Courageous Advocacy and Action in Professional Counseling

(upbeat music) - Welcome to The Voice of Counseling, presented by the American Counseling Association. This program is hosted by Dr. S. Kent Butler. This week's episode is Courageous Advocacy and Action in Professional Counseling, and features Dr. Jane Goodman. - Welcome to The Voice of Counseling from the American Counseling Association. I'm Dr. S. Kent Butler, and today joining me is Dr. Jane Goodman. Dr. Goodman is a professor of Merida of counseling at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan. She's a past president of the American Counseling Association and the National Career Development Association, and serves on the boards of the International Association of Educational and Vocational Guidance and the Counselors for Social Justice. She is an author of several publications, primarily relating to transitions in the career of development of adults. Today, we're gonna talk with Jane about her journey into counseling. Welcome, Jane. - Nice to see you. - It's really nice to see you as well. It's been a long time with all this life that's going on with the pandemic, but how are you doing? - I'm good, I'm good. I mean, life is really different, right? I moved to Chicago pretty recently, and of course, I don't get to invite people over who I've met, but this happens to be the Jewish holiday. It's Rosh Hashanah, so I had a dinner last night with my daughter and her family and some of her friends, and so I felt like a part of things and welcomed, and that's- - Part of the community again. - Yeah, it felt really good. - So did you move to Chicago because you have family there, or what- - Well, that's why Chicago. I moved because my husband was ill. He has since died, but he couldn't do stairs anymore, and we lived in a 100-year-old house. So we lived in the Detroit area. So we had to move. It made sense to move near my daughter and his son, and to move to an apartment where there were no stairs. - Right, right, right. So it's hard to hear about your husband. How are you doing? - Okay, it's hard. I won't tell you it's not hard, and it's hard with COVID because you have to make a new life, and you can't really do that now. - Right, right. And so how are you spending your days? I heard you tell me earlier that you don't have a car in Chicago. So what's that like? - Well, I walk a lot, which is great. I walk to the grocery store. I'm getting physical therapy for some issues that I've had. So I walk there, walk to my daughters, walk to restaurants, walk to the lake. Chicago is a great city for walking, and I live near the lake and near parks. So that part's all good. I play some tennis. I still do a little bit of work. I've done some webinars. I'm organizing a training in supervision for some people in Singapore. I just did a webinar for Saudi Arabia. So the one thing about doing all this stuff on Zoom or Skype is that sort of borders have become less relevant. - Yes, really much so. - Really interesting. I mean, I was up at five o'clock in the morning to do this thing for Saudi Arabia because for their time zone, but you can do that. - And I did something for Australia a few months ago. So that's been really fun. - I just got an invite to speak for the Turkish Counseling Association. - Me. - And so that's going to be via Zoom as well. And you know, the funny part about it in the letter, it says, if we had not been in COVID, we would have brought you here. And I was like- - Oh, yeah, that's too bad. - That's okay. That's okay. That's not why we do this. So, but it's been a pretty interesting time trying to navigate through all of this, especially with all the racial tension and all the things that are happening in the world today, not just because of the pandemic, but because people don't not be nice humans are seen sometimes, right? - Well, you know, if I look at the combination of COVID, the racial tensions, climate change, those are, I guess, the biggest ones. And the way climate change in particular affects people who have poverty. The deaths in New Jersey were primarily people who were undocumented, who were living in illegal basement apartments with only one exit. That breaks my heart. - Yes. - And I don't know exactly what to do about it, but it feels like those are things that are just sort of everywhere in my thoughts and in my feelings at this point. I guess those four major things. - Yeah, yeah. So, when you think about us as a counseling organization and what we provide, not just to clients, but to students, to counselor educators, to practitioners, all those individuals who are out there, what could we be doing better? What would you like to see us doing? How could we become stronger advocates? - Okay, well, that's advocate is kind of the critical word. ACA has a very good advocacy model. That was originally developed when I was president. So I feel some little bit of ownership in it. I asked Judy Lewis and her colleagues to put that together. And it's just been updated by Judy Daniels and Rebecca Topork. It's on the ACA website under resources. And it's a wonderful three-dimensional model. But we just say, gee, that's there and that's nice. And you should do it. What I think we need to do as a profession, particularly with students, but really for in-service and for practitioners, is to teach people what to do and how to do it. The skills of advocacy, not just the theory of advocacy. You know, I serve on the board of the Counselors for Social Justice and I'm a past president of that group. And the reason that I care so much about that is that I think, in a way, CSJ can kind of be the conscience of ACA to push ACA to do some things, you know, along with other divisions. They're not the only one by any means. AFPD, the group workers and CDA. Others have been very active also, the spiritual group. But to teach people how to do and what to do. And I think many of us become counselors who are fairly introverted. And we like working with one other person. And we like the idea that we, you know, what's the one thing we know about what is effective in counseling, it's the relationship we develop, right? That's the one thing we're