Running

Head: MY BODY AS A CULTURALLY COMPETENT COUNSELOR

My Body as a Culturally Competent Counselor

Jillian Pratzner
Naropa University
March 19, 2015

MY BODY AS A CULTURALLY COMPETENT COUNSELOR

My body is first and foremost that of a young white woman. I can present as an
attractive woman as well and, being in this society, that makes me a sex object. I have
grappled with the knowledge that my body is not my own throughout growing up and
growing into my skin, and it has been so satisfying to conduct research about my body
and hear my story reflected in other stories. Much makes sense now that I was unable to
understand before when I was unconsciously acting out and externalizing the judgments
placed on my body. As Kornfield (1993) puts it:
We must bring a deep attention to the stories we tell about these shadows, to see
what is underlying the truth. Then, as we willingly enter each place of fear, each
place of deficiency and insecurity in ourselves, we will discover that its walls are
made of untruths, of old images of ourselves, of ancient fears, of false ideas of what
is pure and what is not (p. 195).
Through examining the stories I have collected about my body and what I have done with
those stories in relationship with others, I am shedding light on the way oppression works
in our society and in doing so integrating the parts of myself into a whole again. This
process is one that is necessary to be a culturally competent, multicultural counselor as
without this knowledge I could unconsciously continue to enact the messages society tells
us and in doing so harm my future clients.
My Body Story
Some of my earliest body memories come from playing with my cousins as a
young girl. My cousins were boys and to play with them meant I had to play rough. I
remember being asked to help in the kitchen by my grandmother while the boys
continued to play outside, repeatedly. It was clear through subtle sexism that my place

MY BODY AS A CULTURALLY COMPETENT COUNSELOR

was in the kitchen. Much like aversive racism, subtle sexism devalues women, dismisses
their accomplishments, and limits their effectiveness in a variety of social and
professional settings (Benokraitis 1997 as cited in Sue & Sue 2013, p. 151) I recall how I
would take off my shirt and put my hair up in a baseball cap and cruise around the
neighborhood on my bike, pretending to be my male cousin. I dont remember what
happened when it was found out it was me instead, but the message was loud, that
freedom was not mine to have. I also remember being told that I had too much energy by
my stepfather repeatedly, and I needed to take a chill pill Jill. As Caldwell (1996) puts
it, Other peoples actions can generate a lot of energy in us. If we dont have much
experience with tolerating or enjoying our energy, we may try to deflect it (p.157). My
energy was intolerable to my stepfather, and so he needed to deflect it and turn it into
something negative. I see in myself even now an aversion to high energy in others.
When I hit puberty and my body started changing into a womans body I had a
really tough time. I was generating a lot of attention, especially from my stepfather, and I
thoroughly disliked it. Somehow I was getting the message that I was more interesting for
growing boobs, and that attentiveness directed towards me based on my body was
incredibly disturbing. I rebelled against the changes and tried to remain as gender neutral
as possible, even refusing to wear the purses given to me for years. The experience was
painful, and even the writing of these words takes me back to a time when I started to
realize that my body was not my own, it was for the pleasure of mens eyes.
After finishing puberty the microaggressions directed at me from peers, my family
and strangers were continual and served to reinforce my place and role in society as a
powerless sex object. Sue & Sue (2013) writes, Microaggressions may be seem innocent

MY BODY AS A CULTURALLY COMPETENT COUNSELOR

and innocuous, but their cumulative nature can be extremely harmful to the victims
physical and mental health (p. 150). Memories like a boy slapping my butt in the
hallway of school, being told by my friends that I needed to loose my virginity by
Sophomore year, finding porn on my boyfriends computer or being shown homemade
porn by my friends cloud my vision of high school. It was such a highly sexualized time,
yet I never learned what it was to truly embrace my sexuality and feel its power. I was a
powerless shell of a girl, and it was up to guys to decide how far we would go sexually
and how my body would be used. Lorde (1984) writes,
In order to perpetuate itself, every oppression must corrupt or distort those various
sources of power within the culture of the oppressed that can provide energy for
change. For women, this has meant a suppression of the erotic as a considered
source of power and information within our lives (p. 53).
Growing up a woman was a dark experience for me. At the time I did not know
why and I believed something was wrong with me because I was not able to access the
same feelings as the women I was being asked to imitate. I remember having an
incredibly somatic reaction to sex for the first couple of years of being sexually active.
After having sex (with someone who didnt love me), I would have this dropping, sinking
feeling like a huge hole was in my stomach, and I would cry. The only way I knew to get
rid of that feeling and my embarrassing reaction was to deaden my body. And I did, I
numbed it through casual sex and substances. I was finally a functioning member of
society and a full-fledged sex object: ready to be used, abused and tossed aside.
The Impact of my Body History in Relationships

