PODCASTS
The field of psychology is wide ranging and touches on innumerable subjects in the public discourse. To add the perspectives of psychologists to topical issues, CPA has launched the podcast Mind Full. Listen below for subjects that are important to Canadians, delivered through a psychological lens.
Sometimes we just think someone is interesting enough that you should meet them – and this is one of those times. Dibora Mehari has just graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in psychology, and she is an advocate for newcomers to Canada. Specifically, people from her Eritrean and East African community. She has also joined some friends to start a podcast.
Archived Podcasts
Mind Full Soundcloud
PROFILES
Psychologists, students, and others with psychology backgrounds, are doing incredible things across Canada. Here, we highlight just a few of those people who are helping others and living interesting professional, and personal, lives of their own.
Psychology Month 2024 was on the subject of climate change and psychology’s role. Our communications specialist reflects on the campaign, the key messages, and the next steps we can all take in tackling the biggest threat of our lifetimes.
Reflections on Psychology Month, climate change, and the path forward
My name is Eric Bollman, I’m the communications specialist at the Canadian Psychological Association. I am introducing myself here because I don’t normally write from my own perspective – I am usually writing about others, or their work. I thought I would write this final Psychology Month article from a personal perspective, as I have learned a lot over the course of this month and I want to share that – but I also want to make clear that these are personal opinions and perspectives from what I have gleaned. In our weekly Psychology In The News email that I send to membership, this would go under the ‘Blogs and Opinion’ section.
I started writing this piece with the explicit intent to walk the fine line that action on climate change demands – the acknowledgement that it is a crisis that can terrify many, if not most of us, but that framing it positively is the only way to encourage people to get on board in taking action. Upon re-reading what I initially wrote, I realized that despite my stated intent of looking to strike that balance, I had absolutely not done so. In fact, I had spent so much time immersed in the topic of climate change and online disinformation that I didn’t notice the negativity that had seeped into my thought process and permeated most every sentence I wrote, until I stepped away for a few days.
I feel like this is something that happens to many of us, so I hope the personal anecdotes I relate through this final Psychology Month article are helpful and, perhaps even a cautionary tale! What follows are the things I took away from the multitude of conversations I had this month. I present three areas where I think psychology can help the most, and where we can all (psychologists and non-psychologists alike) focus our efforts and attention.
Frame the conversation – and the solutions – in the most positive terms possible
It was clear to me, from the beginning, that the framing of Psychology Month in a positive way around climate change would be difficult. So much so that when I tried, I initially failed to do so. This is the most existential threat we all face right now, and in coming years it will become more chaotic and more catastrophic. It’s objectively terrifying. The more we talk about the climate crisis, and the circumstances that face us now and in the coming years, the more (rightfully) frightened we become.
That said, framing the conversation around climate change as a terrifying one is, generally speaking, not helpful. Doing so produces anxiety, fatalism, and actually discourages people from working toward solutions. Imagine being a child and learning about melting polar ice, disappearing species, sea level rise – and trying to imagine a happy future. As Paul De Luca, a student at the Prime Family Lab at York University says,
“By drawing upon the principles of positive psychology, and focusing on subjective well-being, we can potentially integrate our relationship to the environment to bolster or foster positive mental health outcomes in children and adolescents who I think are probably the most affected by anxiety because it’s their future at stake.”
Paul is right – a focus on subjective well-being can both alleviate distress and anxiety and also bolster pro-environmental behaviours. In her TED Talk, and her conversation with me on the CPA podcast Mind Full, Dr. Jiaying Zhao makes this point over and over. I believe she will make it once more at her upcoming plenary address at the CPA convention in June. There is no reason why pro-environmental behaviours can’t make us happy. Being outside on a bicycle makes people healthier, and as a result happier. Why not integrate that into our daily lives? For many people (me included) getting outside in the summer and tending to a vegetable garden can produce a great sense of peace (and a great crop of peas).
Every person in the world contributes to climate change in some way. There is no way to avoid it all. Every time I get into my car I think about it. When I make the decision between running the dishwasher and washing pots and pans by hand, I’m subconsciously calculating the impact of one versus the other. Thinking about things in this way can overwhelm us – and has overwhelmed me at times. Taking concrete steps that I know are good (maintaining my indoor garden, planning meals so I use up all the vegetables in my fridge) can take me out of a negative headspace while also boosting the health of my family.