really sure of. And we love doing that. We feel really good when we do that. But if that's all we do, we are letting our clients down and we are letting our, I'm not sure what the right word is, the surround, because it's sort of like blame the victim. You help your client, you advocate for them maybe, you advocate with them. But if you don't deal with the system that is adding to their problems and their issues, I don't think you're doing a full job. I think school counselors do this a little better than some others, but they're not doing enough. - So how do we better explain that so that people get it? Because I hear you loudly clear, but of course I'm an advocate. And so it resonates with me. It's not resonating with everyone. So where are we missing the mark when it comes to helping people recognize why it's important for us to advocate for those types of changes? - You know, it seems so self-evident to me that it's hard to say the why part. When I was still actively teaching, I always gave an assignment that students had to do some kind of consulting. Now it didn't have to be social justice advocacy, but for most of them, that's sort of what it ended up being. And they did a whole range of things. But what they had to learn was the sort of basics. How do you enter a system? How do you diagnose what is needed? How do you conduct an intervention? How do you evaluate what you did? And how do you terminate your relationship? Now I'm not saying anything that is revolutionary or new, but I don't think we talk about it a lot. And there's perfect parallels with counseling, but it's a little bit different. And so a lot of my career, I worked with the auto industry and the telecommunications industry, sort of developing career development programs, but it was more a consulting model. I didn't do the personal delivery. So I think I learned stuff that maybe other people don't run into, just if what they see is, you know, a client sitting across the table or even a small group. And if we can't look beyond the walls of that room, we are not doing full justice to what our clients need. And I think we need to do that. There are models, we can do it. We just don't. - So what do you say to the student? I also had colleagues who didn't believe in social justice advocacy, who didn't believe in multiculturalism and said, you know, I just go and I just work with the client. That's all I need to do. How do we help them understand the importance of helping clients reenter into a society that they can kind of navigate and be okay in? You know, we send them back to broken systems all the time. So can you talk a little bit about what counselor educators can do to have more empathy about what they're really doing for their clients? - Well, there's a part of me that just wants to say, you're wrong, right? (laughing) But that's fine. - That doesn't go anywhere very much, right? 'Cause they're like, who do you think you are, right? - Right, it's not effective, but I just had to say that. No, I think what we just have to do is pile up examples. We have to show-- - But wait, I'm gonna go back real quick, Jane. Did you ever see the movie "Moonstruck?" - Yeah, yeah. - And that part with Sarah and her character goes, snap out of it! - Yeah, there's part of me that wants to just do that, right? - Yeah, okay, I just need to get that off. - You're gonna go back. - What I think really worked, human beings are storytellers. I had the opportunity to do some work in Botswana a few years ago. And it was really interesting because I was working with counselors at a university, at a college, and they were sort of thinking they shouldn't do that because that wasn't sort of the Western model that they were being trained in. And I spent most of my time trying to underscore how what came naturally in Botswana was their way of being was really good counseling. I think we need to tell stories. We need to tell them with our colleagues. We need to collect stories because stories are how we learn. My students would say, "Well, I just want to outline the book." And I'd say, "Forget that. I want you to remember my stories because those are what you're gonna remember." And people come up to me 10 years later and say, "You remember that story you told us? They don't come up and say, "You remember when you outlined so-and-so story?" - And that's the thing, right? You can't just memorize what's on page 36, what's on 135. You can't do that. It's really important for you to really understand what becoming a counselor really is. And that's what you're speaking to. You're talking about the fact that it's important that we understand the stories, the narratives, the things that really matter, right? That's how you make those rapport connections in terms of that. So I appreciate you sharing that. - So with our colleagues, I think we have to tell stories and we have to tell the story about, as you put it, the person who goes back to the broken system. And all our good work isn't gonna work if there's no, in terminology that I use around transitions, if there's no support, there are no available strategies. If the- - It is an epico in some regards, right? - To send somebody back, because we're supposed to try to get them to a place where they don't have to come back to us as counselors. So if we're sending them to a broken system that's gonna re-break them again, then we're not necessarily doing what our job is entitled us to be able to do. - Right, and there's so much research. I mean, the research that shows, just on the simplest level, if you're taking a standardized test, but you feel that your achievement is more critical than say I would feel my achievement is, you won't do as well. We know these things. It's not like we don't know this. There's lots of hard research for the people who want the hard research to go with the stories, but the stories are what make things memorable. And I hope what maybe helps people's hearts. - Yeah, but who's controlling that narrative? Like you said, that information's there. We understand that it's there, but someone is actually being able to control that narrative to stop people from being able to move forward in that