MY BODY AS A CULTURALLY COMPETENT COUNSELOR

Dancing afforded me a relief from the oppression of being a woman. It didnt
matter if I was sexy; all that mattered was that I could move. The dance studio was one of
the only places I felt happy in growing up. I loved the feeling of spinning round and
round, of kicking my leg over my head, of jumping and leaping. I was able to drop into
my body and feel unapologetic bliss. I was proud of my body and I felt powerful in it. I
really enjoyed jazz class! I could flip my hair, wiggle my hips and truly express the sassy,
erotic woman I was. I would not be who I am without the experience of being a dancer; it
defines me in many ways. However, the more advanced I became the more body baggage
I acquired. Harris & Swami (2012) write, our results showed that advanced ballet
dancers had significantly lower body appreciation than beginner ballet dancers, whereas
advanced contemporary dancers had significantly higher body appreciation than their
beginner counterparts (p. 48). The study goes on to say that both groups of advanced
dancers experience pressure to conform to an excessively thin ideal and that both have
high scores on the limited weight discrepancy measure used. This means that negative
and positive body image are not opposites and that they can both be present, as in the
case of the contemporary dancers in the study. However, I was mainly a ballet dancer and
I can attest to feeling the pressure to be skinny and simultaneously disliking my body. By
the time I decided to quit ballet as a freshman in the CSU dance program, I had several
chronic injuries and a persistent feeling of hatred towards my body. It was recommended
to me that I join a therapy group for women wanting to work on body issues, and it was
in that group that I first started the work to heal the wounds dancing and being a woman
left on me and my body.

MY BODY AS A CULTURALLY COMPETENT COUNSELOR

I cannot talk about my body without talking about the phase of my life where I
worked as a dancer in an exotic club. I first started working as a stripper when I lost my
job in a management position suddenly and needed to pay rent and other bills. My older
sister had worked in a club when she was in college and she made it seem like a
glamorous position. It was incredibly difficult for me to get used to the environment and
to feel good about what I was experiencing, however once I learned how to play the game
and started to make money I was hooked. I see now that I was enacting a larger societal
exchange, and in doing so was able to use my position to gain. Egan (2003) states,
women, in this scopic regime, become visual screens through which male fantasy
penetrates, inscribing her status as object (p. 111). I was embracing my role as a fantasy
object, and in going along I was rewarded. Women use the materiality of mens fantasy
and desire as ways in which they can survive and prosper within a complex and multilayered context (Egan 2003, p. 115). And not only was I prospering, but I also felt
powerful in my position. It was like the old saying, if you cant beat em, join them.
However, my position was precocious and dependent on whether my male customers
wanted to give me money or not. As Egan (2003) describes exotic dancers: they exist
within multiple vectors of power and resistance, both garnering a level of agency within
modalities of fantasy and desire as well as being subject to costumers willingness (or
lack thereof) to pay (p. 114). Somatically my body was going through large spikes and
falls throughout the working shift: the first dance of the day, will this customer give me
money, I dont want to dance for this man, I hope he doesnt touch me. The only way to
deal with the anxiety was to continue the process of hardening and numbing my body. I
was also ostracized when fellow classmates found me out, titled the token stripper