These choices we have to make are, I think, best encapsulated by the magnificent TV show The Good Place, where Ted Danson presides over – for lack of a better word – Hell. People are making efforts to be good, and when they die they hope they’ll have been good enough to make it into Heaven – but the complexities of modern life have made it literally impossible for anyone to achieve the proper level of “goodness” and nobody new has been admitted to Heaven for centuries. Danson’s character sums it up –
“Just buying a tomato at a grocery store means that you are unwittingly supporting toxic pesticides, exploiting labour, contributing to global warming. Humans think they’re making one choice, but they’re actually making dozens of choices they don’t even know they’re making.”
There is good news in the struggle against climate change. A decade ago, part of the debate was framed as either you embrace renewable energy but sacrifice the economy and GDP, or you ignore renewables in order to ensure economic growth. Today, those concepts have been decoupled – and renewable energy is an economic driver of its own. Heat pumps, solar panels, and electric vehicles are becoming cheaper and more accessible. Major countries, and companies, have pledged to crack down hard on methane emissions, one of the most effective ways to limit global warming in the coming years. There is reason for optimism!
Holding ourselves to an arbitrary standard makes little sense. We can’t deny ourselves every pleasure for fear of our carbon footprint or impact, or we will become like Michael McKean’s Doug Forcett on The Good Place – living life in a perpetual state of anxiety where our entire world crumbles whenever we accidentally step on a snail. Instead, we can focus on making ourselves happier – and the world better – through actions that we know can do both.
Win the war on trust
As McMaster environmental science Ph.D. student Kyra Simone points out, there has long been a narrative pushed by those who would deny climate change exists – namely, attacking the messenger rather than the message. Calling out hypocrisy from those who are the most vocal about solutions as though that somehow means that what they’re saying on climate must be false. Al Gore flew to a conference! David Suzuki has houses! Greta Thunberg owns clothes! Sure – some of those things can be framed as hypocritical, but none of them makes the message a false one.
This particular kind of disinformation seems relatively recent when it comes to things like vaccination. But it has a long history in the realm of climate change, starting with oil and gas companies funding fraudulent studies decades ago to muddy the waters around the conversation such that no one could tell what was true and what was invented. Presenting those counter-narratives in a ‘scientific’ sort of way is a big reason many people continue to be skeptical of science today – particularly climate science.
We hear a lot about a War On Truth. That the current political climate and online discourse is designed to make Truth subjective – well, that may be true to you, but I have an alternative set of facts. I think really this is a War On Trust. Concerted efforts to delegitimize academic institutions, the media, and experts of all kinds have allowed charlatans and disingenuous public figures to replace the trust people once had in those institutions with trust in them, and in their podcasts and Substacks and supplement brands. These efforts have worked to some degree. Americans now trust what they read on social media more than traditional media. In Canada we’re not there yet. But we’re trending in that direction.
As someone who spends a lot of time on social media – I’m the person who puts out the CPA’s social media content and monitors the trends and responses and direct messages, I probably spend more time on social media than the average person, and (I assume) more than a psychologist would suggest is healthy. Spending time in that space, Twitter especially, is a constant barrage of people and bots who want nothing more than to contradict an expert in the area of their expertise, attack their character, and seek online clout through the most negative means possible. It becomes hard to remember that those people are a very small minority, since those platforms have made that minority the loudest one in our collective history.
I feel like Dr. Katherine Arbuthnott would tell me I’m not seeing this stuff as often as I feel like I do. Which is probably true – I can think of only twenty or so direct examples, but those do occupy an outsized place in my memory bank. She’s evangelical about the fact that we, North American human beings, have been conditioned to trust others too little. That we consistently underestimate the willingness of strangers and even friends to be helpful, to do the right thing, and to put the needs of our collective neighbourhoods and communities above some of our own.
I failed to keep this in mind throughout all of February. It was only when I was about to write an angry response to a bizarrely un-factual and conspiratorial tweet from a well-known Canadian public figure about climate change that I had to stop and take stock of my headspace. I realized I was outside the bounds I had set for myself. So what to do?