regards. How do we break that cycle? - I don't know the answer to that. I wish I did. Again, I feel that at some point, these have to be individual interventions with our colleagues, with counselor educators. I think our clients get it. I have never had an issue with a client who did not understand that they were dealing with barriers that I probably wasn't dealing with. And I'm probably dealing with barriers as an older woman, somebody who's Jewish, who's dealing with some barriers that maybe other people don't deal with. Clients get it. It's the counselors and our colleagues who I think don't always get it. And I think even those who get it don't feel empowered. They don't know what to do about it. And they know what to do with an individual client. It's their comfort zone. And if you or I are saying to them, I want you to go beyond that comfort zone, they're uncomfortable. For a long time as a counselor educator, I ran something that Howard Spleet started called the Adult Career Counseling Center. That was for non-students, people in the community who came to us for help with their careers and my students were the counselors. And so these were people who a lot of the time were unemployed or had a lot of struggles. And they knew that life was tough, but the students who were struggling with sort of what I'm supposed to do, I forget what all the initials are, what I'm supposed to do with this and of this and of this and give them an inventory. And I said, no, you're supposed to get to know them and get to know their life and get to know their surround and then help them figure out what the next steps are. Now, in that case, they didn't have a lot of influence with the community. But again, one of the steps that we talk about in advocacy is finding allies. So I developed a branch of my program in Pontiac, Michigan, I don't know if you know Pontiac, it's one of the poorest communities in the country and it's surrounded by the people who own the auto plants, not just the people who run them, it's surrounded by incredible wealth. And so we took our program into Pontiac and we worked, we had got the community college as an ally so that people could take training if they could figure out something that they wanted to learn. We worked with the middle school there and then later with high school to try to develop some resources for people. Think you have to step out of your little bit of comfort zone. And I'll be honest with you, if a student walked slowly past my office, they were doing something in Pontiac. I mean, 'cause I was really, really committed to trying to make a difference in that city. - So that's like a training module too, that maybe is necessary for counselor educated programs to kind of look at. Can you talk to maybe, what is it that we need to do in terms of our training of counselors and training? What are we supposed to do to retrain counselor educators? How do we start, maybe we need to stop all over and start from a point where we actually are now redesigning what counselor education really should be? Maybe that's working with K-CREP and other organizations to try to look at, what is it that we need to help credentialing authorities do to make sure that counseling is really on the forefront, especially with regards to advocacy and social justice? - Yeah, I mean, I guess we have to back up a little bit and look at the outcomes that we want. What is it we wanna see in an effective counselor? Who are the people that we wanna honor with our awards and our fellows? And what are the things they're doing? How do we celebrate that kind of achievement as much as we celebrate getting articles published in prestigious journals kind of thing? And that really means a lot of self-evaluation and looking at things that maybe aren't comfortable changing some of our lives. - You know, I laugh at that whole awards thing anyway, because a lot of it is just a machine that people are, you know, it's like, is that really the best researchers out there? Is that really the best person that you can find? Or is that somebody who wrote the best application to get there, who knew how to navigate those circles in order to get that? Because for me, it starts to lose this luster when you start seeing the same people get it over and over or the same programs get it over and over. 'Cause it's like, you gotta believe that there are other people out there who are doing this work. How are we not highlighting those individuals as well? So I get it. - That gets to another really critical piece, which is I've been very fortunate I've gotten some really nice awards because I've had mentors and colleagues who have nominated me, right? That's somewhat luck, somewhat that I think I have good relationships with people. So, but that certainly doesn't mean I'm the best of, you know, X, Y, Z, I know AMCD has a really active good mentorship program. Other groups have tried it. It's not so easy to do actually. It's not as easy as it sounds. So one of the things we probably need to teach our students is how to get mentors. They don't always get you. I mean, sometimes you have to seek that out. I've had one of my former students, actually she never actually took a class from me. She just came to me once and said, will you help mentor me? - Right. And it goes back to a little bit what you said earlier about most of the counselors are introverts. So they're not necessarily going to go up to someone. - Right. - So we have to be able to train them to be able to do that as well. I think about it in my own situation. I went to a predominantly white school and my graduate in my doctorate program. I was one of the only ones in my program who looked like me and there definitely weren't any faculty members that looked like me. And so I didn't get started getting mentored until I was in the profession. And so how do we, even in our courses, teach people to advocate for themselves so that they can go and find people who will be able to be supportive of them and move the needle for them in regards to how they can navigate the counseling profession. I didn't know that I would come to counseling conferences and meet people like you and Sam Blatting and Gerald