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Today we have Dr. Darius green, an assistant professor in counseling and Human Services at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs. Dr. Greene's counseling background includes working with substance use domestic violence and trauma informed counseling. His research and advocacy works around integrating social justice and multiculturalism into counseling, and do police violence, race based trauma and cyber hate. In October of 2021 Dr. Greene's article and do police violence towards African Americans, and analysis of professional counselors training and perceptions was published in the Journal of counseling and development with his co author, Dr. Amanda Evans. Hello, and welcome Dr. Greene.
Alright, thanks for having me.
excited to have you today to talk about on do police violence and what we as counselors want to be able to be prepared with feel equipped in order to really help our clients. But first, I'd love for the audience to get to know you a little bit more your background and sort of what brought you to this topic.
Yeah, hold on, you shared in my research and professional interest, I think that kind of captures things. But I guess in terms of this specific topic, I stumbled upon it just from my own sort of identity as a black man. And pursuing graduate studies in the counseling field, just realized that it never really seemed like a topic of police violence and mental health. Never really something, something that really took up much of any focus. But for me, it always was sort of salient to my own life experience and narrative. And so I was just really curious when I was pursuing my master's degree and my doctoral degree as well. What are the connections between to be what seemed to be experiences that are inherently violent, that could produce trauma or likely would produce trauma before I even knew what trauma was? And I just began to once I started looking into the literature, I noticed I wasn't really seeing too much research and most of the research that I did begin to see, honestly, this kind of spawns sort of around the time that the Black Lives Matter movement was gaining popularity. And so after looking at some initial research, I started beginning to wonder like, well, what are counselors doing? How do we address police violence? Or do we address police violence in our clinical practice, and how we advocate with in for our clients. And so that's kind of what brought me to study this topic. And my co author, Dr. Amanda Evans, was my dissertation chair. And she kind of steered me in the direction of conceptualizing this as a form of race based trauma. And so I think that's what really brought me to this topic today and the particular study.
Hi, so to talk a little bit about what maybe you found as sort of the significance of this topic. You talk about your own lived experience, then it's you know, more and more in society, there's media coverage of it. What would you like to start the conversation when we talk about like officer legitimacy? When we talk about exploring this undue police violence concept?
Yeah, I think one place to start might be really the subjective nature and how we perceive and construe things, whether it's something that we're seeing in the literature or seeing in the media, maybe it's a video, maybe it's a news report, or maybe we're just kind of hearing about it from someone else who's either experienced something directly or by curiously. I think that what one thing that really came to mind that always bothered me when I was trying to sort of define some terms was that I would always get this I would frequently get a response or C material that really focused in on figuring out whether an officers use of force was legitimate, and the emphasis is on was the officers use of force appropriate for the situation and coming from a trauma For perspective, in a trauma focused perspective, I've always just noticed that the individuals who experience the uses of force and those who are witnessing and most impacted by it and carrying that weight. In this case, my research is mostly focused on black Americans. That perspective, the unique and subjective experience of witnessing or experiencing police violence, and also the perceptions of Officer legitimacy always seemed disregarded. And so I really wanted to, and I was really curious about how the individual experiences experiences various forms of police violence.
And when you say disregarded, I'm trying to think of ways that that could look for us as counselors in session, do you have some sort of like examples that come to mind of ways that people may disregard this?
Yeah, I think probably the most obvious thing would be simply ignoring experiences of police violence, particularly for client population to interface with law enforcement officers. Some abolitionist riders, assert that any use of force is inherently violent, meaning that in any situation, if someone were to have an intimidating presence, or someone were to arrest or attempt to arrest or subdue someone that would have been violent, that'd be experienced as violence. And so as counselors if we simply don't even acknowledge that these experiences aren't violent, and that they can have an impact on clients, regardless of what we believe about police officers or not. When we do that, that's one way in which we are sort of neglecting it ignoring that impact. I think, also, if we were to minimize the impact, maybe by sort of not giving enough attention, or even in our reflections, sunrays back to clients, if we sort of minimize the impact and weight of what clients may hold, that can also sort of come across as ignoring our clients.
There was something that I took as a takeaway from your article is just our attitudes and beliefs about what is Undo police violence, what is police violence, what is within the limits of you know, police force, or power that really can qualify what we bring up in session? And what we ask about what we think are topics to kind of cover. When we're talking about undue police violence, could we even break that down to if someone hasn't read the article or is unfamiliar with that term? What encompasses anti police violence?