We can work on our own media literacy – does this story come from a reputable source? Are we sure the scientist who created the study being referenced is in fact a scientist? And an expert in the field in which the study was conducted? Is the story being hosted on a platform that actually fact-checks?
Another option is to counter the un-factual with the factual. I don’t mean commenting on the meme your Facebook friend shared about Al Gore being rich ergo climate change is not real. As Rachel Salt of Science Up First says, commenting or quote-tweeting or sharing a post so as to debunk it really does little more than amplify the wrong information. She suggests screenshots of the content that can then be addressed without adding to the destructive algorithms that got us here in the first place. Or, just post your own thoughts and your own science and your own content – the more truth there is online, the less able it is to be drowned out by the outsized volume of the clamorous minority.
We can trust that most of the people we know, and most of the people we meet, have a similar level of concern about major issues like climate change. We can believe that any action we take will also be taken by a multitude of others, and that doing this enough times will create the large-scale changes those actions are intended to create. And we can ignore the loudest voices in the room and on the internet, secure in the knowledge that the majority of people feel the way we do, act the way we do, and are moving toward the same goals we are.
They’re just not as loud about it – you might get internet clout for a few days by sharing a theory that Kate Middleton is in fact a Manchurian Candidate-style brainwashed operative installed in the British Royal Family in order to make cheese illegal. You’re less likely to get clout for telling people about your radish garden. And so I, a regular user of the internet, am far more likely to hear about the illegal cheese than I am about your radishes. More’s the pity.
Lean on others
The solutions to climate change are interdisciplinary. That’s a word that usually refers to experts from different spheres working together to advance a science they would not be able to do as effectively on their own. Like that time Amy and Sheldon shared a Nobel Prize on The Big Bang Theory. This is true in terms of the climate crisis as well – one scientific breakthrough builds on another, and one discipline enhances the others merely by virtue of their collaboration.
Witness the young scientists in Dr. Heather Prime’s Prime Family Lab at York University, Paul De Luca and Alex Markwell, integrating climate change into their studies with families and children. They don’t have to do the work of determining whether climate change is a threat, or is real – they can treat that as a fact and take a further scientific step from there. Environmental scientists have done that work over the course of decades, through cuts in funding, official muzzling, and the vocal skepticism referenced earlier that seeks to undo their work.
As Paul and Alex build on climate science, McMaster PhD student and Science Up First contributor Kyra Simone is creating new climate science based on decades of environmental work, and setting the stage for breakthroughs in dozens of fields for decades to come. Psychologists are combining their specialties at University of British Columbia, where Canada Research Chair in Behavioural Sustainability Dr. Jiaying Zhao has partnered with happiness researcher Dr. Elizabeth Dunn to find ways to encourage behaviours that will both help the environment and increase happiness.
In community action, emergency room doctor Dr. Kyle Merritt has partnered with many other healthcare professionals to form Doctors and Nurses for Planetary Health in Nelson, B.C. Psychologist Dr. Todd Kettner is also a member, and they learn together about ways they can make their own jobs and practices more climate-friendly (anaesthetic gases are a major contributor to global warming!) As a group, they consult with city officials on ways to improve sustainability through infrastructure projects and municipal policies.
The Environmental Psychology Section of the CPA is a section that does not specifically look at environmental issues, per se – as in pollution and emissions and disappearing sea ice – they look at peoples’ behaviour in relation to their environments. That includes physical built environments like their homes, offices, or the streets and blocks they go through on their commute. It also includes natural spaces like parks, forests, or waterways. This year they decided to create a working group to bring together psychologists of all types to work together on climate solutions. Dr. Phoenix Gillis took the first step , Section Chair Dr. Lindsay McCunn quickly got on board, and the meetings have been lively, informative, and well-attended.
Their initiative could produce some great results, with the variety of expertise psychologists bring to the table. Industrial/Organizational psychologists, who study human behaviour in the workplace, collaborate with Environmental psychologists to design climate-friendly offices where people are happier to come to work. Clinical psychologists whose patients are expressing anxiety about this existential threat can work with Social and Personality psychologists to come up with concrete actions that can increase sustainability while lessening the dread people feel.
