDENTIt is a statement of confidence in the foundation work that has been done by the last President, Dr. David Trimble and his predecessor, Dr. T. Leon Nicks, that the current Board of Directors has chosen to engage me as President of NMTP as we celebrate the Millennium. The work that has been done to create the organization and place it on firm footing as a non-profit tax-exempt organization is the platform from which we shall be able to build in the future. And build we must, if NMTP is to be what we all envisioned it as it began - a standard-bearer for the culturally competent practice of psychology, both directly in its own corporate endeavors and indirectly through its support for the network of people and programs related to NMTP’s fundamental Mission, such as CMTP and the NMTP Continuing Education offerings. Actually, the specifics of NMTP’s role and scope are in re-definition as you read this. At last year’s Annual Meeting the Board contracted with a consultant, Ms. Carmen Rivera, to lead the Board in a Retreat to help redefine our purposes, set new and achievable goals, and identify sources of renewable energies within the Network and ourselves. Now that our corporate organizational survival is essentially assured, it is my privilege to provide leadership as we focus on our strengths and aspirations. I intend to use my tenure as President to reach out to the several hundred persons who have been part of MTP/CMTP/NMTP over the almost thirty years that we have been learning, working and teaching together. It is my goal to speak with each person, wherever you are, to ask their/your help in making egalitarian multicultural collaboration and cultural competency in psychology, the reality that we know it can be. It does not come without effort or without contribution. I will be asking you to make efforts on behalf of the Network and I will be asking that you make contributions of time, money, influence and mentorship. Each person’s share of the task is made more possible when the number of persons doing the task increases, so in our own self-interest, let us bring each other to this enterprise. Past President Dr. Trimble had set as one of the priorities of his term increasing the volunteers in NMTP activities. While he made substantial progress in this direction, more needs to be done, as it is primarily through the volunteers that the many tasks needing to get done will be accomplished. There is no more important area for volunteer effort than in building the Mentoring Linkages we have long envisioned. Indeed, this Mentoring Linkage process was formally proposed a year ago and is to be the featured theme of the 2001 Annual Meeting on June 16, just around the corner. While Vice-President Dr. Roxana Llerena-Quinn is leaving the Board after this Annual Meeting one of her many enduring contributions to NMTP will be a Mentoring Linkage that may sustain the Students and Fellows of CMTP, as they establish their professional identities and practices. Another of the objectives for this year is to create a presence on the World Wide Web that will facilitate the exchange of information and ideas and enable people linked through NMTP to maintain communication regardless of their physical location. A first effort toward developing a website may be viewed at our web address <www.nmtp.org>. Finally, some of you have heard me say that by the thirtieth anniversary of the predoctoral internship program, NMTP should be able to reliably support three full-time internships ("Three By Thirty"). In my view, this is an eminently reasonable Endowment goal if we all pitch in to make it a reality. I will be asking you to tell me how you can help bring this to fruition by 2003 and how we can ensure that the Endowment Fund continues after that goal is reached. Please e-mail or call me at any time to lend me your wisdom, criticism and support. Whatever you do, mark your calendars for June 2003 to attend the Thirtieth Anniversary Celebration of CMTP. We are working to host the Third Biennial National Multicultural Summit in conjunction with Thirtieth Anniversary. Crossing Global Boundaries: Experiences of Loss by International StudentsBy Gita Rakhsha, Ph.D.International students in the United States are seldom addressed in “multicultural training.” More inclusive clinical, research, and teaching practices of psychology will unfold as we broaden our understanding of this population’s experiences. This article highlights some common experiences of international students pursuing the highly valued “American” education. In our effort to understand and assist this group, it is important to remain mindful of their multitudinous heterogeneity, as well as to be knowledgeable about shared challenges they confront as a result of being “foreign students”. The criterion-based group membership of a “foreigner” in an American academic institution can be conceptualized as an overarching status under which lie clusters of common experiences with shared themes. Some of these themes include experiences of loss, communication difficulties, “Americanization”, reconfiguration of identity, the need for negotiation of loyalty to the individualistic self and the collectivist “selves,” and other similar processes that demand appreciable intellectual and emotional investment. This article focuses in particular on some of the losses common in international students’ experiences. International students leave “home” behind, cross global boundaries, arrive at a new land, and take on the academic endeavor at American universities with the expectation that this journey will eventually result in gains and an improved chance of succeeding in life. When planning this path to success it is difficult, if not impossible, to conceive of the losses one can experience. Nevertheless, both tangible and intangible losses are inevitable and integral to international students’ experiences. The more obvious tangible losses are usually experienced consciously and accompanied by a sense of nostalgia. For example, the loss of in-person access to one’s home, family, friends, support systems, and even native foods and music is collectively and knowingly experienced as “homesickness”. Such losses are easier to identify and