Yeah, so um, do police violence is really against centered on the subjective experience of those who are impacted by it. And so it refers to any use of force by a law enforcement officer, that can be a police officer, or anyone acting in a law enforcement role. That results in any kind of harm, whether it's physical or psychological, mental or emotional harm, in some unique things about this definition of undue police violence is that it's again, very subjective to the individual who experiences it. And so another key component is that this individual, these individuals will experience that use of force as excessive, or unwarranted to the given situation. And so that kind of gets away from more commonly used terms such as police brutality, and police violence, that aren't necessarily bad terms. But they I feel like they don't necessarily honor the unique subjective experience of the individual, when police brutality might connote sort of an abuse of power, which is important to note, am I but we also have to keep in mind, does everyone experience it as an abuse of power? There's some data that would suggest that not everyone, views force that they experience as illegitimate. And so yeah, those are the sort of main pieces any use of force that causes harm, and it's being perceived as accessible to the individual.
And so based on our own personal beliefs as counselors, if we sort of get into that mindset of, well, if only x person would have complied, or if only so and so that's where we can do a lot of harm then and sort of like discrediting what our clients subjective experience was with police.
Yeah, yeah, that can create quite a bit of harm, because again, it kind of ignores the fact that, again, this use of force is inherently violent, and can have an impact. I usually, when I'm either teaching or working with individuals around this topic, I'm reminding them that any form of violence, no matter the context can cause a sort of post traumatic stress in some way, shape or form.
Yeah, it kind of it parallels that trauma literature that there's different types of trauma and whether it is those you know, small t traumas, it still impacts how our clients navigate the world, the framework in which they connect with people with themselves with safety. And so by invalidating it and sort of explaining away, a police encounter the harm that that could do to clients in that messaging.
Yeah, and I think that harm goes even if further than just says interpersonal relationship. But if it happens persistently from counselors or mental health professionals, it does kind of communicate that counseling and mental health services might not be a safe space to sort of talk about sort of instances with police officers.
And so many of these communities that may be negatively impacted in their encounters with police probably also have had negative experiences with mental health systems as well. And sort of like the oppressive nature that they face with commitments with medication with even the intensity of treatment, whether they're voluntary or not.
Yeah, I think that's a really big takeaway, not really covered in the article. But a big point of reflection for counselors is to like really look at how we are interconnected with law enforcement systems, how we enable them and how that may impact clients perceptions of us and what the how they feel disclosing and talking about certain topics in relationship with us.
Because I think when we think about undue police violence, it might be where our mindset goes more to what's covered on the media, but many counselors, we might face that on a more common basis and things like community mental health, you know, when I'm petitioning and client, if a police officer isn't trained on how to work with an individual with a mental illness, he's in crisis, right there in front of me and do police violence can occur. And then what is that impact to our clients that they came to a place for, where they were likely seeking help, and now we've had this encounter, and then maybe their therapist or their counselor is also sort of integrating that experience, the real danger or harm that might come to any help seeking in the future?
Yeah, can be a really big source of harm. It can cause us it should cause us to, like critically look at like the history of policing, good mental health systems have they have related and relate to each other, particularly as it relates to severe mental illness and suicidality?
So based on your searching in the literature, what are some of those like effects of undue police violence? How can those encounters really affect our clients?