I am the person responsible for the Psychology Month initiative at the CPA. Which meant that this year I sat with the impacts of climate disasters, the missed targets of the past several decades, and the existential dread – mostly alone. I needed someone else to point out my increasing negativity, to which I had been largely oblivious. In this case it was my wife Jen who made an offhand comment about it which elicited in me a moment of clarity. I have spoken with so many wonderful people, dozens of them, over the past four months in preparation for this campaign, but by the end I missed or forgot several of the lessons that I myself was trying to impart this month.
We can all reach out to someone we know to get on board with their work, to get them on board with ours, or to get the ball rolling on something new. We can trust that the people to whom we reach out will more often than not be of a like mind on climate change, and will embrace the chance to act. Collaboration makes us happier, and the steps we take in tandem lessen our trepidation and anxiety when it comes to existential threats.
Postscript: the Earth is a collaborator too
After finishing this article, I had one more conversation this month that I think might add a fourth area for consideration. I spoke with Kohkom Beverly Keeshig-Soonias, an Anishinaabekwe psychologist and member of the Chippewas of Nawash First Nation. We were speaking about land acknowledgements – the reason we do them and the meaning behind them.
Indigenous people have been doing land acknowledgements for thousands of years. It is only recently, in the spirit of Truth and Reconciliation, that they have invited the rest of us to join them in doing so. A land acknowledgement is much more than simply pointing out that Ottawa is the ancestral home of the Haudenosaunee, and that settlers and colonialism displaced them forcefully decades or centuries ago.
A land acknowledgement is a verbal, or written, expression of the understanding that not only did the Indigenous people live on this land before Europeans arrived, they had a relationship with that land. It’s an acknowledgement that, even though that land might now have a golf course or a Jean Coutu or the CN Tower on it, the relationship between the people and the land remains ongoing.
Kohkom Beverly speaks about land as a partner, the other half of a relationship that feeds both of you. The land provides you with food, water, and shelter. The air you breathe and the sustenance you require to stay alive. In return, you provide the Earth with what she needs. You maintain the soil, you help get water to the plants and plants to the animals and you treat her, the land, as an equal partner in a relationship that benefits you both.
It is only when we start to see the land as a thing, as inanimate, that we are able to use it, to extract resources for our own gain at the Earth’s detriment. The Indigenous people who were caretakers of the land for thousands of years, and are still caretakers of the land, would never act this way. To do so would be to abuse a partner, to ignore a relationship, to exploit a family member.
And so perhaps the final way we can approach the issue of climate change is to look at the Earth, and the environment, and the very land on which we stand, in a different way. Not as a thing we’re trying to help, or as a victim to whom we’re trying to atone for the harm we’ve done. But instead as a collaborator and an entity with whom we have a relationship. A partner with whom we are working to improve the circumstances for us both.
We have a long way to go, but we always go further together.
Archived Profiles
Student Spotlight
Maureen Plante was the recipient of a 2024 CPA Indigenous Psychology Student Award for her work at the University of Calgary studying disrupted orders of eating from an Indigenous perspective.
Maureen Plante est Iroquoise-Crie-Métisse du côté de son père, tandis que sa mère est d’origine allemande. Ayant souffert d’un trouble de l’alimentation à l’adolescence, elle a été amenée à faire une recherche de maîtrise à l’Université de Calgary, qui portait sur les troubles de l’alimentation dans une perspective autochtone. Elle a grandi en s’identifiant avant tout comme Crie, une communauté autochtone qui se souvient encore de l’époque où les bisons parcouraient les plaines canadiennes en vastes troupeaux quasi infinis.
L’éradication des bisons des plaines occidentales de l’Amérique du Nord au cours des 18e et 19e siècles est une illustration frappante du conflit entre les traditions autochtones et la philosophie coloniale européenne. À la fin des années 1700, on estimait à 30 millions le nombre de bisons vivant dans les grandes plaines nord-américaines.
Jusqu’à cette époque, les peuples autochtones de l’Ouest canadien vivaient aux côtés des bisons, qu’ils chassaient pour leurs fourrures et leur viande. La terre était un partenaire partagé qui assurait la subsistance de la population. Lorsque les colons sont arrivés, ils ont introduit une mentalité différente, celle de l’exploitation des ressources et du capitalisme. L’abondance de bisons des plaines et de bisons des bois permettait de réaliser d’énormes bénéfices sans grand effort, et la chasse a commencé sérieusement.