Corey and Courtney Lee and Thomas Parham. And I didn't know that I would see you all because I was reading about stuff that you all were doing. And I was using that research but to actually be able to touch you all and to recognize that you were just human beings in that regards really helped me to understand how I can get more involved. But it was a mentorship. It was somebody tapping me and saying, "Don't be afraid to go up and talk to these individuals. They're just human beings that change that narrative. But if you're introverted, you don't think about that." - Yeah, and I think there actually are techniques that you can learn. And I'm unfortunately blanking on her names. Someone who writes self-help books, not necessarily a counselor. But what she talks about is that there is a guaranteed way of getting response, which is to say to somebody, "I need your help." - Yes. - "Can you have a problem? Can you help me solve it?" - Wow. - And that's how I met Nancy Schlossberg. I mean, I'd met her before she was teaching in my program but the way she became my mentor was I heard about an interest inventory that had a pink form for girls and a blue form for boys. Somebody mentioned it at a party. And so I went up to Nancy and said, "Well, I heard about this. Can you help me?" And we ended up doing research. It was the strong, what we now call the strong interest inventory. And we did some item, and we did pretty extensive research. Item analysis gave the same test to men and women. What we found was that with the same set of answers that your, the occupations that came up with had status differences. So a woman would be a teacher, a man would be a principal, a woman, a nurse, a man, a doctor, et cetera, et cetera. And we actually, they changed the test. So it became, it was, that's what got me involved really. I had a master's degree, but it's what got me involved in the profession. But it was because I went to her and said, "I need help." - Right, right. - Because she was most important. - That's a legacy in and of itself to have that instrument out there for people to be able to use. What's it like to kind of look back on those experiences that you've had to create something like that that is so useful? - Well, that particular one, I'm very proud of. I will not say that I'm not. I feel like it really was, and it was a fair amount of luck that this person just mentioned it at the party, but I worked really hard then to follow up. And Nancy and I had them change the test through the measurement group, but lots of other people were involved. - Right. - So that feels wonderful. And that's why I have a doctorate. 'Cause at one point she said to me, "I can't pay you for any of this research, "but I can give you some credits." And then all of a sudden I had credits. And so she said, "Well, you've got this many credits. "You might as well." - Might as well go towards your doctor. - Right. And then she moved away and the person who I sort of got passed to was a consultant for the judge in Detroit who was managing the school integration program at that time. So getting to know him sort of connected me with a bit of that world, which was also fortunate in terms of my own growth and development. Some of it is luck, but I think some of it is also being responsive and responsible. And someone says-- - All right, now I was gonna ask you, isn't it like being open to these opportunities? Isn't that like the key to it? It's like when these things come along and you can see yourself making a difference, that you take the opportunity to do the best that you can with that. - Absolutely. - It doesn't even seem like a labor in some regards, right? So once you started doing it and you started seeing it come to fruition, I'm quite sure that it was like more of a labor of love than it was like labor risk. - Right, but it's still a lot of work. I always said the reason I became a leader and did well in leadership is that if I said I was gonna do something, I did. And that is not as common as you all know. Anyone who's been a leader who's had committee chairs or other people who don't do what they say they're gonna do. And so I think that's part of it. But sort of to get back to where we were talking before, the idea of mentorship. And particularly if you don't see yourself as just like everybody else around you, or I remember first going to conferences and I met, oh, who was it? David Tiedemann and John Hollington. I'm sort of, you know, starstruck, right? - Right, right. - Then there's this thing of, wait a minute, as you said, they're people. And I do wonder, you know, I've been reading their things and I'm curious about X, Y, or Z and sort of making myself stuttering a little bit sometimes I'll tell you the truth to ask a question or, and then suddenly you're talking to another person. - Yeah. - And it's amazing. - I used to stutter around Thomas Parham. - Yeah. - I used to stutter, I used to go up to him and I didn't, I mean, I physically was not able to really have conversations with him. And I actually had a conversation with him about that, saying, you know, that I was really kind of putting him on a pedestal and he was like, don't do that, at least I'm just human. He said, I just happened to have written these things and I just happened to have done this and it got traction. So, you know, I'm no different than you are. I just had opportunities and I made good on them. Still to what you're talking about, you had opportunities and you put the work in to make it happen. And so that's really what we were talking about. And so as an introvert, it was like, wow, that was a lesson, that was a great lesson to learn because then I was able to step outside of that and see other people for who they were as well. Again, but the, you know, the starstruck stuff did happen. It really did. - So now that you're in that position, well, you are. And I am too, I guess, it's hard to say that, but I think it's true. - You are, you are. I couldn't be ready to talk to you as well. - Right, so how do we then reach out to people so that they can feel that comfort that Thomas Parham did to you or Patricia Arredondo? I remember meeting at her, he