Yeah, I would think like an easy way to describe it as just having a sort of trauma perspective, any form of police violence can produce a traumatic response, a lot of the literature, or I guess a lot of what we typically present in media tends to focus on the most extreme forms of violence. And so just that resulting in sort of the murder and loss of life of an individual with that, it's kind of hard to, it's impossible to determine the mental health impact of those forms of force. But other forms of force actually have been studied. There needs to be more research, in my opinion on sort of the specific forms of force. But even the mirror experience of an arrest were someone experiences that use of force that can produce various symptoms of mental illness such as, like anxiety, symptoms of PTSD. Or there's a study on sort of people who were in prison who had a violent experience in their arrest. And they endorsed at least one symptom of either depression or manic symptoms. There's research that also highlights more recently that vicariously experiencing police violence such as like Washington was a noose I think about it, particularly for black Americans, sort of hearing about it or other black Americans, there can be an impact on like social and cognitive development where someone might sort of lead or sort of limit or inhibit, like their own natural behaviors, or how they dress to make themselves feel safe, or to promote their own sense of safety. And a similar theme can be seen like with black mothers of children, who are critically aware of the risk to their children and their family. And they might adapt their parenting spouse to be more hyper vigilant than maybe compared to other parents who don't have this sort of life threatening issue to worry about. And more recently, there's also some research that's kind of coming up about like the connection between use of substances. There's one study that linked increased cannabis use to vicarious exposure to police violence. And so that has, that's something that needs more research. But I think that's pretty important for us as counselors being that for clients who use substances, and experienced policing based off of their substance use, they might even have sort of increased odds of experiencing traumatic stress. There's already sort of a connection between substance use and trauma, but adding that layer of increased risk of experiencing police violence, I could sort of compound the experience of trauma and so those are some things I've noticed in the literature.
Yeah, it was a lot of great facts and information. Have you think Just to follow up on one area that you talked about of sort of the vicarious trauma. So in people sharing this content, very graphic content, I know that's also something you sort of advocated for advocate about, like mindful sharing of that kind of content. Could you speak a little bit more to that area?
Yeah, I think that essentially, if we were to watch a video, sometimes of depicting police violence, I think it typically has its roots in an act of resistance and the way to hold law enforcement account accountable, being that law enforcement officers, particularly in the larger criminal legal system, what a lot of power and so their words may very well override the words of other individuals who may experience excessive use of force or just police violence in general. And so sharing, recording and sharing those videos is kind of rooted in some form of accountability and to really provide a voice to vulnerable populations. And with that, digital technology, and social media that can be spread wide and far, which, again, can have a great impact on highlighting the nature of an issue. It also can have this impact of particularly for those who may be most vulnerable in that if they're sort of witnessing someone of shared identity, experiencing brutality and violence, and even potentially death from thinking about instances like the murder of George Floyd. I'm simply watching that can, in my opinion, and personal experience, and what I've witnessed from others, produce a post traumatic response of some sort. I remember when I made the choice to watch the George Floyd video, murder of George Floyd. Like that really shouldn't be for several days, actually, this article that was written, sometimes I share this funny story, when I first submitted it for peer review, one of the points of feedback was that it was very disorganized. And that was shocking feedback for me to hear, because I had literally just written this dissertation and seemed organized enough, and I have written it but taking it to a PhD. Yeah, boiling it down to a peer reviewed article. In that process, I had actually watched the video and was feeling very disorganized, apparently, that showed up in like how I was sort of writing this article. And so all that to say, like, when we watch these videos, they can have a negative impact, particularly for yours specifically, seeing ourselves represented on the screen, we're kind of an can risk internalizing a very racist message regarding like, dehumanization, or value in society. And so one thing that I'm often recommending to people is to take a step back and critically think about why we might want to access a video and did a study that's under a view, that suggests that there might not be a huge difference in sort of the amount of stress, particularly for forms of violence that are less than lethal or non lethal, or media that doesn't depict murder, in terms of like, sort of traumatic response. But, and so one thing that we might keep in mind is just one to actually need to watch the video to know what happened. Someone simply read the headline and know that, okay, this connects to this larger social phenomenon, where, in this case over what frequently is a topic is, black Americans may be more likely to experience police violence and other racial and ethnic groups, and often want to promote critical thought of like if the video has the potential to cause some degree of psychological harm. Are there other ways to critically learn and about this issue and advocates such as maybe reading a book from authors who are advocates on this issue and related issues, or again, or they're just other sources of media that might promote critical thought and learning that would be more providing more depth and nuance than, let's say, recorded video?
Absolutely. And that's, I appreciate having a framework to sort of see that because I feel like nowadays, it's so easy to be passive participants with social media and with the internet that we're not very mindful of the content we take in. And so sort of bringing up this point of as counselors we are used to not needing to know every gritty detail to help a client we know these things. We know these themes of lack of safety, we know these themes of harm and oppression. But us being called to charge too, with what content we take in and how we might be able to navigate that desensitization or dehumanization that we see.