Pour les populations autochtones, cela signifiait qu’elles devaient elles-mêmes s’adapter à la nouvelle réalité. Elles devaient désormais entrer en concurrence avec les chasseurs blancs pour le moindre animal et étaient contraints, pour survivre, de passer d’une relation de coopération à une relation d’exploitation des ressources. Beaucoup sont devenus des chasseurs de bisons nomades, vendant des peaux et d’autres objets en échange des nécessités de l’existence. La nourriture n’était plus une partie évidente et intégrante de la vie, comme l’air et l’eau, mais une marchandise.
Il serait exagéré d’établir un lien direct entre l’éradication du bison et les troubles de l’alimentation qu’a connus Maureen Plante quelque 200 ans plus tard. Mais en même temps, il ne faut pas négliger ce lien. Ces dernières années, les traumatismes historiques ont fait couler beaucoup d’encre, notamment en ce qui concerne les souffrances subies au fil des siècles par les peuples autochtones du Canada. Mais nous commençons à peine à effleurer la surface de ce que cela signifie vraiment, et la façon dont les traumatismes historiques nourrissent les problèmes que nous observons aujourd’hui.
Maureen a grandi dans une très petite collectivité située à l’extérieur d’Edmonton, où l’accès aux services était très limité. Lorsqu’elle a développé un trouble de l’alimentation à l’adolescence, il y avait très peu de ressources dans sa région immédiate, et même dans les centres urbains voisins, il n’y avait guère de soutien centré sur les Autochtones. À l’âge de 16 ans, Maureen s’est juré d’aider d’autres personnes qui avaient le même type de comportements alimentaires perturbés, et elle n’a jamais cessé de poursuivre cet objectif depuis.
Elle a obtenu son baccalauréat avec spécialisation en psychologie à l’Université MacEwan d’Edmonton, sa maîtrise à l’Université de Calgary et elle prépare actuellement un doctorat en psychologie du counseling à l’Université de l’Alberta. Au cours de cette période, elle a travaillé au Eating Disorder Support Network of Alberta de différentes manières, notamment comme bénévole. Bien que Maureen ait toujours parlé ouvertement et avec vigueur des comportements alimentaires perturbés, ce n’est que lorsqu’elle a obtenu sa maîtrise qu’elle a pu commencer à explorer les points de vue autochtones dans le cadre de son travail.
À cette fin, Maureen a travaillé avec des femmes autochtones – thérapeutes, psychologues, travailleuses sociales – qui proposaient des thérapies fondées sur le modèle IFOT. L’Indigenous Focusing-Oriented Therapy (thérapie autochtone axée sur l’individu) est une modalité thérapeutique historiquement pertinente et adaptée, qui adopte une approche de la guérison basée sur les forces. Elle correspond à ce que font les chercheurs et les praticiens autochtones lorsqu’ils travaillent avec des Autochtones. La « grand-mère de l’IFOT », Shirley Turcotte, a travaillé avec Eugene Gendlin, créateur de la FOT, pour créer cette approche, estimant que les points de vue autochtones étaient négligés, en particulier la relation que nous entretenons avec nos ancêtres et toutes nos relations.
Maureen, qui prépare actuellement son doctorat, a déjà reçu le Prix pour les étudiants autochtones 2023 de la SCP pour le travail qu’elle accomplit et qui cherche à approfondir tout ce qu’elle a fait jusqu’à présent.
« J’ai entendu les praticiens qui dispensent l’IFOT, je veux entendre dorénavant les Autochtones. Certaines femmes vivant dans des centres urbains m’ont raconté qu’elles avaient vécu des perturbations des comportements alimentaires et qu’elles s’étaient parfois rendues à l’hôpital pour y recevoir des soins. Cela ne les avait pas aidées. Je souhaite également comprendre le rôle que jouent les traumatismes historiques dans le développement de comportements alimentaires perturbés chez les Autochtones, car j’ai l’impression que cet aspect a été négligé.
Les troupeaux de bisons n’ont jamais été près de se reconstituer complètement, et on estime aujourd’hui à 20 000 le nombre de bisons sauvages vivant en Amérique du Nord, soit 0,0007 % de ce qu’il était il y a 200 ans. Pendant ce temps, les communautés autochtones qui pratiquaient l’agriculture depuis des centaines d’années ont dû modifier leurs pratiques, car l’accent était mis désormais sur les monocultures.