was another one that, you know, I met him just in the hall somewhere and we just sometimes in an elevator, I don't know, something like that. It was like, he was just so personable. - Yeah. - The next time I saw him I felt like I knew him. - I tried to be open to all things. You know, when people come up to me, I speak to them, I talk with them. And I take the time, especially at conferences, to kind of be present, right? But I've also taken opportunities. So I just got asked by ASIS to be a part of a mentorship program. And I said, sure, I said, I know I'm busy. I know I got a lot on my plate, but I, you know, that's how you give back, right? You give back because of those things. And, you know, as I've gotten more and more involved and people started to know who I was, you know, I get an email me once in a while. Hey, I'd love to talk to you. Can I just take some of your time? And then they may not ask me for mentorship per se, but there are individuals who are asking me for to be a mentor. And I start to think about is, you know, it doesn't take much to take an hour out of your day to have some time for someone. And so I try to do that and respond pretty quickly, right? I try not to be that person who gets an email and I don't respond to it for a month or two months or whatever, by that time, that person's like, they don't care about me. So, you know, I'd make the effort, so to speak, to try to reach out. - I think that's really important. And if we want to talk about social justice again, then I think those connections, it's important for me to, when I have, I just recently had somebody like that sort of out of the blue wanted something and I spent an hour with her. And I think it's important at that point for me to raise how I care about social justice issues and how is there doing their planning that's something they might want to think about and very consciously bring that into our discussions. 'Cause that feels like part of my obligation. I tell people about the advocacy model. I can take one minute, I have a brand new book out, the fifth edition of Counseling, Adults and Transition, chapter 10 has to do with advocacy and the ACA model is in there. 'Cause I think it's important and I want to make sure people know that I care about that. - Exactly true. And so I know that to be true as well, because for me, when I, people ask me, what do you want to do in this year? Well, I was like, I want to tap people in. I want to tap people into leadership. I want there to be conversations around what stuff efficacy is, what social justice is, what advocacy is. I want to talk about the elephant that's in the room. I want to stop tiptoeing around things. I want to call things for what they are. And I know that that's going to get me in trouble sometimes, but at the same time, it's like, well, I have the platform now to kind of share why it's important for us to be inclusive, to understand the intersectionalities that are out there across the communities and bring those in. We need to hear all those voices in order to kind of make sure that we are tapping into the best of ourselves. But if we don't do that, if we continue to try to go along the status quo line and keep people comfortable, then we're never going to have those difficult dialogues, those conversations that are necessary to move to need them. - I think that's about the first thing you and I ever talked about was having difficult conversations. It was a leadership meeting in Alexandria, probably. And I've thought about it a lot because we must and we must be willing to have a difficult conversation, which sometimes makes us uncomfortable and sometimes makes us learn some new things about the world or ourselves. - And it's not, I'm not trying to come to harm anyone. I'm trying to come to tell people about people's reality and things that are going on for folks. And we have to step outside of ourselves sometime to see what it is that is going on. So we're coming to a time that we need to take a quick break. And I think I may be a little bit over the time, but I enjoy talking with you so much. And so why don't we take a quick break? - This is the voice of counseling from the American Counseling Association. I'm talking with Dr. Jane Goodman and we'll be back in a moment. - Counselors help positively impact lives by providing support, wellness, treatment. We're working to change lives. We are creating a world where every person has access to the quality, professional counseling and mental health services needed to thrive. - Welcome back, I'm S. Kent Butler and you are continuing our conversation with the great Jane Goodman, Dr. Goodman. I hear you have a pet peeve around counselor education. Can you tell me a little bit about what that is? - Sure, I mean, I mentioned earlier my concern that we don't teach the how and the what around advocacy. But my other pet peeve has to do with the multicultural counseling class as it is typically taught. In most universities, as I understand it, it's usually taught by the newest assistant professor. It's often taught at the same time as intro. Career development is almost always taught by the newest inexperienced or adjunct even professor. And the multicultural, certainly not all of it, but much of it seems to be teaching people a series of stereotypes. And I remember one wonderful story. I wasn't teaching the class, but a student of mine in another class who was white came up to me and she said, you know, and I have me to ask you something. I said, well, what? And she said, well, my husband's African-American and he keeps telling me the stuff that I'm reading doesn't fit with his family. They're nothing like this, right? And I, you know, we talked about it quite a bit and it was clear that what she was learning was this is what Native American students is what black people do. And this is what Asian people do. Is that they were sort of monolithic and all the same. And it was just, it's wrong. And it certainly doesn't fit the erudando, param, sue models. But that's what, it's easy to teach it that way. And so, you know, so-and-so doesn't like to make eye contact. And so-and-so speaks directly. Well, hey, it's