Yeah, and I think particularly for us, as counselors, we do want to be mindful that, again, because we don't want to minimize the experiences of our clients. If we're desensitized to the impact that a video might have. You might not even think to check to see if our clients are holding the weight of this because we might subjectively for ourselves think that oh, okay, it's just a video doesn't hold that much weight. Maybe we're just doing scrolling and kind of minimize our own emotions, through experiencing on social media, but our clients can still hold that weight. We probably still hold that weight to them can prime Agile would still impact us and how we show up in sessions particularly for specifically impacted by such.
And being able to kind of reflect to that if we do start moving into that space of trying to make sense or justify, you know, undo police violence. Why? Why are we doing that? Is it this illusion of being able to say that that will never happen to me or someone that looks like me? And how in our efforts to maybe emotionally distance from it, how that can create harm, like you said that we don't even bring it up to clients, or we might not even check in on some of these experiences that they're living? Yeah, I was also really curious, talking about sort of an example of how maybe caregivers raise their children with this idea of undue police violence, and you know how maybe a mother might prepare a child that really struck me, because when I pictured putting this in the clinical room, that I may have a client who discloses, you know, part of their daily routine. And without that knowledge of what that means to her to try to prepare her Blackson to go out into the community, I could miss that opportunity for exploration and deepening her experience, versus focusing on. Okay, great, and what's the next thing you do with your day? So can you even expand on that set of, you know, some protective qualities that our clients might have when we're talking about undue police violence that we can listen out for?
Yeah, I think that sometimes it can be really hard to see, sometimes, we might even be trained to like, think of certain things as almost like abusive behaviors and thinking of parenting games of spanking a child. There's so authors who sort of try to take this sort of historical entrenched Generational approach to conceptualizing current behaviors. And if you think back to earlier times, it will be making a lot of sense for, let's say, a black parent to sort of discipline their child using physical force, which, in today's time, maybe that will seem abusive, and that we can that can definitely have its own negative psychological impact. Yet, that can also be very protective, and a learned response to protect one's child if, let's say, if a parent speaks to their child and in response to behaviors, that maybe parents of other cultures might not resort to spanking, or that kind of sort of discipline, back in earlier times, that could have a protective or adaptive function of sort, preventing one child from behaving in that kind of behavior in a setting that would be dangerous for them, or resulted in some kind of harm to them. And so that might be an example of hypervigilant kind of parenting technique or sort of way to protect one's child. But for us, as clinicians, we might think that, oh, that's maladaptive, quote, unquote. But in reality, I think it's important to thinking taking a trauma informed perspective and trying to understand like, what ways might these behaviors promote safety. Other examples could be, let's say, being very critical about like how when dresses or one associates with, and so parenting to sort of essentially protect one's child from sort of negative outcomes might look like being overly involved or more involved in sort of one sort of social functioning in for a child, that could probably create a lot of distress if they don't have that critical knowledge and understanding that this is functioning in a productive way or that one's parent has sort of seen racism, through policing or other systems be enacted. And so I think those are a couple of things to look out for. But I think a main things that counselors can do is be active in being curious enough, and also reframing, potentially reframing behaviors that we might see as clinical problematic or maladaptive, trying to investigate to see if those have any sort of protective functions or quality within that family system is
such an important point right there investigate, like, use that as an opportunity to expand what does that behavior serve? What is that purpose or function that it has served? And maybe currently, it may not be as necessary, given the situation, but no, it historically it has served for this purpose. And so being able to sort of work within that understanding. As you're doing this work, curious, what has been the most surprising part of this work?
