How can activism and art become a meaningful part of my professional journey?
As someone aspiring to work in the psychological field the opportunities for employment are decent. I intend on eventually opening up my own private practice for counseling, most likely LGBTQ+ and adolescents with lower income. I want to have a mainly non white, minority clientele. As someone who is queer and a woman of color the goal is to make mental health services, like counseling, more attainable and affordable to minorities. Activism in it if itself could be one of the first things that could help me attain this goal.
For a lot of the main structural goals I have for my professional journey many obstacles must be overcome. Social issues like the lack of affordable health care, lack of resources, lack of awareness, and lack of communication are obstacles that kept me personally from being able to receive mental health services. A lot of people don’t realize what options they have, and even if they know about psychologists they aren’t able to afford the services. In my practice the goal is to use a sliding rate, which makes it more affordable and is based on each individual client's salary.
Incorporating activism into my work would start with what type of clients I’d want to accept, and what specific disorders I specialized in. Focusing on training for issues most common in low income communities of color and queer patients would be the first step in learning how to aid them in their journeys.
Using the information I learn from protests as fuel for activism. Being with a degree can lead me to start looking into the commonalities within my patients, if any, and investigating the roots of their issues. Looking at things like the school systems they grew up with, the communities, they’re cultural backgrounds, how they are treated because of their culture, their sexuality, how the educational system portrays sexuality, culture, and diversity. Using all these random things and pinpoint what institutions or social standards affected them most, and advocate against them. Being professional and working with them inside of the business aspect and keeping in mind their experiences and using that as incentive to actively participate in activism. Fighting against any social stigmas, injustices, or inequalities within my life outside work would be the second step. Remembering the common issues, like patriarchy, and its effects on everything and everyone.
“I was always more interested in challenging patriarchy than my brother was because it was the system that was always leaving me out of things I wanted to be part of.” (Hooks, 2004 p.20)
Also creating an active work space that is a visual representation of everything that I stand for. In typical doctors offices there are a lot of random factoids and graphics to capture the eye. Those posters are typically an easy to understand image with a straight forward quote or fact on it. Borrowing inspiration and/or using imagery from past political movements, like the Civil Rights Movement or Black Lives Matter Movement, could be a way of actively trying to incorporate art and activism in my clinical practice. Whether it’s having quotes from influential people like Audre Lorde, Bell Hooks, Roxanne Gay, Marsha P. Johnson, Gladys Bentley, James Baldwin. Or just simply having up their images and just their faces being a constant reminder of them and what they fought for and how they in every way shape what my practice is like.
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A protest banner from the Black Panther Party during the Civil Rights Movement (Inserted from the text Siegler Chapter 5) |
“The perfect example of the starkness of the message supported and amplified by the starkness of the design.” (Siegler, 2018)
This quote is referring to the signs used during the Civil Rights protest in which, like signs in doctors offices, they were simple and got straight to the point.
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| Audre Lorde lectures students at the Atlantic Center for the Arts in New Smyrna Beach, Florida in 1983 |
As well as being a clinical psychologist, I intend on spending any extra time becoming a writer. Influenced and inspired by authors like Audre Lorde, Bell Hooks, and Roxane Gay. Discussing issues like racism, classism, sexism, colorism, femininity, patriarchy. The goal is to not just write essays, and journals that are informative but to write in a way that is engaging and easier to comprehend for lower income families. Meaning to inform without using such uncommon language that is intimidating and hard to understand. I want to write about not just factual things but fictional stories with queerness, afro latinx characters, and a reality check on what it is to be poor. I want to write stories that are inclusive and raw whether they’re factual or not.
This Is What I Know About Ar by Kimberly Drew is a prime example of everything that I want to write about. It’s easy to understand, it bluntly talks about the issues and realities of being a black woman in an educational system and how much sacrifice goes into us actually getting educated and how even that education we fight for is so flawed. She eventually finds her calling in art history and focuses on empowering and sharing black artwork. Drawing inspiration from her, I'd love to reference and share literary works not just in my writing but in my physical space. Kimberly Drew says “I knew that I wanted to record as many Black artists as possible for anyone, like me, who needed to see more art by Black people. I knew that I had to resist erasure of Black artists. I did not want anyone to say that Black artists did not exist.” (Drew, 2020 p.22) The idea of resisting erasure is exactly what I hope for. I want to write stories that are about intersectionality and I don’t want anyone to feel like me where I can’t find any books about a character that is female, queer, low income, with mental disorders, and has to work full time jobs and is on the path of being educated.
One of the biggest things to remember when trying to actively protest is the complexity of it all. Drew also says, “Protest is way more complicated than communicating rage. Small actions foster change. Our activism, like any other part of ourselves, develops into something bigger than a singular experience. Activism is a collective action and an investment in the lives of other people.” (Drew, 2020 p.61) Even though the small posters, and helping counsel minorities may seem like small actions of activism they collectively make impacts and grow into bigger things, and they aren’t just about how they affect me but everyone else.
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| Kimberly Drew at an art exhibition DotAteliers in Accra, December 28, 2022 |
Works Cited
Aviles, G., Jao, A., & Sopelsa, B. (2020, February 13). 16 queer Black Trailblazers who made history. NBCNews.com. Retrieved March 21, 2023, from
https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/nbc-out-proud/black-history-month-17-lgbtq-black-pioneers-who-made-history-n1130856
Drew, K. (2020). This Is What I Know About Art. Penguin.
Siegler, B. (2018). Signs of Resistance: A Visual History of Protest in America.
Hooks, B. (2004). The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love.
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