MY BODY AS A CULTURALLY COMPETENT COUNSELOR

friend and exposed to a variety of insults and judgments about my character and person.
As Lorde (1984) writes, On one hand, the superficially erotic has been encouraged as a
sign of female inferiority; on the other hand women have been made to suffer and to feel
both contemptible and suspect by virtue of its existence (p. 53). I eventually grew wary
and tired of playing the role of stripper in the club and in my social life, and I was able to
find the resources to move on. I would not go back to that environment now because it
does not feel good in my body, however the experience of working at an exotic club was
fascinating, humbling and insightful.
For my 24th birthday I decided to get my first large tattoo. Tattoos might seem to
most people as statements of expression and not much else, however I felt like there
might be more to explore on a somatic level. Historically women have been subject to
ridicule and worse for having tattoos. For instance Samuel Steward, a famous gay tattoo
artist relevant in the 50s and 60s, established a policy of refusing to tattoo any woman
who was not over 21 years of age, married, able to show proof of marriage, and
accompanied by her husband (Hawkes, Senn, & Thorn 2004, p. 593). And in an even
more horrifying story, in the late 1920s, the conviction of a rapist was overturned
because a small butterfly tattoo was found on the victim and she was said to have incited
the rape due to the tattoo (Hawkes, Senn, & Thorn 2004, p. 594). I was curious to know
what peoples attitudes where now to woman with tattoos and how having one relates to
expected gender roles and norms. In a study by Hawkes, Senn, & Thorn (2004) it was
found that mens attitudes toward the (tattooed) women in the description were more
negative than womens were, which suggests a level of sexism, and that both men and
women without tattoos rated the women with tattoos as more powerful and less passive

MY BODY AS A CULTURALLY COMPETENT COUNSELOR

than they did women without tattoos (p. 602). These results stir up many more questions
and reflections. Does society see power in women as a negative trait? I now have one
small tattoo on my calf and two large visible tattoos on my chest and back, with plans to
connect them with a sleeve on my arm. I believe I realized at the time that getting the
tattoos was a sort of societal rejection of norms, however after reading the study I see that
it was also a bid for power. For me tattooing is a way of saying, this is my body, and I
will do what I will with it.
My Body in this Course and Other Contexts of Diversity, Culture, Oppression,
Privilege, Marginalization on my Multicultural Helper Journey
My bodys story allows me a unique perspective and compassionate understanding
that I will be able to use to build trust in the therapeutic relationship with my clients. I
have explored my shadow side despite my fear of it and the ramifications in my personal
life. This shadow side can include characteristics of ones opposite gender, qualities
within oneself that stir embarrassment or shame, as well as inferior and reprehensible
qualities (Reeves 2000, p. 81). If I had not taken the time to investigate the dirty side
of myself I would not have learned what was mine and not mine. Many of the rejected
parts of myself were nothing more than what society deemed as the dirty, feminine
and erotic parts that provoke feelings of discomfort in those trying to deny their power.
It is a truth of the heart that what we resist makes us frightened, hard, inflexible, and
what we embrace becomes transformed (Kornfield 2000, p. 139). Rejecting what makes
me uncomfortable will only further compartmentalize my life and in doing so lessen my
ability to function as an authentic, whole person. Every part of our personality that we
do not love will become hostile to us(Robert Bly 1991, p. 7 as cited in Reeves 2000, p.

MY BODY AS A CULTURALLY COMPETENT COUNSELOR

83). The practice of accepting and knowing oneself (the parts we like and dont like) will
carry on into the way one thinks about and accepts others.
Compartmentalization, projection, blame and shame all work to make certain
people the other and take the responsibility off of looking at one self. As Kornfield
(1993) writes, Compartmentalization creates an opposite shadow, an area that is dark or
hidden from us because we focus so strongly somewhere else (p. 194). Reeves (2000)
makes the point that denying ones shadow side allows racism to exist, and as a therapist
shadow training is a crucial part of becoming a culturally competent therapist. He states,
Shadow awareness involves a humbling experience, which can check the power of the
therapists role and direct the therapist to support the clients values and attainment of the
clients therapeutic goals (p. 87). It is this humbling experience that makes the therapist
a human being, with fallacies and all. To sit in the position of power as a therapist and
pretend that one is perfect is such an impersonal way of being. There is no amount of
vulnerability required, no risks to take, and no ability to grow. In shadow training the
therapist gives up the image of being all good, experiencing some discomfort in the
process (Reeves 2000, p. 85) I have been so wrapped up in the process of exploring the
shadow, that I have once thought that I was entirely bad. I see now how much these
thoughts stem from sexism and the oppression of women as sexual beings. I was the
temptress the wanton woman, the bad girl, and it was through those characters that I
was able to reclaim some of my lost power. Then in an attempt to get back to the good
graces of society I disowned those parts of myself again. The true healing came when I
was able to see myself as a whole human being with all of the various parts within
myself. This process has been one that now allows me to relate to those who are

