Dr. Jean speaks on cultural humility (part 4)

Dr. Jean brings her lived experiences and identities to her work, as a therapist offering self-care, culturally responsive treatment approaches and innovative therapeutic techniques for complex trauma, and as a native Jamaican, a voice in the immigrant community, a woman of color.

​Kate: I was looking through the Elizabeth Freeman Center's website and they were talking about having people who speak many different languages, having ways to tailor or think about the community and the person that they're talking to. 

Dr. Jean: So yes, they're fortunate enough to have had — it's mostly Spanish speaking, but we have access to interpreters, whether they're using the monitor, or they're calling. (32:30) So there's interpreters for every language … but mainly we have Russians, mainly Spanish. I don't know if some of the people from Ukraine have made their way here. 

And some of the other languages, you just dial up. It's a service you dial up. And so either that, they have a monitor … or it could be the phone call. So that you can always have access. It's mandated anyway that you have to have somebody who can interpret. 
Because if you don't know what's being said, how can you give your opinion or take the options that are offered to you? 

It's like being blind. You can’t, if you’re not speaking the language. So that's one of the first things after, making people comfortable addressing those. 

Kate: I was thinking of conversations that we've had with Bridge about cultural competency, that to understand where someone's coming from and what kind of help they may or may not be comfortable asking for, what relationship they may have with their own body, what their expectations might be for a relationship with someone else could (vary, depending on where they come from)? 

Dr. Jean: And there's the thing about trauma-informed care. It goes hand in hand with cultural competence — I don't say cultural competence, because here cultural humility is what's practiced. So trauma-informed care goes along with that. 

Communication has to be open, so that you feel comfortable to say, "Right now I am on my menses and I really need those supplies." 

Because there are some times when you don't feel comfortable. (34:30) Especially when you're dealing with somebody who does not even look like you, who doesn't speak your language, you're not going to talk about body stuff. It's very uncomfortable, and you need to be in that space where you can. 

So BRIDGE is further along with that than many other organizations, even the Elizabeth Freeman Center, because we were never really headed by a woman of color. Now they are. I keep saying ‘we.’ (She laughs)

Gwendolyn: You’ve spent your lifetime there. It’s your legacy.

Dr. Jean: Yeah. In the past. It's — (35:00) someone who hasn't lived the multicultural life, you can't bring that perspective, because you don't have it. That it's a lot about oral. It's not all written. It's a lot about body language and language, words that we use among ourselves. It's not in the dictionary. 

That says that when you're dealing with people that are similar, at least they say, oh, you speak Spanish and I speak English. 

But if I say in the French, we say, Kreyol, or in Jamaican we say patois, and whatever you say in your Spanish language. But you know something like that exists. In the other world, they don't know anything else. 

So it's kind of hard, it's kind of difficult. Even the way we use the language, some words before and after the other words, get them confused. And then they say, "Oh, you're illiterate." And I said, "No, I'm not illiterate." This is how we say, we put this word before that word. 

If you deal with somebody of difference, even though you're in a different language, they know they're idioms. You know, in Colombia, you may say a bus one way, in Nicaragua, you may say it one way, in Puerto Rico, you say it another way, but we all know it's a bus, right? 

But say in Puerto Rico, you say la guagua. In Mexico (looking to Rosa, Gabriela and Laura), what do you call a bus in Mexico? 

Gabriela and Laura: Autobus. 

Rosa (agreeing): Autobus. 

Dr. Jean: Well that's a proper word, but we have slams for everything. 

Gabriela and Laura: Oh. Passero.

Dr. Jean: (laughing) That's what I meant, right? It's just like, if you speak French and you're educated in French, but if somebody's speaking Creole, you might not be familiar with it, because you're not from Haiti. So that's what I mean. But we have more tolerance for that. 

Gwendolyn: Machine — el machine — I've learned. 

Dr. Jean: So we have a sense, we have a tolerance for that because we know it exists. In America, it's the bus. You're gonna catch the bus? And if somebody doesn't say you're gonna catch the bus, or we say la guagua, or whatever we're saying is coming, they're looking like, "What?" 

And then you have to explain, right? Instead of that openness. There is an openness when you're from difference. You know there's difference. Through that multicultural, multi-ethnic way of communicating. 

And this is — in my country, people just look. To say ‘you see that person,’ they won't say ‘that person,’ they'll go — (she gestures with her eyes and expression.) They'll just make a body thing. There's no language. 

I mean, so as I'm saying. There’s more tolerance for it because you know there's difference that exists. You may not know what it is, but you know. 