Autrefois, les arêtes des poissons de la rivière fertilisaient les haricots qui fournissaient de l’azote au maïs. Les gens se nourrissaient de poissons, de haricots, de maïs et de courges qui étaient cultivées autour des cultures pour les protéger des animaux affamés. Lorsque le gouvernement canadien a commencé à construire un chemin de fer à travers le pays, la marchandisation de l’agriculture a été l’un des moyens qu’il a utilisés pour priver les populations autochtones de leurs droits. Dans cette région, on cultivait désormais de l’orge, et uniquement de l’orge. Dans cette autre région, c’était du lin, dans la région voisine, c’était du canola, tout cela dans le but d’expédier et de vendre le produit.
Les communautés autochtones agraires ont dû soit modifier leurs pratiques pour participer à ce nouveau paradigme, soit se déplacer vers des zones moins fertiles pour essayer de pratiquer une agriculture de subsistance, en espérant pouvoir cultiver suffisamment pour faire vivre leurs familles d’un hiver rigoureux à l’autre. Toutes n’ont pas pu le faire.
L’une des notions centrales de l’IFOT c’est qu’en se concentrant sur soi-même, on peut trouver son propre « remède », c’est-à-dire ce qui fonctionnera pour soi pour traiter ses problèmes de santé mentale. Lorsque Maureen a fait sa maîtrise, elle a été initiée à cette pratique. Pour elle, cela a fait remonter beaucoup d’herbe et de blé, et elle a découvert que le blé était son remède. C’était une prise de conscience étrange, car son trouble de l’alimentation faisait que son cerveau lui disait que le blé était mauvais. Cette révélation a changé son point de vue sur sa relation avec la nourriture et l’a éclairée sur le croisement entre l’identité autochtone et les comportements alimentaires perturbés.
« L’une des choses les plus importantes qui ont été partagées par les aînés et les porteurs de connaissances est la suivante : “Le DSM-5 [Manuel diagnostique et statistique des troubles mentaux, la classification standard des troubles mentaux utilisée par les professionnels de la santé mentale] est basé sur des catégories dans lesquelles on retrouve différents types de troubles du comportement alimentaire (anorexie, boulimie, etc.).” Les gardiens du savoir autochtone affirment que ce type de pensée eurocentrique rompt l’interconnexion. Ma recherche de maîtrise soulignait vraiment l’interconnexion et l’enracinement dans le contexte du colonialisme. Depuis le contact avec les Européens et tout au long de l’histoire, l’accès des peuples autochtones aux aliments traditionnels et aux droits de chasse, entre autres, a été très controversé. Beaucoup de choses se sont passées ici, qui ont modifié notre relation avec la nourriture et notre lien avec la terre. Comme la Loi sur les Indiens, des lois qui ont des répercussions sur notre relation. Un aspect sur lequel j’ai vraiment insisté dans ma recherche de maîtrise était la nécessité de commencer à changer notre relation avec le terme « troubles de l’alimentation » afin de ne pas les pathologiser, mais plutôt de les situer dans le contexte du colonialisme ».
Dans le cas des comportements alimentaires perturbés, le poids, la forme du corps et l’idéalisation de la minceur sont des préoccupations très présentes, du moins, en Amérique du Nord où le DSM-5 est le plus utilisé. Maureen est curieuse de savoir si cette idéalisation de la minceur est un phénomène qui touche toutes les cultures. Il est difficile d’obtenir des données sur les taux de comportements alimentaires perturbés chez les Autochtones et sur la répartition entre zones rurales et urbaines, car la plupart de ces données proviennent des programmes de traitement, auxquels très peu d’Autochtones sont inscrits. Certains chercheurs non autochtones affirment qu’il faut que les Autochtones s’expriment davantage sur le sujet.