probably not true at all. And it's certainly never true of an individual, right? And to go back to what we were saying at the beginning, if the goal of counseling, the first goal is to develop a relationship. I've been teaching supervision lately and all the research on supervision is that the first goal was to develop a relationship with your supervisor. And when you have cultural differences between you, then sometimes that's harder. But it's still your goal. And it's still your goal to figure this out. And so it's, I get very frustrated by that. And I want to find other ways of teaching us to look at different worldviews and different understandings and different backgrounds, which may have more to do with educational level or social class or race and ethnicity or religion or a zillion other things. But it comes with some unlearning, right? Individuals have been taught from birth, from their caregivers, how to respond, how to act, how to be in public, you know? And each family does different things, you know? And I find that when I'm teaching classes, especially multicultural, students will say, well, I was taught by my parents never to say that or never to do this. And I'm like, well, why not? You know, that's fear that is someone else's narrative about maybe an experience they've had with someone. But it does lead to the stereotypical pieces that stop us from having really profound conversations and opportunities to get to know someone who's different from us. - Yeah. - And what I try to tell my students is that we're all different. There's nobody that's the same. Even people who grew up in the same household are different. So if you treat people who look like you in a certain way, how come you can't do that same thing with someone just because they may come from a foreign country or speak a different language? - And how can you assume someone that looks like you actually is like you in terms of their background and what matters to them and all of those things? One of the things, an article that I never wrote was gonna be on sort of cliches and homilies. I thought it would be really fun. But the one that I want, the reason I was gonna write it was that the message I always gave to my students is state the obvious. So like if I'm sitting with you, you know that I'm white and you're black, right? This is not new information to you. - Not at all. - I'm not telling you something you don't know. So let's talk about it. Let's talk about how that affects our interaction. What are the assumptions that you might be making when you look at my white head that, or what are the assumptions I might be making when I see how tall and how big you are about what your world experience might have been like compared to mine. But if I don't talk about those and I don't raise it. - Communication is key. We don't understand that. In some cases we lost the art of communication and that's why I try to have these difficult dialogues as much as possible. - And we say it's the most important thing but we don't always do it. So, you know, one of the things-- - For fear, for fear, because, you know, the thing is this, if I say what I really think about this or I make a statement, you'll think that I'm racist or you'll think that I'm this or you'll think that I'm that. And I'm like, well, what if we already think that? So let's get past that. Let's get to the point where we can actually have the conversation because you learn and you grow from having the experience, right? From walking the walk, you get to have that opportunity. But if you sit there and think about it and say, you know what, I'm not gonna have that conversation or I'm not gonna do this or I'm not gonna go in this community or I'm not gonna say this, if you do that and continue to do this, then you'll never grow. - That's right. And I believe the best way to do that is telling stories. So if I say to you, tell me your story. You've already told me a few in this interview. You've talked a little bit about, you know, various things in terms of graduate school and finding mentors and looking at some of the, you know, heroes of our and heroes of our profession. So I've already, besides that we've met before, I've already learned a little bit more about you and your stories and I've told you some of my stories. - Right, right. - And so in that process, we are developing a bit of an understanding. So if I then come to you and say, look, I'm really trying to figure out my next career steps, just a pretty basic kind of a question, right? You already know some things about my past ones and what I've done that worked for me. You haven't heard so much about the ones that didn't work, but they're there too, right? So we probably talk about some of my failures and some of the things that didn't work out so well. And then you're developing a picture of me that may be connected with my ethnicity and my age and my gender, or may not. - Or may not. - And to me, those are the critical pieces. And so again, as we're looking at how to advocate. - Yeah. - I mean, I was talking to somebody, I mentioned that recently who got my name through a chain of events. And she's looking to be involved internationally. And 'cause I'm on an international board, somebody thought that maybe I could help her make some connections, which I think I did. But she was also in her 60s. So we also had to address what kind of barrier that was gonna be in employment. And if I pretended, I'm looking at her on a screen, I could see that. If I pretended I don't know that, that's a disservice. - Disservice. - Right? - Exactly right. Who's taking the obvious, right? We'll see what's right there in front of us. If a client is coming to you and they are doing something that is egregious to you in the counseling room and you know that they're probably out there in the communities doing that same thing, then it's probably unethical and probably not really good competence than you as a counselor to send them back out there doing that same exact thing. If you see it for fear, for fear that they may get mad at you for bringing it up. - I have a great story about that. It's career development person who had a fabulous resume