Yeah, I think this might be due to me being naive or optimistic. But pushback, is something that I think really surprises me. Just immediately on the topic, I often direction and peaking with this research is sort of looking at the online environment, how these kind of communications and discussions occur. If those there should be a lot of pushback from counselors, that to me as I look at it often reflects sort of internalized beliefs from our largest system in society that I would describe as quite racist to the honest and those made sure but is like immediately turning towards putting blame on the individual for experiencing police violence. As opposed to sort of honoring their own sort of humanity, just Yeah, immediately turning to blame, particularly for black people and people of color. I think some other things that have surprised me just the reluctance to have we just sort of conversations around. I guess what's often, often in the media, it's kind of referred to as quote unquote, defunding the police, but the broader sort of theory that that's couched under abolition, which is really just this idea of how can we operate, or deconstruct our systems and communities and ways of being interpersonally. And within ourselves, where we're not inherently reliant on police officers, in their, particularly their inherent use of violent force, or uses of inherently violent force, or just inherently are quickly relying on carceral logic or this sort of very punishment, focus, violent, focused way of being interacting, whatever we perceive or experience harm in our communities and up in how we operate, there's often a lot of resistance, even considering how can we essentially prevent harmful situations from even occurring so that you wouldn't need a police type of role or response? I think having those kinds of conversations, it's been surprising that that's difficult to do, whether I'm advocating with clients, or sorry, with fellow counselors, or if I'm out in the community advocating, there's often a lot of pushback to that idea. And so that's pretty surprising. I think some other things that have surprised me maybe, I don't know if this is positive note, doesn't seem like a positive note, as I'm thinking about it. But just the broad nature of this topic. I think, most of times, if I were to talk about police violence, most people would assume that I'm just talking about the experiences of black men, which is really important to focus in on however, or at the same time, police violence is something that impacts many populations in many different ways. And so I think a lot of people are kind of coming to this topic from a quantitative kind of mindset, when they're looking at it, who disproportionately experiences this, which might show up, it's like black men, maybe even native and indigenous Americans as well. But also, it's important to think about the qualitative differences. For example, as a black man, I might have a heightened risk of experiencing police violence. However, compared to women of color, transgender and non binary folks, there might be a qualitative experience of a risk of experiencing sexual violence from gender related violence from police officers, which sadly has happened, but doesn't really get a lot of attention. So that's been quite surprising. There are a lot of populations that are impacted by police violence that sort of deviates from the conversation around black men's experiences, being particularly about sex workers. Those who are houseless, the LGBTQ plus population as well.
Okay, I appreciate Yeah, they expanding on that, too, that while we may be talking, or like this article may be talking specifically about the African American experience, also highlighting these other really horrendous situations that are occurring, when we start calling this action for counselors to explore their own beliefs, their own attitudes, as you're talking about the pushback. Are there any sort of like recommendations, you have as like points of reflection for these individuals that if if you're feeling triggered by this topic, or if you're feeling triggered when you hear people talking about this topic, weights, maybe explore that as a counselor?
Yeah, something that's, I'd recommend is really just like cultivating this mindful kind of way of being a big aware of oneself and one's own reaction. And also being curious about those reactions. Whether it's someone says, like one of the hot button phrases, whether it's abolition to defund the police, or even just talking about police violence, or race and gender and culture and identity, to instead of just immediately reacting, take a step back and like, investigate with some curiosity, like, what is that reaction? And also, where does that reaction come from? What is a core belief that sort of able to use some CBT language? What site core belief, and where does that come from? One thing that I often try to encourage with students were in other educational settings is, instead of just looking at our own individual belief, maybe taking a broader sort of systemic lens and look at the systems that we're embedded in, and how those systems might also communicate that message that maybe we've adopted or inherited across our life. So really, a point of reflection is really investigating. What are our beliefs? And where do those come from? Oftentimes, it's not just something that we've cultivated and built on our own. Maybe it's in our schools, maybe some at church, maybe it's just the political systems that were embedded in and so especially some curiosity and some willingness to invest To get that is really important.
I think that idea of like an understanding that we're all programmed in different ways. And so being aware of that programming so that way you can unlearn some things, to learn things that are more relevant and more accurate, or even the sense of being able to change your mind, I do find that sometimes when people get in touch with this conversation, it feels like they just can't come to a new understanding a acknowledge, like, okay, there was missteps, and I can change my mind and learn and do differently. It's almost like they have to double down on it.
Yeah, that's a pretty common theme, which is another thing that I found interesting in that this theoretical approach and praxis, two of abolition, that often gets pushed back against actually with one of the foundations of it is this sort of creative re envisioning of our world society. And that kind of requires us to take a step back and like, just critically think, and be creative. And I think that inherently would be a useful resource for us as counselors and people in general, that would combat some of that sort of automatic sort of anger or resistance and pushback that many of us might experience.
When you try to have these conversations that can probably be really difficult, especially with people who maybe your colleagues too, is there a way that you try to conceptualize that resistance to even talking about this and exploring some of this that helps you to then still have that humanizing component versus feeling more triggered on your own?