« Beaucoup d’articles que j’ai trouvés parlent encore du DSM-5, du taux de prévalence, etc. La dimension narrative fait défaut, et nous ignorons un grand nombre de choses, ce qui, je le crains, nous amène par inadvertance à mettre des étiquettes sur les Autochtones (ou même sur les non-Autochtones). »
Maureen est en passe de devenir une voix autochtone forte sur le thème de la perturbation des comportements alimentaires. Son histoire se nourrit de son expérience personnelle, mais aussi de la décimation de la population de bisons, du passage à l’agriculture de subsistance, de la famine qui régnait dans les pensionnats et de toutes les autres indignités qui ont bouleversé la relation des peuples autochtones avec la terre et leur nourriture. Son avenir se nourrit de cette histoire, mais aussi de l’IFOT, du DSM-5 et d’un parcours universitaire remarquable et primé dans certains des meilleurs établissements d’enseignement supérieur de l’Alberta. Nous sommes impatients de découvrir les enseignements précieux que cet avenir radieux nous apportera!
Questions pour faire connaissance
Avez-vous un livre préféré?Je crois que oui… Les Méditations de Marc Aurèle. Il y a quelque chose dans ce livre qui fait vraiment réfléchir, qui est philosophique et qui donne de bonnes leçons de vie. Je suis quelqu’un sur les médias sociaux qui en parle beaucoup, et cela m’a donné envie de m’y plonger. Je l’ai lu entre ma maîtrise et mon doctorat, et je me concentrais vraiment sur la psychologie. J’ai trouvé que la TCC comportait un élément de questionnement socratique, et ce livre semblait intéressant à lire dans cette perspective. Lors du congrès de la SCP de 2022, j’ai assisté à une présentation donnée par deux messieurs sur le stoïcisme et la TCC, qui m’a fait penser aux Méditations et m’a donné l’impression d’une certaine convergence de vues avec les miennes!
Si vous pouviez être une experte dans un autre domaine que la psychologie, quel serait-il?
Quand j’étais plus jeune, je voulais devenir biologiste marine. J’aime les animaux, et je suis folle des raies. Récemment, j’ai beaucoup lu sur le comportement des loutres. Je sais que des recherches sont en cours sur les loutres et que les chercheurs travaillent avec les communautés autochtones pour savoir comment favoriser les relations entre humains et loutres.
J’ai lu une étude sur les loutres et les dauphins, car les loutres et les dauphins peuvent tous deux utiliser des outils, mais les loutres ont précédé les dauphins en ce qui concerne l’utilisation d’outils.
Avez-vous un sport préféré?
Non, pas vraiment, mais j’ai commencé récemment à regarder le hockey avec mon copain. J’aime aller au centre d’entraînement physique et être active, alors je fais de la musculation et d’autres choses de ce genre.
Si vous pouviez passer une journée dans la tête de quelqu’un d’autre, ce serait qui?
Je pense que c’est parce que je suis à ce stade de ma vie, mais je dirais mon conjoint. C’est un charpentier certifié Sceau rouge et son travail est complètement différent du mien. Il travaille de ses mains, c’est un as des mathématiques, et il est capable de visualiser un espace et de savoir comment y configurer les choses. C’est un travail difficile, et j’aimerais vraiment passer une journée dans son cerveau pour comprendre son univers et sa façon de voir les choses. J’admire les gens de métier, qui font des tas de choses extraordinaires, et je reconnais que je ne suis pas très douée pour tout ça! En outre, en tant qu’êtres humains, nous ne savons pas vraiment comment nous sommes reçus par les autres!
Quel est le concept psychologique qui vous a le plus surprise lorsque vous en avez entendu parler pour la première fois?
J’ai fait un baccalauréat en psychologie sociale, et j’aime encore beaucoup cette discipline. Je pense à l’étude de la prison de Stanford, l’expérience de Asch, qui font ressortir, en quelque sorte, le côté sombre de l’expérience humaine, et je trouve tout cela vraiment fascinant. Aussi, tout ce qui a trait à la personnalité me fascine, comme le modèle de personnalité à cinq facteurs. En ce moment, je lis des travaux de chercheurs qui parlent de cela dans le contexte du travail, des études, etc.
Si vous ne pouviez écouter qu’un seul musicien ou chanteur jusqu’à la fin de votre vie, ce serait qui?
J’aime beaucoup la musique classique, alors je répondrai Bach.
Trinity Stephens was the recipient of a 2024 CPA Indigenous Psychology Student Award for her unconventional work as an undergrad at UBC.
