Getting to the Root of the Problem: Supporting Clients With Lived-Experiences of Systemic Discrimination
For many marginalized people, coping with discrimination is not a temporary condition. Rather it is endemic to living in a discriminatory society and a source of ongoing stress. In this paper, we explore the need to provide people struggling to cope with the skills to tackle not just the personal co...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
SAGE Publishing
2022-11-01
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| Series: | Chronic Stress |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1177/24705470221139205 |
| _version_ | 1811308826515734528 |
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| author | Amy Bartlett Sonya Faber Monnica Williams Kellen Saxberg |
| author_facet | Amy Bartlett Sonya Faber Monnica Williams Kellen Saxberg |
| author_sort | Amy Bartlett |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | For many marginalized people, coping with discrimination is not a temporary condition. Rather it is endemic to living in a discriminatory society and a source of ongoing stress. In this paper, we explore the need to provide people struggling to cope with the skills to tackle not just the personal consequences of discrimination, but also to understand and address the root causes of their pain, and specifically the ones that lie outside of themselves. We propose using the concept of social capital to bring greater awareness among clients, clinicians, and society in general about the need to pair the treatment of personal distress with concurrent practices to understand and tackle larger systemic issues impacting their mental health. People with marginalized identities are often expected to find ways to cope with oppression and then sent back into a broken world, perhaps with stronger coping skills, but often ones which do not address the root cause or source of the pain, which is social injustice. We propose that it is therapeutically important to problematize, pathologize and address the systems and narratives that discriminate and cause people to need to cope, instead of focusing therapeutic interventions only on the internal resources of the person doing the coping. |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-13T09:30:06Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-69478478a65e4ac2921c8e67722aa3ac |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2470-5470 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-13T09:30:06Z |
| publishDate | 2022-11-01 |
| publisher | SAGE Publishing |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Chronic Stress |
| spelling | doaj.art-69478478a65e4ac2921c8e67722aa3ac2022-12-22T02:52:17ZengSAGE PublishingChronic Stress2470-54702022-11-01610.1177/24705470221139205Getting to the Root of the Problem: Supporting Clients With Lived-Experiences of Systemic DiscriminationAmy Bartlett0Sonya Faber1Monnica Williams2Kellen Saxberg3 Department of Classics & Religious Studies, , Ottawa, ON, Canada School of Psychology, , Ottawa, ON, Canada Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, , Ottawa, ON, Canada School of Psychology, , Ottawa, ON, CanadaFor many marginalized people, coping with discrimination is not a temporary condition. Rather it is endemic to living in a discriminatory society and a source of ongoing stress. In this paper, we explore the need to provide people struggling to cope with the skills to tackle not just the personal consequences of discrimination, but also to understand and address the root causes of their pain, and specifically the ones that lie outside of themselves. We propose using the concept of social capital to bring greater awareness among clients, clinicians, and society in general about the need to pair the treatment of personal distress with concurrent practices to understand and tackle larger systemic issues impacting their mental health. People with marginalized identities are often expected to find ways to cope with oppression and then sent back into a broken world, perhaps with stronger coping skills, but often ones which do not address the root cause or source of the pain, which is social injustice. We propose that it is therapeutically important to problematize, pathologize and address the systems and narratives that discriminate and cause people to need to cope, instead of focusing therapeutic interventions only on the internal resources of the person doing the coping.https://doi.org/10.1177/24705470221139205 |
| spellingShingle | Amy Bartlett Sonya Faber Monnica Williams Kellen Saxberg Getting to the Root of the Problem: Supporting Clients With Lived-Experiences of Systemic Discrimination Chronic Stress |
| title | Getting to the Root of the Problem: Supporting Clients With Lived-Experiences of Systemic Discrimination |
| title_full | Getting to the Root of the Problem: Supporting Clients With Lived-Experiences of Systemic Discrimination |
| title_fullStr | Getting to the Root of the Problem: Supporting Clients With Lived-Experiences of Systemic Discrimination |
| title_full_unstemmed | Getting to the Root of the Problem: Supporting Clients With Lived-Experiences of Systemic Discrimination |
| title_short | Getting to the Root of the Problem: Supporting Clients With Lived-Experiences of Systemic Discrimination |
| title_sort | getting to the root of the problem supporting clients with lived experiences of systemic discrimination |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1177/24705470221139205 |
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