"Who Am I?" -- Finding Agency Over Familial & Cultural Forces | Dr. Daniel Gaztambide

I would definitely say that there are obviously you know people in the Multicultural psychology world who would have a more three-dimensional view of these things like it's not just this is a cultural trait but this is something that's a response to oppression but then there are some sometimes where in trying to package you know what's the way of working with ex population it winds up lending itself to kind of a cookie cutter you know here's the encyclopedia like I like the way that Laura Brown talks about it she calls it the almanac of alien others well I was just going to I was just realizing like I'm Jewish so like people you know my family does it sometimes they're like we're anxious Jews that's what we are you know or like we're just anxious about like medical stuff and health and I and I actually get annoyed I get annoyed by that I do I actually do though I'm like I don't know I mean that's not a good enough reason for us to be you know my anxiety is not because I'm Jewish I don't know it's a weird thing you know it always drives me crazy right like as a Jewish person you're you're just going to be this way I'm like anxious there isn't yeah I'm like no it's not cuz I'm Jewish it's cuz I'm who I am you know yeah it's a very interesting communal tension I mean on the oneand like if I think about my own Community like there's a sense of like like uh there's this um you know video game that came out last year Spider-Man Miles Morales where it's about you know Miles Morales Spider-Man right and he's uh uh he's black and Puerto Rican and in the game there's a scene where you go into like his home and you see like you know all these different you know signifiers of Puerto Rican this like the Ki the little frog or the flag all these different things and I remember when I saw that I got I got so tearful and moved because it's like oh I'm seeing you know things that are part of me and my family and my community being represented right and so any kind of you know I could walk outside and see a Puerto Rican flag out somebody's window and I'll just feel that kind of swooning in my heart right like we say like my heart bursts seeing that so it's like on the one hand I do have that sense of like Collective Pride with my community right but at the same time I don't give like I don't give you know all Puerto Ricans a pass right especially if they have like political views that don't align with mine it's like okay we're Puerto Rican I get you but also like I strongly disagree right with your right-wing political beliefs or whatever so it's like holding you know having a sense of like shared Destiny or identity whatever without it being like Oh you're Puerto Rican so you must know it's like this down the third and it's like no I can't actually speak for all Puerto Ricans especially yeah this whole situation here like I can't just you know become the stand in for my community like I'm also my own person like I also like board games and you know detective movies like I have an inner life that's not just you know Sala and goito like I love kokito and I love salsa but that's not like the whole of you know me as a person so it's like people being able to like have that dynamism where it's not just like your ex therefore I can solve for why Without Really knowing you as a human being you know I think it's like well if your mother you know is always someone who you know acted this way or you know you are you know inherently of course you you are like your family and I think there might be the reason I'm saying that is this thing has always personally annoyed me when I hear this from people and I'm like you know it's not that like our whole family does that I this is stop it stop it frankly it's such a yeah it's such an interesting tension cuz like you know when your family is like oh that's so your dad like your dad did that that's so your uncle whatever like there's often some grain of Truth and a lie like if I get into some of the more like headier kind of psychoanalytic theories um one of my favorites that speaks to this is uh you know it's comes from the work of French analyst called jacqu laon like Lan psych analysis and their big idea you know like I there are a lot of things I'll you know pick bones with but there's a lot that in there I think is true in their work which is the idea that when you speak it's not just you speaking it's and it's not even just like your attachment caregivers it's like your family it's your culture it's everything speaking through you right I almost imagine it like a the flow of a river right like the river is kind of pulling you and pushing you these different ways and it's not that you don't have agency but you're not even aware that you're in a river you're not it's like fish and water like you're not aware you're in it but it's all kind of pushing you and at a certain point whether it's through your life experience or being in therapy whatever like you're suddenly like oh let me hold on to this rock for a moment and and even sit on the Rock and just see the stream going by and then whenever I'm ready I'm going to now go back into the stream but I'm not just going to get pushed by it I'm going to flow with it and I'll get to decide how and why and when these things influence or inform me or exert their pressure on me right like going back to my mother because that's what psychoanalytic people do um my mother to go back to that earlier example like her wish to become a forensic psychologist clearly had a thumb print on me right the fact that my parents decided to call me Daniel Jose right like the story of Daniel from the Bible you know a big Empire conquers his homeland and then brings him over and makes him part of you know the emperor's court or whatnot and then he becomes a counselor and an interpreter of dreams right same thing with the second part of my name Jose like oh the story of Joseph lo and behold was also taken away a far away land and also became a counselor and interpreter of dreams so it's not like my mother wanting to be a forensic psychologist calling me the name of these two figures who were counselors and interpreters of Dreams it's not that that deterministically made me want to become a clinical psychologist it clearly informed the flow that led me to become a psychologist but I became a clinical psychologist not a forensic psychologist right right so it's like yeah all those things flowed through me but at a certain point I exert control over that flow right so it's not just I just became my mom and my dad and I fulfilled their fantasies and Dreams yeah their fantasies and dreams exerted an influence on me but I get to have my own fantasies right I get to dream whatever it is my world is to become same thing with all the societal racial Colonial stuff like that the fact that the US came in and was just like yep you're all notum and you don't get these rights blah blah blah did that obviously inform my existence it absolutely had an influence on my existence but now I have to make some decision make some you know choice is to kind of like Feelgood self-help way of putting it but it's like how do you find that voice among all the other voices that are speaking through you and I think when you do that it's like you start to pick out the voice that's down south from the chorus in order to then make your own chorus and write your own song I

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Length: 8min 40sec (520 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 21 2023