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 How do we therapists see the conditions our clients live with? In our daily contacts with people, it is important to have a clear understanding of why people suffer from what they report being challenging for them.

For me, health and dysfunction are discourses that are intertwined with the politics by which human life is defined.  In order to identify my core beliefs, I had to look at the forces that have changed and shifted our Iranian life. The politics that contributed to the failure of establishment of democracy in my home country have only reinforced neuroticism and despair. How can we not recognize the politics around which our lives are constantly changing?

Mental health among people of my community is greatly defined by the forces of oppression and segregation. My definition of mental health is definitely impacted by how I view the historical impact of vigorous political views interfering in and violating the lives of people of my home country.  It is important to remember how over the centuries, abuse of power and abuse of politics have contributed to systematic human rights violations, war zones, and financial exploitation that have only made human conditions worse. I believe that mental health issues are largely due to the politics ruling human life in every community. This is why I cannot ignore factors impacting human life anywhere in the world.

Over the years, through my own personal and professional experiences, I became aware of the influence of socio-political reality of authoritarian governments and oppression on mental health issues.   I guess I was born in a time where I had to make a conscious choice, namely to look beyond a divided, polarized world.  I sensed that oppression was a poison for our minds that made us believe how racism, gender segregation, and sexism are part of life. I refused to accept that life had one single color.  I could see the danger of a cultural dichotomy between good and bad, black and white, less and more.

I have learned that oppression requires systematic subjugation. People who are shouting that they have the only answer to every aspect of human life are forcing systematic submission and conformity.  My life experiences have helped me realize that some people fall for this system and lose their integrity. I can connect the internalized sense of shame and guilt to the explicit rules of oppressive systems, where the only mission is to destroy life and happiness.

I was trained in this humanistic school of thought in a very simple and natural way:  by observation.  I was living in a world of many contrasts, polarities, and contradictions. I do believe that social inequality and oppression are blocking people from gaining self-respect and dignity.

In search for the real truth, I realized that there is no such thing, and we all have our own individual truths. I came to trust my instincts and to believe that even those who oppress us are in need of respect, because they are blindly perpetuating the notion of conformity.    In that path, I was able to externalize the reasons for mental health issues and neurotic responses to many areas of life.

Many Iranians now question the traditional notion of sex, race, ethnicity, culture, and gender.   In working toward change, we can not ignore social injustice as the main reason for human pain and suffering.  Where gender, race, culture, religion, and ethnicity intersect, there is only one regulation that can help peace and order, and that is respect and acceptance.

For me, mental health and mental illness are constantly jeopardized by the underlying forces of submission and subjugation. Oppression is one nasty and dark wall, cluttered with faulty beliefs, stigma, hatred, racism, extremism, and sexism.

This is how I believe psychotherapy and psychology have a main duty on both a personal and a societal level.  This is where psychotherapy could have an impact on how people try to challenge the status quo.

With regard to theoretical orientation, I cannot ignore the views on women conditions in our home country, a complex issue that impacts health and dysfunction.

Change is possible once our clients are able to see their position in the realm of reality and conditions of existence.

September 3. 2010

Poran Poregbal, MA, RSW, RCC

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In my position as a clinical counsellor, I often meet Iranian men and women who are stressed out due to a difficult marriage.   Martial issues are occurring for all people; however the cultural understanding of how to resolve conflicts is remarkable in the case of our fellow Iranians who are challenged in their marriages. These individuals come from all background, all ages, and all social status.

Most individuals have been in a long time marriage, while their relationships have not been the healthiest.  Immigration, unemployment, extended families, traumas, and shifts in roles are some of many important factors that are often involved in one possible case, when I meet these couples.

At some point when the marriage is threatened, most people try to think of possible solutions which are not always the best.

In general, counselling may not be the first option when couples are in conflicts.  Some may appreciate and choose to seek professional help, while at times many bridges have already been broken.

One thing that most women report is about their efforts to ask, plead, and encourage their husbands to attend counselling.   Men usually complain about wives who are willing to destroy family life due to the “women friendly western Society” they have immigrated to.  However, to be fair, I have had many Iranian men who choose to come to counselling while their wives are skeptical or negative about the work that can be done.  In some cases, i have heard of physical alteration being the fact and in those cases I refer the victim to make a police report, while it is not my job to intervene.  The only protection I am legally bounded is to intervene if i hear a child is being abused, if i hear some one will hurt the self or others.  In case of violence, therefore i have to inform the individuals about their right to be safe.  And, just to be clear;  it is important to say that I have seen men and women being violent against the other partner, so violence does not know any gender, race, social background, nationality, or social status.

In many cases, these broken relationships moving fast towards divorce, a situation that could have been avoided if / when both parties were willing to resolve issues sincerely in counselling session.

I have heard one partner telling their spouses: “I have no problem, you are crazy, and you need to attend counselling, not me.”  Or others who call me to say” My wife / husband should come and talk to you.  “In most cases, one part basically is telling me to “fix the other partner, as it is his or her fault.”
I have heard this statement from too many individuals in order to be able to find a pattern in these types of statements.

Therefore it is important to emphasize that couple or marriage counselling is a two party’s work and a marriage can be saved if both parties are cooperating.  The earlier people try to prevent emotional suffering in their marriage, the more chance we have to help the couple to rebuild their relationship.

May 8, 2010
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Our job as clinical counsellors involves ethics and ethical practice.  What does it mean?  It means that we are bounded by law and Ethical Codes to practice in a way that we do not harm people.  This means that we practice in a way that we respect people’s dignity and whole being of the person. It also means that we are true to our clients as well as to ourselves.