Kate: Is there an emotional language as well, that if you're talking with someone about a way that they've been hurt, or a challenge that they've experienced that has to do with a relationship or with what consent means. Or there's a lot of language even in the conversation we've been having… somebody’s understanding of what sexual assault is or what a healthy relationship could be? 

Dr. Jean: Yes. I think when we think about assault … I just never forget this. A woman, and I want to say she was from Brazil, I can't remember, but she told me, "We don't have a word for that. People just do whatever they want with you. 

And you don't go home to your mom or your sister and say, ‘That person brushed too close to me or do something that I felt like —” (in tone and gesture she indicates — that person did something that felt uncomfortable, invasive, frightening, wrong.)

(The woman who spoke to me was telling me, in her native culture, they have no language for) anything that's not rape. 

And even rape, rape within marriages, rape within relationships, are not considered that way, because you're boyfriend and girlfriend, or you’re husband and wife, or whomever you may be. Right? 

So the language is different. And the words that we use for sex or the words that we use for body parts, you know, and you're speaking with somebody and you're constantly saying --

She pauses gently as Sarah Haile joins the group on zoom from her public health masters program at UMass. (39:30) Sarah is working with BRIDGE on a Community Health Improvement Plan and also on these stories.

Dr. Jean: (saying hello to Sarah, who can see her on screen.) So yeah, we were speaking about language and the words that we use. I was at a conference, courtesy of BRIDGE, not too long ago, and we're speaking with people. 

Somebody from the Congo was at my table, someone from New Mexico, someone from Nigeria but working here right now, and the person from Congo was just here a few months, and then somebody from South Carolina, someone from Wisconsin, me from Massachusetts … 

Regardless, we were talking about, in our cultures, in our communities of color — this (conference) is all about people of color — and we’re talking about, what are the words? 

And I heard some words, I wrote most of them down (to remember), that's what they call that part? Or that's what they call it? That's what they're referring to when they're talking about sex? 

As a counselor or somebody who's trying to help someone verify, you’re often trying to say to them, can you tell me a little bit more about that? Because I'm not sure of that word. ...

Dr. Jean goes on to talk about her therapy work with children, and then she returns to cultural humility, as Sarah Haile asks a question.

Sarah: (looking at Dr. Jean, the person she can see best on zoom, and talking to her directly) Yeah, honestly, I was just listening to how we're talking about trauma and the healing process, especially for children. 

And I was wondering, do you see any or notice any large differences in how those healing processes play out for people of different backgrounds and from different upbringings, and how do you see patterns in the cultural competency aspect of healing? 

Dr. Jean: Well, if an agency is bringing a lot of cultural humility to it, I mean for the longest time we were working with cultural competency. The difference between cultural competency and cultural humility is, humility we live. We're practicing every day. 

This is like a way of life, versus cultural competency is me taking three years of statistics so I can get my PhD and I learn it and I pass the test, but don't ask me anything about it this week. 

(Well I think the mean, the medium and the mode, I think I know what those are. The average — and oh, outliers, I remember that. But don't ask me anything else about statistics, right?) But I took the class and I passed it. 

So that's the difference, in that as a therapist I practice every day. That's cultural humility. This is how we live. We're practicing that. And so we're trying to get there with trauma-informed care. So we see that, when we think of differences. 

So if you're getting therapy in an agency where people welcome you, where you feel like you're making a connection with the therapist because the therapist is understanding you, whether it's a child or an adult, the effect of that is going to be more positive. (01:00:00) You’re not going to be skipping around. 

Sometimes we skip around a therapist — (we say) oh, that therapist doesn't work, this treatment doesn't work, that sort of stuff. When we're intentional in building a relationship first, whether it's with a child, when we create that alliance of safety, and effectiveness, being effective with how we do stuff with the client, regardless of who they may be. 

Because it's coming from a perspective that brings in cultural humility, multiculturalism, all that — so it’s like me being in this place and looking around at all these paintings, everything I see appeals to my eyes. 

(She looks around the second floor room at BRIDGE, at bright paintings books, bright color and representation of many voices.) 

And If I was somewhere else, it wouldn't feel this way. All the books on the shelves make me feel like, "Oh, brown people everywhere." 

That's the difference, and that may be more effective. Because again, when it comes to trauma, you want to say, I don't want to have to explain everything, but I want somebody to understand how I feel. (01:01:00)

So if you start with me as a person, understanding me, when you bring that cultural humility to it, we're going to be effective, regardless. Even the relationship is going to work. Don't even worry about the treatment. Just the relationship we have is going to work, because it feels different.

Sarah: Thank you. 

Dr. Jean: You’re welcome.