MY BODY AS A CULTURALLY COMPETENT COUNSELOR

oppressed in other ways, and to allow myself to be open to the possibility that society and
its messages do inflict great personal harm. If a therapist cannot see this it has disastrous
results on the client and further contributes to racism and oppression. Reeves (2000)
states, A therapist can deny ones personal shadow and societys racism, then ignore its
pressures on a minority client, or a therapist can collude with racism to view the clients
suffering as entirely the clients fault (p. 85). To be further blamed by ones therapist for
the racial inequalities of western society, with the position of power the therapist is in,
could have lasting and devastating results on the client in question. Shadow training
pushes the therapist to acknowledge how they have been unconsciously enacting racism
and oppression, whether aversely or directly. That can be an incredibly difficult part of
oneself to admit and own, however, it is needed in order for transparency and openness to
thrive in the therapeutic relationship. It is making the unconscious conscious and
therefore something concrete that can be worked with; and that is the beginning of
alchemy.
Conclusion
My body has been on a journey of hardening and steeling itself against the harsh
reality of oppression, and now of opening, softening and thawing as my experiences are
validated and able to be expressed. This process of accepting all of the parts of me and
integrating them into my wholeness has allowed me to fully experience life in all of its
highs and lows more fully than ever before. As Caldwell (1996) states, I become
nourished and joyful at the process of acceptance, more than at its actual content (p.
138). It is my wish that the knowledge of this process within myself will help others on
their quest to find happiness and fullness. This world is full of many harsh messages

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MY BODY AS A CULTURALLY COMPETENT COUNSELOR

regarding the worth of people based on gender and race. It is not through perfection and
being all good that we escape these realities; it is through the acceptance of all of the
parts of ourselves. Through that acceptance of ourselves we can accept others as they are,
and once we accept others for themselves, hate and fear of others will cease to exist. It
begins with oneself.
The body is not perfect, the mind is not perfect, our feelings and relationships will
certainly not be perfect. Yet to be without anxiety about nonperfectionbrings
wholeness and true joy, an ability to enter all the compartments of our life, to feel
every feeling, to live in our body, and to know a true freedom (Kornfield 1993, p.
195).

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References
Caldwell, C. (1996). Getting our bodies back: Recovery, healing and transformation
through body-centered psychotherapy. Boston, MA: Shambhala.
Egan, D. R. (2003). Ill be your fantasy girl, if youll be my money man: Mapping desire,
fantasy and power in two erotic clubs. Journal for the Psychoanalysis of Culture
and Society, 8, 109-120.
Harris, A. S., & Swami, V. (2012). Dancing toward positive body image? Examining
body-related constructs with ballet and contemporary dancers at different levels.
American Journal of Dance Therapy, 34, 39-52.
Hawkes, D., Senn, C. Y., Thorn, C. (2004). Factors that influence attitudes toward
women with tattoos. Sex Roles, 50 (9/10), 593-604.
Kornfield, J. (2000). No enlightened retirement. In After the ecstasy, the laundry (pp.
123-138). New York, NY: Bantam.
Kornfield, J. (1993). No boundaries to the sacred. In A path with heart: A guide through
the perils and promises of spiritual life (pp. 184-197). New York, NY: Bantam.
Lorde, A. (1984). Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches. Berkeley, CA: Crossing Press.
Reeves, K. (2000). Racism and projection of the shadow. Psychotherapy, 37(1), 80-88.
Sue, D. W., & Sue, D. (2013). Counseling the culturally diverse: Theory and practice, 6th
ed.