and he would get an interview and he never got the job. And so he came into our center to see, you know, try to figure out what was going on. And as soon as I saw him, his eyes were shifting back and forth. He looked shiftless. A word that we take as meaning dishonest. And it was almost, it was a tick. And so at that time we were videotaping practice interviews. And so we thought, this is a perfect candidate, right? So we videotaped him and he looked at it and he said, oh my gosh, that guy looks shiftless. And so he stopped and got the next job he applied for. But it just took a little bit of sort of, - It took honesty and taking, and getting past your own fear that you're going, 'cause the purpose of this is to do no harm, but also to help people see the things that are blind to them, right? The blind spots, right? I love the Jahari's window thing, where you've had to go in and you kind of tap into those things that a person just, it's not getting. It's just not seen, right? People coming in and they're saying, "Well, I can't get along with this person." And then you find out that they got this kind of attitude that, you know, it's just off-putting. Well, if you don't tell them that this is what you're seeing in them, you know, maybe you think you're being funny or you're being sarcastic or you're being this, but this is how it's falling. - And that's our obligation. - But what happens in most counselor education programs is that when somebody comes in with these types of situations, we're told that we're leading if we bring it up or if we talk about it. So there's this mixed message about really what we're supposed to be doing in the counseling room, 'cause we think that, well, if I bring this up, we're leading. Well, no, if it's in the room and there's something that's happening, you need to bring it up. You need to talk about those things. Now, if somebody down the hall, like a school teacher says, "Hey, so-and-so just threw a chair." And then hit a student, this and that, I need you to talk to them as a counselor. If you then go into a counseling situation and ask them about the chair today through, that's leading. And I need people to understand what the difference is, right? So what you would do is say, "Hey, tell me what's going on? What's been happening in the classroom? Tell me what's going on with you. What are you, are you angry about something? What's going on?" But as soon as I start talking about the chair today through, I lose the confidence of that person, right? They're like, "Okay, so you're just like the teacher, you're just isn't that, and you're out to get me and all these other things." And so it's like, "No, I'm really trying to help support you, but I can't use those things that are leading from what other people tell me." That's why we don't talk to parents in other things when we're in a counseling situation because that doesn't help build our rapport with the client. And so that's what I think we miss and mark on a lot in counseling as well is that we tell people not to lead the conversation, but we don't really explain to them what leading really is. That makes sense. - It does make sense. And to me, that state the obvious rule, it's actually comes up a lot. In this case, to go back to where we started this whole conversation, throwing the chair was inappropriate, but their anger might have been appropriate. And it might have been based on things that were happening that we're really, you should be angry about. And so then our job is to help the student find other ways of expressing that anger and maybe to consult with the teacher or the principal or whoever has been involved in creating that setting or the bully in the classroom about what they're doing or not doing more often. That isn't helping the situation. So I think that's where we have to put on this advocacy hat and say, let's not assume that this student is just an out of control, angry student. And especially, they're a young black male. We make all these assumptions while they're angry and they're doing this and they're doing that. And that's what they do, as opposed to, I mean, you've heard that, right? I'm not making any sense. - No, you don't. I was just talking with Sam Blatting on the other day for a podcast. And one of the things that people, I remember being in a situation where somebody came up, come look to me and I'm talking with another black person, they said, oh, here comes trouble. And I'm like, what message are you sending with something like that? - Thinking they're being cute. - Thinking they're being cute. - Right, so I think we always have to have that question. The students through the chair were saying, what's going on here? But part of us is saying, what's created that situation that that anger became unmanageable? So yes, he has to learn to manage his anger or she didn't say which, but also what else is going on where we might intervene that they won't have to be so angry. And I think if we don't keep that in mind at all times, then we are doing a disservice to our clientele. So we are back to how our role as advocates has to always kind of be there. I started my career working in a women's center. And this was in the 70s when this was sort of big and new and hot, but it was certainly very clear that women were still are in many ways, but then really getting the short end of the stick. And I remember somebody coming in to see me and she really wanted to work in a museum and she had a chance to volunteer, but her husband wouldn't let her go to Detroit per se. She had to stay out in the suburbs where she was. And I'm sitting there thinking he won't let you you're 40 years old. - Right, right. - But obviously it had to be discussed more delicately than that until she could begin to understand that she might have some agency around her own life. And the career question wasn't the real question. She knew what she wanted to do. She just couldn't figure out how to manage her relationship. And that was really the issue that we ended up working with, not at the career question. - Right, they never come to you with the actual reason why they're coming sometimes. And also sometimes the answer is