are perceived as deserving of empathy. Often, however, less overt intangible losses remain unacknowledged sources of emotionally taxing experience. The loss of an effortless sense of belonging, relevancy of knowledge, and self-efficacy are examples of common but less readily identifiable losses that have significant impact on well-being. An effortless sense of belonging is particularly notable when missing from one’s repertoire of daily subconscious processes. When “at home”, we do not need to strive to create a sense of connection with our surroundings. We feel the sense of belonging through experiencing people, events, objects, sounds, aromas, and all else that has been familiar to us. Hearing one’s mother tongue, being able to sing the words to a favorite song played on the radio, passing a favorite café or a tea-house on the way to school, and experiencing similar daily “non-events” ground us in the experience of “being at home”. Being among crowds who remind us of ourselves either because of the shared genetic pool and therefore a physical resemblance or because of shared traditional cultural practices connects us to them in effortless yet significant ways. Describing her visit home during a summer break, an international student from Iran juxtaposed this effortless sense of belonging versus its loss as “fitting in within the landscape of a daily life much like a native plant versus having to work at developing roots and surviving a transplant”. Loss of the “social mirroring” of self creates an unsettling but difficult-to-grasp state of psychological disconnection from one’s surroundings. This disconnection undermines the security and comfort with which one exists in his or her context. At best, the resulting tenuous relationship with one’s surroundings motivates an international student to explore, understand, and remedy this phenomenon of psychological “homelessness” or “transplantation”. Healthy coping mechanisms in this case could include seeking other international students particularly from one’s own country of origin, residing in neighborhoods that do not reflect the dominance of any one cultural or national group, and displaying memorabilia and objects on oneself or in one’s surroundings reflecting one’s home country. Although helpful, this type of coping mechanism further foregrounds the loss of effortless belonging, as it requires effort and volition for its success. At worst and more often, the experience of psychological “displacement” results in further physical isolation and emotional withdrawal, exacerbating the experience of loss. In the words of an international student from Iran, this loss of effortless sense of belonging and resultant disconnected state of being can be experienced as “ghorbat” which translates into “alienated and sorrowed soul when away from home”. Also significant is the loss of “tacit knowledge”. Social learning theorists have taught that as we grow up we incorporate and generalize our life experiences into an unspoken understanding of the world around us. Much of our knowledge about social rules, roles, expectations, and normative practices is acquired through latent learning or “learning by absorption” (Fox, 1991). We learn how things work simply as a result of being immersed in the workings of things. This tacit knowledge affords a sense of predictability and stability on which we rely, even if unconsciously, when conducting our daily life affairs. International students lose this tacit knowledge because what they have known about their world, and about themselves in the world, may not be applicable in the U.S. or in the American academic institution in which they find themselves. The relevancy and applicability of their tacit knowledge diminish once they become “foreign students”. A salient example of how one’s tacit knowledge can create a significant difference in one’s experiences is the example of student-professor relationships. The way in which a college student relates to his or her professor is often based on implicit culturally valued and permissible practices that one learns from early childhood. Very often international students’ socialization process, perhaps beginning on the first day of kindergarten, demands that they exercise much more formality, deference, and reverence in their relationship with their professors than is acceptable and expected in the American academic culture. As a result, international students, especially those from “non-western” cultures, may find the “casualness” with which they are expected to relate to their professor to be surprising, confusing, frustrating, and even disturbing in their desired mentor-mentee relationship. Loss of tacit knowledge can be quite disorienting as it brings about numerous unfamiliar, unexpected, and unpredictable encounters in one’s world and daily experience. Furthermore, not realizing that the implicit rules of conduct in their new context could be divergently opposed to those in their home countries, they may be surprised to find their previously honored and valued behaviors misunderstood, not appreciated, or even judged as inappropriate. Until some explication and mastery of the unspoken and normative rules of their new context are achieved, international students may experience themselves as precariously positioned in every endeavor they undertake. This is a taxing position in which to find oneself as it can relentlessly challenge one’s perceived sense of self-efficacy. This can be especially difficult if one has been accustomed to perceiving and experiencing oneself as exceptionally efficacious and competent, as is the case for many international students. One of the most important contexts in which international students can experience loss of self-efficacy is academia. Most of these students belong to the top tier of their cohort in their home country. They must successfully pass a series of examinations and go through other vigorous selection processes before they are granted acceptance into an American academic institution. These students’ academic histories reveal praised reputations for having demonstrated admirable intelligence, motivation, commitment, and diligence in pursuit of their educational goals. However, once such