There are certain things we expect from other people in terms of their behaviour. We expect people to turn right when their right turn signal is on. We expect that when we order a coffee that the barista will put it in a cup, and that fellow bus riders will refrain from doing chin-ups on the hand-hold bars. Or, that when we get on an elevator, everyone will face the door and the buttons, avoid eye contact, and ride up to their floor in silence. And these expectations are mostly confirmed by others. Unless, perhaps, you get on an elevator with Trinity Stephens.
“Even when I was a child I never did what other people did, but it was when I became a psychology student that I realized how odd it is. We had this one social psych class where the prof sent us on missions. Like, go into society and break social norms. So for a week straight, I would go into the elevator and face everyone. While everyone faces the one direction, I was looking the other way. Just forcing myself to overcome the idea that I had to do what everyone else was doing. People hated it, especially if I was with my friends. They got really annoyed with it, and I could see the anxiety it provoked in people.”
Trinity is going into her final year of her undergrad at UBC. She’s Mi'kmaq, Métis, and Jamaican, and recently received a CPA Indigenous Psychology Student Award for her work in school – where she is doing a bachelor of arts with a psychology major, and also a minor in law & society and a minor in education.
Ever since she was a child, she had an instinct to help other people. A psychology course in high school intrigued her, and she became rapt with the idea of learning about the actions of people, and the motivations for those actions that often go unnoticed. Soon, she was looking to start an undergrad in psychology, with the goal of one day becoming a counselor for people in her community.
Trinity visited the UBC campus and immediately fell in love. Coming from the chaotic, bustling environment of Toronto, the feel of a community network, in close proximity to nature was appealing – and something far different from her familiar hometown feel. She says she feels peaceful while she’s there.
“There are actual forests on campus, and there are cherry blossoms all over, and there’s even our own Zen garden that’s really well kept up. I thought if I’m going to spend any time anywhere doing anything, I want it to be for psychology and I want it to be here.”
While at UBC, Trinity has been working at the Alpine Counseling Clinic in Vancouver as a neurofeedback technician. She works on weekends, where she sees anywhere from 4-12 clients a day, ranging in age from 4-80 years old. As Director of Feedback, she’s providing what she calls a Western form of healing, a dynamic she finds very interesting. She has 30-minute sessions with clients helping them “connect with themselves”, honing in on how they’re feeling inside and what’s causing stress and anxiety in their lives.
The connection between Western ways of healing and traditional ways is a subject of particular interest for Trinity. She is enthusiastic about both and believes that the one can enhance the other and vice versa.
“My main goal was to be a counsellor for BIPOC people, specifically in Black and Indigenous communities. There’s a lot of stigma around therapy because it’s something we’re not really used to, but it is something all our ancestors have done. So I thought that by being able to study the Western side would give me an advantage because I already have a lot of my ancestral and holistic knowledge. Even while studying psychology, I’ve noticed there’s a lot of overlap with traditional medicine and traditional ways of healing. It made it a natural thing for me to learn.”
Her love for UBC and the campus community led Trinity to apply for her Master’s program there – and only there. She was not accepted, so for the time being she is considering some other options before once again trying for her Master’s. One option might be becoming a life coach for post-grads, recognizing how much of a whirlwind it is for them right now. Another option is to become a doula.
Doulas help mothers through their pregnancies. They work with them up to the point of giving birth, and also work with them after the birth to help with things like feeding and support. Says, Trinity, “it’s especially helpful in Black and Indigenous communities to help mothers with their birthing journeys, reducing trauma for both the mother and the child. I think that would be a really nice accent to my resume when I do apply for the Master’s in the future. It can also be really expensive so I want to have a sliding scale for people who might not otherwise be able to afford it.”
It would be an unconventional choice of gap year activities, but unconventional choices are on-brand for Trinity. Iconoclastic thinking, an embrace of numerous ways of knowing and healing, and a desire to help the people around her suggest that no matter what Trinity chooses to do, her communities will be all the better for it.
Get to know me questions
- You can listen to only one musical artist/group for the rest of your life. Who is it?
- Do you have a sport? What is it and do you watch, play, follow it?
- Favourite book
- Favourite quote
- If you could spend a day in someone else’s shoes who would it be and why