Yeah, I think two things that I keep in mind, our, particularly this conversation, at least in my own experience, comes up around race. And so one thing I'm frequently doing is conceptualizing other people's racial identity, attitudes, development and juxtaposition to my own. And so that requires both like my own self reflection of like, what are my attitudes? And how are they showing up in this context? And also, what are this other person's answers that I can get a sense of based on the interaction or, if I have notes on over a course of time that I've, I can maybe take a look at like, or try to estimate like, where they might be in the developmental kind of trajectory. And so I think that can be really helpful. Even if it doesn't necessarily help another individual can help me sort of regulate myself, if I know that, okay, this person is really upset because they are sort of at a place of really being assimilated to the, in adopting the norms of whiteness, or white supremacy, that can really help me just stay grounded in that sort of feel like I'm losing control, if I'm persistently being like, almost feeling attacked or argued with when I'm trying to have a collaborative conversation. Something else that I keep in mind is just from using some basic counting skills of listening, and listening beyond the surface and trying to understand like, what are the themes? What's the meaning? I think something that a lot of people have, expense, a lot of like fear about is the topic of safety. Notice that particularly with the how this topic relates to like school counselors and school settings, where the conversation might be how can we? Or should we remove police officers from schools or police officers? Do they protect our children, particularly with other caking issues such as gun violence, and so one thing that I frequently hear from parents might be this sense of fear, like if there aren't police in the school? What's going to happen if there is a shooting that goes on or sort of an outsider coming in, potentially causing harm? And so something that I recommend and try to practice myself is instead of just like, trying to engage in an argument or debate, maybe just critically listening? What is the fear that this or what is the experience, and oftentimes, I noticed, like, fear and safety, and protection kind of come up. And so that can be really useful information in terms of really, I guess, trying to get at the heart of like, what is there pushback against what is what is needed in a community. Many of us particularly have children, I don't have children. But I imagine we want if we're sending our children to school, we want them to be safe and protected,
that we should be able to resonate with that and imagining that. So
one thing I might do is sort of center in on that theme of like safety and protection, and try to invite someone to think critically, well, what does it mean to be safe? What does it mean to be protected? What ways can we sort of encourage safety and protection that don't necessarily rely on one sort of someone who's trained to use force to promote that sense of safety? Because that use of force will inherently mean that somebody at least one person who expresses that force is not going to be safe or protected, they're experiencing some form of violence. So is there a way to think of a response in a community that sort of creates true safety for more than just those who are maybe most privileged or get the most attention?
I've definitely found that technique you just mentioned useful that when I cannot connect with a person I have to try to understand. And in trying to understand that might seem also counterproductive, you know, why am I trying to understand someone who engages in, you know, these old designed white supremacist concepts. But if I can connect with that person also experiences fear, and their fear might look different, or, you know, the fear of powerlessness or fear of rejection, that doesn't help me to, you know, condone it in any way, but at least then yeah, that keeps like a discourse going versus my own defense mechanism that just completely shuts down the conversation and an opportunity. Yeah. If there are counselors who are feeling ill prepared of how to bring this up with clients how to do it without causing harm, or, you know, activating or re traumatizing clients. Are there any areas you found that with counselor training that can really help to equip counselors to do this in a way that's gentle, respectful and in a caring way?
Yeah, I think the first thing that comes to mind is really learning and cultivating a skill of broaching, particularly broaching in a way that isn't mechanical, and that isn't forced, but is really genuine and sensitive and attuned to one's other people's cultural identities and experiences. And I noticed that when teaching or talking about the topic of broaching, there's often this fear of like, how do I broach correctly? How do I get the skill to broach and often times I want to remind the counselors that while bursary is a term that is specifically like created around culture, race, race and ethnicity, feel like peel back and just kind of look at like, what's what underlies what are the core counseling skills underlying the skill of broaching the brushing is something that we typically would do in any situation, if I have a client who has experienced some kind of sexual trauma or violence, I still might be sort of inviting a client to providing a safe space. And also, I'll say from previously, it's impossible, but inviting your client to share and explore that experience where their identities related to that experience. And so I would highly encourage broaching and also sort of critically investigating like, what are the core skills underneath broaching that makeup routine? And how do we do that effectively? How have we already been doing that skill effectively, in other situations, I think that can be a really great skill. I think it really, if we do it correctly, can provide a stronger sense of trust, particularly for clients who are marginalized and minoritized backgrounds and cultures.