previously successful students become “foreign” students, they face loss of much of their previous academic competency and self-efficacy either because of language difficulties, because of unfamiliarity with the American educational system, or because of cultural differences. It is easy to understand how academic efficacy can be compromised as a result of language difficulties. For example, students’ ability to learn the content of a course could be limited by the extent of their English mastery. However, language barriers of this nature may not be the primary reason for diminished academic efficacy. More subtle reasons such as different cultural communication styles could undermine the international students’ efficacy of expression even if they are fluent in English. American academic culture may be considered a “low context” culture (Hall, 1990) in which a clear, direct, precise, assertive, persuasive, and “to the point” style of communication is highly valued. On the contrary, in “high context” cultures (Hall, 1990) such as those in the majority of the non-European and North American countries, much more subtle, indirect, elaborate, symbolic, and deeply contextually conscientious communication styles are valued. In these cultures, the most competent communicators practice sophisticated formality, roundabout, and digressive strategies in their conversations and writings with the purpose of clearly indicating to the audience their politeness and “deference to age, rank, and wisdom” (Fox, 1994, p. 15) in addition to addressing the topic at hand. As a result of differences in communication styles, international students’ writing assignments may be perceived as incompetently written and often receive poor marks. Thus, beyond the simple and obvious difficulty of language barriers such as one’s fluency in English, loss of efficacy of self-expression is a common experience for many international students because of the manner and the purpose for which they use their language. Helen Fox, an educator with extensive experience working with international students, explained the difficulty a Chilean student experienced in editing her writing assignments that required her to practice a different culturally valued expression style: I remember what a graduate student from Chile told me about how it feels to try to do something in writing that is contrary to what everything inside you is telling you to do. “When I tried to go straight to the point,” she said, “I was putting things down that I didn’t want to put. Every time I got the thoughts that were natural to me, I had to look for other ones. It felt as though I was being aggressive to myself. I was really mad sometimes, because I felt as if something was going against me. “(1994, p. 18) In addition to communication style differences, there are other factors that can contribute to the loss of academic efficacy of even the most highly intelligent and motivated students. An example is differences in the culturally based definition of “a good student.” In general, the culture of American academia values students’ ability to question the status quo, to think critically and creatively, and to express their thoughts assertively and with a voice of authority. In other academic systems such as those in “high context@”cultures where the opposite qualities and behaviors are often valued, the very same behaviors would mark a student as disagreeable and inappropriate. A “good student”would be defined as one who practices conformity, respect and reverence for traditions, and refrains from directly challenging the authority, i.e., teachers. It is clear that to succeed in an American university, international students must do more than master the content of their studies and negotiate the expected developmental markers that all college students experience. For international students to succeed, they may have to adopt new ways of being in the world that often mandate a change of their value system and identity. The implications of such profound changes are extensive. Some students who are open to the change may find it extremely difficult if not impossible to return home at the completion of their studies. Others, who do not welcome the change as readily, may experience a reconfiguration of their identities as they struggle to preserve their “original selves” while incorporating and integrating new aspects of the necessary “Americanized selves”. Having knowledge of these challenges can prevent university staff and faculty from extending to these students well-meaning but misinformed, and at times discouraging, guidance. In addition to being familiar with the commonalities of their experience, it is helpful when educators are cognizant of the rich diversity of experiences within this group. Covert but equally significant differences accompany the more obvious diversities of nationality, language, economic class, and religious beliefs. They include cultural proximity of their home country and the U.S., previous level of exposure to American culture and academe, self-perceived English fluency, and immigration status. Family history, personality characteristics, emotional maturity, and other developmental characteristics also diversify this group=s experiences. The purpose of this article has been to touch upon only a few of the losses international students commonly experience as they negotiate their path in the American academic institutions. Because of space limitations it is impossible to discuss the many successful coping strategies they often adopt. However, it must be noted that regardless of the difficulties they may face, most often international students express immense gratitude and appreciation for the opportunity to pursue the highly valued American education. They may find that they must work hard to earn respect for their intelligence and competency from their professors and fellow students. However, they accept this challenge in exchange for the opportunity to enhance their lives through receiving “a good education.” By developing an understanding of and appreciation for their experiences, we as educators can better fulfill our responsibility of providing the international students with the education they trust us to be capable of providing. ReferencesFox, H. (1994). Listening to the world.National Council of Teachers of English. Hall, E. T. (1990). The hidden dimension. NY: Doubleday. McKay, M. David, M., & Fanning, P. (1995). Messages (2nd edition). Oakland, CA: New Harbinger. Gita Rakhsha, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of Psychology at Westminster College in Salt Lake City, Utah. Her research and clinical interests include international students, immigrants, academic and career development, and women’s issues. CMTP DIRECTOR’S COLUMNKermit Crawford, Ph.D.