On this note, anyone who is a psychologist, clinical counsellor, a social worker, and a mental health worker, is bounded by the ethical codes to follow Ethical norms ruled by their professional governing and disciplinary boards of registrations.

Therefore, there is need to view our Iranian understanding of our roles as clinical counsellor / psychologists in respect to the ethical codes we have to adhere to. I like to bring this issue home to our communities, because there are many confusions, misunderstandings, and misconception about who is who and who should be who.

The reason I am discussing this  is that, in our community there are people who create confusion about services that we clinical counsellors offer and stand for.

There are some individuals here in our Vancouver, who pretend to be something they are not. I am sure, this is not specific to any place or time, somehow there are always individuals who put their nose into other people’s businesses.

We hear from our clients, time by time that there are “counsellors” who impose their illogical and unethical views on clients.  I hear that there are some or one senior / older gentleman who works with families as a “counsellor” and he gives people “advises.”

We have been told by many of our clients that some individuals who advertise as “counsellor or social worker “in the Iranian community, have certain interest to destroy marriages when she/ he advise women to get divorce.

Some individuals have told us stories of how  in their ailing marriage, they decided to see a counsellor in order to help their marriage, while the “counsellor “told them they should take divorce.  Some other people have the experience of meeting “counsellors” who have taken side or not understood their situation.

Our counsellors in the Iranian Educators Society for Families likes to stay away from these types of people, misleading information, and unethical behaviours.

Exaggerating is a habit in our culture, we Iranians know that.  To exaggerate in this case, is more about misrepresentation and misinformation.   And it happens a lot among us.

It is a bad habit in our culture to call students in medicine a “doctor” already before they have finished first year of education or call students in the technical areas as an “engineer.”

We know that there are people who might have a bachelor degree in one humanistic area and they call themselves: Therapists.

There are others who have taken one or two month courses in “counselling” and advertise already as “social workers” or else.  However there is a long distance between just exaggerating and destroying life.  How can we advise people while the basis of any counselling job is not giving advice? What counselling is not, is about giving advises, interfering in people’s decision making, and taking sides.  We have to know that we can always report these fake counsellors or nosy individuals to the authorities.

Our community deserves clarity, ethical professionals, and ethical practice of clinical counselling. We have to go to basic and  discuss healthy boundaries while taking responsibilities for what we offer.

March 25, 2010
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What does Psychology mean for us?

How can we understand psychology through the lens of our Iranian culture?

Drew Westen (2001), an American psychologist and writer, explains Psychology as a scientific investigation of mental processes and behaviour.

What are mental processes then: Thinking, feeling, remembering, understanding, sensing, and perceiving.

Are you one of those people, whose parents told them, “Don’t think so much, you’ll get crazy.”?

Being born and raised in Iran, you never, at least not on a deep level, learn about psychology. This changes slightly when you get into some university course and learn some surface aspect of how we as humans act, think, and behave.

The science of psychology is neglected, ignored, abused, misinterpreted, and misused in our beloved home country. It is not abnormal then, that our fellow Iranians take a long time to reach the point of asking the “Who am I?” type of questions.

I do not mean to offend anyone. Something that we have in common is that we Iranians learn about “the self” in the cultural aspects of family and individual development in an environment merged in hundreds of ways. This is due to the notion of differences in class, cultures, races, and even families. Although we can say certain things about this and that town, we can rarely assume anything about any individual family from Iran or even a group of families, as life in Iran does not follow a certain harmonic pattern.

I have a friend whose 75 year-old mother loves to read simple psychology books. She keeps saying, “I should have known this information before. Since I know myself, I can relate more to my family and to my life!”

What is involved in the world of psychology anyway? Why it is not known by us Iranians?

Psychology looks at many areas of life such as:

* The view of human nature.
* Normal and abnormal behaviour.
* The study of cognition, behaviour, and emotions.
* The pattern of relationships and relationship in general.
* The stages of development and the study of human development.
* And a lot more of course…

Our Iranian way of thinking is a complex area that I will not touch on, yet I would raise the awareness of all the cultural impacts of the field of psychology, which makes it hard to be applied to many aspects of life.

Dr Daniel Siegel, neurologist and associate professor of Psychiatry from UCLA, had a one day workshop in the recent 55th Annual Conference of North American Society of Adlerian Psychology in Vancouver, BC, (May 2007). I appreciate the opportunity to have been in this workshop. He talked about his research and findings of how the brain and mind is being developed and how attachment is being built.

One thing that made clear sense to me was that he tries to define mind and well-being from the aspect of early attachment as a child. Our self, our true self, is developed through the interactions we have as a child with our caregivers (mothers) and the environment around us. In this aspect, it is very important that we learn about how we take care of a child and how the development of children is a big responsibility on our shoulders. Attachment or delbastegi in the Persian language occupy a huge space itself that involves all of us Iranians and human beings in general. This is a subject that our poems have pointed out a lot, yet it is a hard area to look at.

Psychology not only answers those big questions, but also can relate to each one of us as it talks about why we have become who we are and how our children become who they will be.

Adlerian Psychology (1956) looks beyond the scope of our behaviour and cognition, it studies the need for belonging to a group of people and the need for being part of a society as the main reason for human beings making any movement in life.

Where do we belong?

Do we belong to any group of people at all?

Resources:

Ansbacher H.L. & Ansbacher R.R, (1956). Individual Psychology of Alfred Adler. Harper Pernnial.
Drew, W. (2001). Psychology: Brain, Behavior and Culture. Wiley; 3rd edition.

June 4, 2007

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