Yeah, so it's like a demonstrating a deeper sense of wanting to like, see and know, the client. And I've even told students or supervisees, you can preface it with saying like, I want to come in the most respectful space possible when I bring this up. If you're nervous, like you can preface that here's your intention, giving that opening that if there is a misstep that occurs, the client can give that feedback, but the client really can feel seen and understood as far as their lived experience when you approach these topics that may not come up organically.
Yeah, I think a big misconception is this thought that we have to do it perfectly. In reality, even if we do something imperfectly, if he broken perfectly, if you don't reflect perfectly what the client is experiencing, you're saying, if we give the space to our clients to correct us and to elaborate, I feel like that can be just as useful, even more useful than us being totally accurate 100% of the time, I think that communicates to our clients that we value them. And we value their experience, as opposed to just sort of us adding an extra seat where we have to get this right all the time. And so I would highly encourage, like, yeah, having that stance of you can correct me, I want you to correct me, I might not understand this, and which could be very true, we all don't have the same identities and cultural experiences. So we probably won't have a in depth experience and understanding of each and every client's experience, even if we share this exact same identities.
And that it can really serve as a point of psychoeducation for clients that they may not realize to bring it up in therapy, they may not realize the connections to their mental health, but us constantly like checking under every rock and stone to help them understand all the factors that contribute to their wellness. That's part of our job. And like you pointed out if we are finding ways to broach other tricky topics, what is it about this topic that feels really difficult to bring up?
Yeah, that's a really important question for us to like really evaluate when we notice ourselves feeling maybe defensive when this topic comes up.
And I tell students to that it's not so much that and I mean, there's certainly I'm sure counselors who do this, this overt harming, but it's also what you don't say what you don't ask about. So yes, you may not bring it up because you're afraid of what it might do to a client but not bringing up not attending to when clients give you those invitations to explore that further, is also a way to sort of show where your value system lies or even showing your level of comfort or discomfort and that you might avoid something as a counselor because if you're in discomfort, even if the client is sending those invitations
Yeah, I think paying attention to like that meta communication that nonverbal community Ah, that's really important. Even if we don't acknowledge it or see it. I'm just thinking, my own experience as a client wanting to talk about, like my own experience of police violence, when I've kind of gave little subtle hints that, hey, I want to talk about this, but I'm not sure if it's a safe space and counselor doesn't take up or take that up or doesn't notice that then. So that's kind of communicating, like, Oh, this is maybe not valued. Or maybe my counselor is incompetent, or maybe they feel nervous about and it might not be a safe space for me. And so I think it's important for us as counselors to like, be aware that there are messages being communicated whether we're overt or covert or aware. And
so what should counselors not do? Dr. Greene, what are the things to say? Okay, there's, this is very complex, and we'll talk later, but be cautious to do this.
Yeah, I think what not to do, what we should not do do not argue with clients about their subjective experiences or police violence. Certainly there can be situations where clients might, their way of understanding and experience might not really fit other people's experiences that say, if someone experiences police violence, a client might not take or accept, like, their own sense of responsibility in certain situations. That doesn't necessarily negate that. Let me rephrase it in a non passive way, that doesn't negate the fact that police use of force are inherently violent and cause distress. And so I think one thing we need to avoid is a first step being to argue with a client about their experience instead, because one that's going to create a rupture. And so what we might do is just simply listen. And if we notice, over time that there's like an inconsistency, then we can maybe challenge or confront that, but doing so with not from a standpoint of trying to be right over our clients, but instead doing so from a stance of compassion and care. I think I keep mentioning abolition as a framework, one big piece of abolition is sort of cultivating true accountability. And so that's something that we might want that we do want to sort of cultivate with our clients, how can we help our clients and be responsible for the harm that they may be that they may be causing, or have caused to themselves to their community or to others? And so, yeah,
just gonna make it one thing, I think that counselors have to work against this, this idea of trying to discourage a client because they're afraid of victim mentality. That's something that I see practitioners do sometimes is that, well, I don't want them to sit being a victim. And it's like, okay, but we also don't need to negate this is their experience and expression and processing of that experience, versus viewing it in this lens of victimhood.