“TO WHOM MUCH IS GIVEN, MUCH IS REQUIRED.” This was an adage that my grandmother, mother and father often stated to me as I was growing up in North Carolina. It was paraphrased from a Biblical verse. I began to appreciate the power of this statement as I got older. Perhaps in no singular episode had that message been more clearly demonstrated than two weeks ago beginning with the tragic events of September 11th. During the previous week we had welcomed our new class of Interns to what promised (s) to be a great training year. They are: Cynthia Lucero (Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology), Marisa Mares (Alliant International University-Los Angeles), Paula Moore (Illinois School of Professional Psychology), Martin Pierre (Boston College), Lauren Rotondi (Chicago School of Professional Psychology), Jyoti Pundlik (Northeastern University) and Toan Voung (Pacific Graduate School of Psychology). The first week of September began what we thought would be a very good year. All Interns really wanted to be in CMTP. All placement sites were set and fully funded. We were swept up in the anticipation of an exciting new year. Then the events of September 11th occurred. Along with the tragedy of the event came lingering fear of ongoing attack, of unjustified and indiscriminate retaliation, and of precipitous violence against people who look like many of us in the Network. But in the midst of that despair on September 11th, CMTP was called to help. Rather than wallowing in our pain or relishing the promise of the new training year, faculty and Interns rolled up their sleeves and went to work to help. Over the next five days, CMTP through its faculty, Network members and Interns maintained a significant presence at Logan International Airport as part of the consolidated Red Cross Disaster Mental Health Services Team. Everyone helped from Ms. Lavern Blake to each Intern, to all members of the CMTP faculty. CMTP had the largest contingent of licensed psychologists trained in Critical Incident Stress Debriefing and crisis intervention at Logan, in part because of the training efforts of Dr. Guy Seymour. The Interns worked under our supervision with surviving family members of the air crashes, United and American Airlines flight attendants, pilots and CARE Team members. We were able to provide competent professional services in three different primary languages and over a wide range of cultural needs. This reflected the cor of our multicultural mission by bringing culturally competent psychological services to people in need. It was clear that we made a difference. As I said above, in my life I have always believed that to whom much is given, much is also required. This vision of commitment was demonstrated by many of us from September 11th through September 17th and beyond. In addition to the seven Interns and Ms. Blake, I would like to thank: Drs. Mari Bennasar, Jean Lau Chin, Mabel Lam, Olivia Moorehead-Slaughter and Ms. Shani Dowd, for their efforts, compassion and commitment. Each of them gave of that which they were given in abundance and from their generosity many have been helped. BOARD OFFERS AMNESTY FOR MEMBERSHIP RENEWALAt the May 24, 2001, meeting, the Board voted to extend an amnesty to NMTP members who are in arrears for Annual Dues. Although members in arrears will be encouraged to pay past dues, they will retain their standing as members by paying their dues for the 2001-2002 year. Look for your notice in the mail! NMTP LAUNCHES WEBSITEPlease visit the NMTP website at www.nmtp.org while it is under construction. We are currently posting news of forthcoming meetings, and look forward to posting the newsletter. We are looking for network members with cyber-skills to develop the site. Web-savvy volunteers will be warmly welcomed. Just click on the link, or email President@nmtp.org. NMTP TO LAUNCH MENTORSHIP PROGRAMRecognizing the importance of early career support, the Board of Directors of NMTP agreed at its September, 2000, meeting to launch an effort to connect current and recent psychology graduate students who are committed to culturally competent practice with experienced, culturally competent senior clinicians. With CMTP alumnae/i, NMTP members, and NMTP Notes readers distributed throughout North America, it should be possible to facilitate supportive mentor relationships wherever there are graduate students or early career psychologists who need support from experienced mentors. NMTP can serve as a clearing house and source of consultative support for these relationships. The 2001 NMTP Annual Meeting will focus on planning for the mentorship program. Please join us on Saturday, June 16, from 9 AM to 2 PMat the Conference Room Suite, 912 Solomon Carter Fuller Mental Health Center, on the Boston Medical Center campus. For details, call Lavern Blake at 617 414-4645 Senior clinicians who are interested in serving as mentors, and early career psychologists in search of mentors, are strongly encouraged to write to Drs. Mabel Lam and David Trimble at: Network for Multicultural Training in Psychology, Inc., Post Office Box 274, Brookline, MA 02446-002. Prospective mentors, please include your resume, and a cover letter specifying your areas of interest for mentoring. Thanks! FOUR DIRECTORS ELECTEDAt its May 24, 2001, meeting, the Board certified the election of the following four Directors: Yvonne Jenkins, Ph.D., Mabel Lam, Ph.D. (incumbent), Alice LoCicero, Ph.D., and Leon Nicks, Ph.D. (incumbent). The four Directors will serve three year terms, terminating in 2004. Our thanks to all who ran, and all who voted.
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