not that obvious for them, but does come to you in a way that you can support and help them move forward. - Right, and so underneath things, again, it's always looking at what's sort of the underneath and what are we really looking at and what's our role. It's not my role to say you should be a carpenter instead of a childcare worker 'cause you'll make more money. But it is my role to say, do you know what various income levels are for these various positions? And would you do something non-traditional if that were to make you more money? It's my role, it is my role to raise those questions. - Exactly. - And if they say no. - Exactly, and also to, again, I think the beauty of it all is, how do you empower them to be able to do the work that's necessary? You have to find a way to empower them. And they need to feel as though they've had the ability to then go out on their own, with the support system, of course, to try to live the life, the best life that they can live, all right? And how sometimes people are holding them back from being able to do that. And then, so maybe it's not done in the individual counseling. Maybe there's a thing where you say, well, maybe you and your husband need to go to couples counseling and work together to figure out how you all can find a balance on what each of your lives should be and how you can grow together without necessarily being controlling of another person's existence. - When we look at self-efficacy theory, we look at what are the things that increase self-efficacy, empowering role models, success experiences. Well, let's just take those two for the moment. We can help create those. We can help create success experiences. We can give them assignments that we know they will be successful at, rather than things maybe that they won't be so successful at. We can help them find empowering role models. That's part of our job. And I happen to think self-efficacy theory is just critical for so much of what we do because if you don't believe that you can do something, you can't. If you believe you can, maybe it doesn't mean you can. I could say I believe I can fly and I still won't be able to fly. But if I don't believe that I can do a podcast, then I can't. And so we really need to help look at self-efficacy theory in all its details. And particularly for people who don't have a lot of empowering role models or who have disempowering role models. So if people saying to them, you can't all the time, which many of us had as a girl, I was raised to believe that I shouldn't work. I shouldn't do well in school. That getting good grades would make me not popular. So I shouldn't do well on tests. Those did not serve me well, right? Those were things that I needed to overcome and to work on. And we all have those things in our lives that were not perhaps the most empowering. And that's why we get help, right? - That's why we get help, exactly right. And I'm glad that you've been empowered. I know that I've enjoyed our conversations, our time together. I've grown just from having time with you. And so I appreciate you so much. - Thank you. - Especially because you didn't have to do it. - I guess, yeah. - You just did. And I appreciate you for that. And I know that your walk hasn't been easy. Life for you right now, you're dealing with some things. I just hope that things get better and better for you as you navigate your life there in Chicago. But one thing, if you would, is there something that you believe is your legacy that you're leaving? You were an ACA president. You have done so much work with social justice and career and things along those lines. Is there one thing that you're most proud of? I know that you were proud of the strong inventory and those other things. But there's something that, you know, when people think of you, that you want them to be able to hold on to and say, "Yes, that's the Jane Goodman that I knew." - Wow, I mean, that's a big question. I first off the top response just really quick is that I want people to remember that I really do care, that it's not phony, it's not put on, I really do. The other piece, and I've been known to sing, so I won't do that for you 'cause I'm not any good. But they call me-- - Listen, you can sing all day. - You can sing all day. ♪ They call me a cock-eyed optimist ♪ ♪ And I can't get it out of my head ♪ I really am an optimist. Even when things, I mean, I can remember at the depths of sort of my pain and one thing or another, thinking, "Oh, it's good that I can feel so deeply," right? No, that's probably crazy. But it's the part of me that sort of keeps going, that I do believe that there can be a better world and that if I work at the things I know how to do in my little teeny way, that I can help make that happen. And I think I make that happen through connecting with other people who then make it happen, like you. - I love you, Jane Goodman. - I love you, Kim Butler, this is wonderful. - Thank you so much for being in my life and thank you for joining us for the podcast. You are a phenomenal human being. I love your fight. I love being next to you when we are in rooms and we're talking. I can't wait till we get the chance to kind of hang out again. And I just want you to know that it has not gone unnoticed. - Thank you, dear. That's very sweet. - So everything that you said about, well, that's who you are, that's who you are. And so just know that it's gonna be a good reckoning for folks to recognize that a good person like you is who they should aspire to be. And so I just thank you. I just thank you for being in my life. And this is the Voice of Counseling and is put on by the American Counseling Association and we'll see you next time. Thank you, Jamie. - Thank you. - Thank you. (upbeat music) - ACA provides these podcasts solely for informational and educational purposes. Opinions expressed in these podcasts do not necessarily reflect the view of ACA. ACA is not responsible for the consequences of any decisions or actions taken in reliance upon or as a result of the information and resources provided in this program. This program is copyright 2021 by the American Counseling Association. All rights reserved.