Yeah, and even on that point, one thing that I often recommend or have been doing for myself as a reframe is sort of using like victim language, sometimes clients might rebel against that I don't want to be a victim. And I'm thinking particularly of men who that label might rub up against how they culturally sort of define their own gender identity. One thing they often often said referred to being targeted, because that kind of places responsibility on the individual who is amusing, some kind of violent force. And so for ourselves, just using that language, I feel like it has a different type of meaning. And so yeah,
yeah. What else should we not do?
Yeah. So quick wins, don't invalidate clients. If we notice ourselves pushing back or not understanding client, that's something for if we feel confused, maybe like that, was that as opposed to putting that on the client? If we don't know something? What we shouldn't do is pretend that we do know or that we are the expert. I think. Yeah, I think those are really the big things don't ignore client experiences, and don't invalidate them.
Don't avoid them.
Yeah. And I think if you've had a client who has any kind of interaction with a police officer that warrant some investigation or assessment, and to some degree on what the experience is, and so don't ignore don't invalidate, don't, don't not breach certs like double negative there.
Those are caution some of these counselors to this may not be the opportunity to self disclose sometimes that can be very joining. But having this opportunity where it's like me, you same same, it may not always be appropriate, because there's so many different factors and historical mechanisms behind it. So am I doing caution counselors from using that strategy in this instance?
Yeah, that I think self disclosure can be. It could be very powerful, but also we wouldn't be really critical until we might want to not self disclose as an immediate response, even if I'm working with a black man. If I were to disclose that, hey, I had this experience, where I'm not gonna go into the details. Maybe for some people that might be a point of connection, but that could also be like actually, no, that's not as bad as getting punched or experiencing this. Or if I do that, let's say to a woman who has experienced police violence Just because I feel like I'm connecting, that doesn't mean that my client is feeling like they connect. And so instead of self disclosing as an immediate response, I would recommend really actively listening and providing space for the client to share and being really selective about where we self disclose
important points. If listeners want to learn more, where might we send them to understand and learn more about these topics,
I will shamelessly plug several books to recommend. First, any book that is in or around the topic of abolition, one thing that's really noticeable to me is that police violence is not something that is heavily written about, or at least not up until it's written about what there's a lot of gaps. And so you might not find a lot in the academic literature that will be useful. There certainly are some useful things, some of useful articles. And so if individuals had access to the bio research study, there are several out there that will provide some great resources. But I also want to think about like decolonization. And this not assuming that academic articles are the the only source of knowledge in fact, I think academic articles can be quite deficient in capturing the full expanse. So books by authors like Angela Davis, or Beth rich, Andrea Ricci, or Miriam kava, a couple of books that come to mind are abolition feminism, now. We do this till we free us. No more policing, becoming an abolitionist, these are all of a handful of books that will be made if we want to learn a little bit more about police violence, and also what we can do, both as individuals and as communities to prevent and address this issue. Those can be really great resources. Oftentimes, they do tie into mental health as well.
Thanks for sharing what's in store for Dr. Greene. Next, so what are some of the things that you're working on that you'd like to talk about?
Yeah, for me, professionally, I think that I'm mostly working on trying to increase the amount of literature that is on and around the topic. And just particularly in the field of counseling, I feel that we are quite behind academia in general, and research is always going to be behind. But we're severely behind. This isn't a new issue. It's something that's existed in some way, shape, or form, with the black experience in the United States. And so, for me, that's something that I'm doing, just continue to do writing and research on the topic, particularly some directions for me are looking at digital in cyberspace is and how this topic comes up, relates to those sort of spaces. A lot of us use social media in some way, shape or form. That doesn't get as much attention. So I'm really curious to investigate and write about, and advocate and share knowledge about how we use digital media and particularly the police to police violence.
Hi, thank you so much. So we've got things in the works. We have resources. If anyone wanted to get to see more of your work or know more of what you're doing, is there a way that they can keep touch with you?
Yeah, my contact me by email or by social media or a couple of ways to get in contact if someone has questions or if they just want to sort of passively engage or get material. My social media handles are Darius eight, green dar IUs, a g r e n, or by email, Dr. Gary adrian@gmail.com, pretty quick ways to get in contact with me. And I'm happy to share information, access to articles for those who don't work in academia, or on students.
Dr. Greene, I really appreciate your time and sharing your expertise on this topic. I hope that this is just a starting point for clinicians who aren't already engaging in this work or reinforcement for the ones who already know your work well. So this is Jessica Taylor with a thoughtful counselor and there is another episode thank you.
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